POWER BOARDS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 243, 13 October 1937, Page 9

POWER BOARDS

THREE CONFERENCES MAIN TOPIC OF DEBATE [ Per Press Association. ] WELLINGTON, Oct. 12. Three Power Board conferences are sitting in Wellington this week —the engineers, secretaries, and, to open on Thursday, the main conference of members of the Power Boards, and supply authorities of both islands. The most important question for discussion this year is the possibility of a move towards nationalisation of power generation and distribution, which will be brought before the main conference on the report from the special committee set up by the engineers at their conference last year. No definite statement that nationalisation is intended by the Government has been made, but the matter is considered to be of sufficient importance to warrant the discussion. The secretaries’ conference opened yesterday. Mr J. A. Nash, president of the Main Association, said that the year had been a strenuous one as the result of the legislation which had made the position difficult for Power Boards and supply authorities. He was disappointed over the failure to register the Power Boards Employers’ Union, but the fault did not lay with the association but with those supply authorities which had not shown interest in the proposal. He also regretted that the Superannuation Bill had not- been proceeded with, and hoped that it would be passed this session. . , , Among the remits discussed and adopted was one urging that legislative authority should be given for the raising of loans for consumers’ work \Vathout a poll as far as ordinary reticulation extensions.