The Dominion. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1910. THE WATER-POWER FOLLY.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 976, 17 November 1910, Page 4

The Dominion. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1910. THE WATER-POWER FOLLY.

In expressing the hope that the Mouse'of Representatives will refuse to sanction any more than one of the votes proposed by the Government in connection with its waterP?wer schemes we aro not unmindful of the incompetence in criticism displayed by the . House when the authorising Bill was under discussion, bince that Bill emerged from the Mouse, however, the .■ question has been quite keenly discussed, thanks mainly to the efforts of the Hon. J. Ji. Jenkinson and Mr. Frederick Black. Nobody can reasonably expect of members a display of technical expertness, but the members of the House are quite competent, if they are not avorse from a little labour, to discover in the numerous reports and Ministerial statements that have gone on rccord enough in the way of discrepancies and absurdities to make' them doubtful of the Ooloridge scheme, and to convince them that in any event nothing more than that schcmo should be attempted. The report of Mr. Birks in the Public Works Statement, to which wc made brief allusion yesterday, need not greatly trouble Straggling and ill-arranged, it is liable to confuse the real questions with which Parliament; is_ concerned. Yet nobody .can read it without seeing that its author's enthusiasm led him to disregard the possibility of anything but a combination of rich and rosy circumstances that is on the face of it, un,wiso to count on. . Nothing more clearly shows ■ how touch the Government knows or cares about the facts of the question than the extraordinary absurdities of the statements by Mr. M'Kenzie and Sip. Joseph Ward .last' month respecting the Coleridge proposition. Mr. M'Kenzie, speaking on October 13, quoted the details of cost of construction as given by Mr. Hancock in his roport, the total cost being £232,000. He added that ! the head works, for which he put down £80,000, included the 30-foot dam. Yet Mr. Hancock expressly stated inhis report that the £80,000 ' did not includo the dam. Mr. P. Hay, in his report of 1904, declared that the scheme involving tho dam (he gave several possible . schemes) was the only one that could be considered. And he gave tho cost of the dam alone as £125,000. But besides this evidence of Ministerial ignorancd_ and recklessness there is evidence .in abundance of vast differences between the estimates and opinions of the engineers. The whole question is one, obviously, that ought never to have been approached save through a Royal Commission of high exports, and no sum that such a Commission'would have cost would have' been ill-spent. Our own opinion is that the Government's policy, if persisted in, will cost tho country a very great siim every ' year for many years. The only chance of success is in the possibility that all existing machinery shall be scrapped. Mr. R, W. Holmes, in his report attached to tho Public Works Statement, notes a few of tho practical considerations neglected by Ministers. He notes the amount of scrapping that will be necessary, not only ■ by private users of power, but by the municipalities. This is a. very important item. Mr. Holm£s also points out that it would not pay the Wellington City Council to abandon its power-stations and take current from the Akatarawa plant unless it coUld get the current for a little over a halfpenny a unit, and of course the Government could not supply current at that rate, even if tho capital charges and working expenses were no larger than is estimated, unless it is willing to supply it at a loss. It is further pointed , out by Mr. Holmes that a loss must ! in any case be expected for some years. ' No long technical calculations, however, are necessary for the ar- i raignment' of any large hydro- ! electric" power schcriio for this country. Tho 'whole case for any such ' scheme-, rests., upon two hypotheses, ! which require only to bo stated in order that their absurdity may become quite apparent to any sensible person. The first hypothesis is that i New Zealand, a country as large as ' Britain, and with one forty-fifth of i Britain's population—a country in i which only 2j per cent of the ex- ] ports are manufactures—a country I in which the industries other than ] tho primary industries are. languish- ] ing—a country in which coal is as i abundant as water power—a coun- ( try, in short, at its present stage, as. i ill adapted for intense hydro-electric f development as can well be imagined i —that this country should suddenly ] embark upon a vast schcme of elec- i trie application more intense, by ( far, measured by tho ratio of power 1 capacity to population, than even i the United States of America. The 1 second hypothesis is that State ac- 1 tion, and State action at the first ( attempt, and 4 moreover, State actionjj

E. m the country that affords the most convincing proofs possible of the long-established and universally acknowledged fact that State action - is necessarily wasteful—that State action will give an efficiency and a ' richness of results beyond the power of private enterprise. Granted these two hypotheses, the. Government's water-power scheme might be a success. But it would not even in that E, case necessarily be a success, for each of the various calculations that have been mado has been based upon the assumption that the capital cost will not exceed such and such an amount. Everybody knows that , while a private company might do the work for the figures stated, the cost under State management will enormously cxcced the estimate. The it Hutt railway duplication is only ), one 'of many public works that make it reasonable to suppose that the Coleridge scheme may cost- nearer three-quar-ters of a million than half a million : when everything is counted.. The public, which has been , given material for reflection since the authorising Bill eame down, will unis doubtedly expect Parliament to [. limit _ the Government's experiment to this project.