FEW PEOPLE LIKE PRESENT POWER CUTS IN BOROUGH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 29, 3 May 1950, Page 5

FEW PEOPLE LIKE PRESENT POWER CUTS IN BOROUGH

Inquiries made around Whakatane yesterday show that while most people are taking the power cuts with very good grace and trying to save electricity wherever possible few like the cuts and would prefer some alternative method, if there is any, of saving power. Many think that an individual quota system might help but, as one man said “there must surely be some reason why it has not been i introduced yet.” Added interest in the power cuts has been stirred by the Whakatane Citizens’ Association, who have advocated a quota system. So sure are they that this would be successful that they have offered all assistance to the authorities. To find what the people in the borough are thinking the Association has gone further ar.d has circularised the tcwn asking people what method of power conservation they would prefer. From the replies contained in these circulars when they are returned the Association hopes to be able to tell the borough council what the people want. Of course there may be a big difference between what the people may want and what they are able to get. Schemes that look right in theory often do not work out in practice. Borough authorities say that the people are entitled to place down what they would desire on the circular but they contend that few can give a correct answer because few know the correct power position existing in the borough today.

When this was mentioned to one man, a keen advocate of a quota system, he suggested that it was the borough council’s business then to put the true position before the people. He thought this could be done by the Mayor at a public meeting. Borough officers said yesterday that this could be done if the people so desired. And that is the ' position as it stands at present. On the one hand the borough council Was watching power consumption with the present cuts which, although inconvenient, have brought the total amouht of power consumption down to somewhere near the allocation, and the Citizens’ Association asking for the individual quota system to be given a trial.