MEETING POWER SHORTAGE

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23977, 18 June 1943, Page 4

MEETING POWER SHORTAGE

FACTORIES PERMITTED TO CLOSE EARLIER (P.A.) WELLINGTON, June 17. In order to meet the crisis created by the partial breakdown at the Arapuni power station, and to help in avoiding the danger of a complete interruption of the supply of power during the peak period between the hours of 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., manufacturers and workers are being asked to rearrange the working hours of their factories so as to close half an hour earlier than usual. The North Island Electrical Emergency Labour Legislation Suspension Order is being gazetted to enable the necessary rearrangement of working hours to be made. The Minister of Supply (the Hon. D. G. Sullivan), commenting on the orde; to-night, said it made it possible for lunch hours to be reduced to half an hour, and removed any restrictions on persons commencing work before 8 o'clock in the morning, with a proviso that female workers in factories might not be employee before 7.30 a.m. The order applied only to the North Island, and until the expiry of the period of emergency due to the shortage of electrical power. The alterations of factory hours permitted by the order were not compulsory, said Mr Sullivan; but merely removed certain obstacles to a temporary rearrangement of working hours. The Minister added that he was confident that all concerned would respond, after consideration of all the factors involved, and would do their best to help flatten out the peak load. He urged that even 10 minutes earlier closing would be a contribution to a solution of the power problem, ana thanked the public for co-operation during the last few days in the saving of poryer. POSITION IN MARLBOROUGH " The Press" Special Service BLENHEIM, June 10. The serious position in which the Marlborough district is, at the moment, placed in its supply of electricity, was revealed at a meeting of the Power Board recently. It was stated that, because of the shortage of water in the Waihopai river, the whole plant was being overtaxed in meeting the demand, and that unless assistance was forthcoming from consumers it would be necessary to impose restrictions on the use of current. The manager-engineer (Mr G. F. Mac Lean) was authorised to make an appeal to consumers to restrict their requirements, particularly for heaters. "If we don’t ask people to economise in the use of electric radiators we will be in a worse position than the North Island has been placed in,” he added. Actually, the North Island was now in an even more serious positon as a result of the “cracking up" of a turbine at Arapuni. That meant that 20,000 k.w. would be lost. Commenting on a “devastating epidemic of measles” which occurred in Otago schools last year, the school medical officer (Dr. Grace Stevenson) says in her annual report that it was accompanied by cases of severe reactions and complications amongst the children. “The fact that measles is one of the most infectious of all diseases. and that in young children it may be a serious disease.” she states, “leads me to stress the importance of the isolation of children for measles from the time of the earliest symptoms, and as completely as possible from other persons till they are quite recovered, or till the regulation period for isolation has been completed. I think that incomplete isolation of the children who are suffering from measles and the sending of them back to school too soon (parents view the disease often very casually) has been a factor in the wholesale spread of this disease."