The Dominion TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 1913. WATER-POWER.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1695, 11 March 1913, Page 4

The Dominion TUESDAY, MARCH 11, 1913. WATER-POWER.

Some of the evidence given before the Imperial Trade Commission appeared to indicate that its limitations as a coal-bearing country command New Zealand to turn at once to the harnessing of its water-power, which may be considered nearly inexhaustible. But it is wrong to suppose, as so many people suppose, that because it is abundant and everlasting, hydro-kinetic energy is therefore as cheap as air. We have in the past lent our assistance to those who have attacked the stupid fallacy that, because you have not got to dig them out of tho ground, but "only" to harness them, waterfalls and rapids are like now half-crowns lying in the street—things to be secured and used without delay. As some of the reports made by Government experts' in the past have made clear, power obtained from water can cost as much as, or more than, coal. At the same timo, nobody whose opinion is worth having has ever contended that, if tackled in tho right way, the sources of water-power in this country cannot be exploited to great advantage. That the State's adventure in this direction, beginning with Lake Coleridge, is a safe one we have never felt satisfied; nobody has ever shown that out of the mass' of contradictory expert reports and Ministerial statements prior to last general election a case can be constructed for the payability of even the Lake Coleridge scheme. It is obvious that unless the Lake Coleridge scheme actually pays its way, or shows''clearly that within a reasonable time it will do so. the rest of'the country will be contributing a subsidy to the Canterbury customers of the works. And it is probably unnecessary now to do more than say that in such a case a great injustice will bo done and a most vicious principle embodied in the doctrincs of government.

Thcijc obsisrvatinnn avn rcndcsrotl necessary by the statement presented

to the Trade Commission yesterday by Mr. Evan Parry. Mr. Parry set out what he considered three factors in securing cheapness of production by the State: the value of State security in raising loans, the physical features of the country,' and the existence of a fully-organised Department for carrying out the work. Against this he could see the shadow of 011I3' one disadvantage : the sparsity and the wide distribution of the population. Since competence as an electrical engineer does not necessarily imply any acquaintance with the biolog'v of State industry, Mr. Parry is to be excused for not having reflected that the State, whenever it embarks on an enterprise involving the construction and management of anything like a public utility, usually does its work badly. Sir Alfred Bateman, whose unique experience in the British Board of Trade gives a special authority .to Ins opinion in this matter told the New Zealand Club yesterday that his forty years' service led him to hate the Government doing anything that could be done by anybody else, because, he always thought they did it worse than an'vbody else. Ml!. Parry quoted his Department i; figures concerning the cost of delivering electricity from Lake Coleridge, and he emphasised the cheapness of the rates which the •Christchurch City Council will be charged. He quoted from an estimate by Mr. F. Black, who reported that the council, by taking electricity from the Government-, will supply its needs far more cheaply than at present, Mr. Black's estimate of the cost per horse-power per annum in the several cases being: Government supply, £4 [)s. Od.; gas, £G 9s. 6d.; steam, £7 os.; crude oil, £10 Bs. ilHise estimates may be correct, but oecause the State will sell to the councilso cheanly, no sensible person will conclude that the State may not lose substantially in doing so. The reports upon which the Ward Government decided to proceed with its hydro-electric scheme were, as everyone knows, highly imaginative in some important details. The capital cost was manifestly under-stated (and we trust that next session some-' body will insist upon a full statement of the cost of the Coleridge works as compared with the estimate of the gentleman who had never visited the site), and the wildest sort of optimism underlay the estimates of consumption.

That not a few of the advocates of a State monopoly of hydro-electric development have a shrewd suspicion that the State has not foiind a goldmine is evident, to us, at any rate, from what strikes us as a most significant statement by Mr. J. Ckaigie, M.P., recorded in the Christchurch Press of January 0 last.

The Government (he said) are committed to the [Caleriilge] scheme; they will luivi? to get interest on their outlay upon it; nnd if they cannot get 1 per cent., they will have to take 3 per cent., or 2 per cent., or whatever they can set. They will have to compete against all other kinds of power, and will have .to undersell them, so that it is tolerably certain that the power from Lake Coleridge will be cheap.

Employed as an exordium to a vigorous appeal to Timaru to rush in and get a bargain, this shrewd diagnosis of the situation is really a most tolling indictment, although' an unintentional one, of the whole polity of a, State monopoly of waterpower development. .. But th<i prospect that the State will lose money, as Mr. CiUioie foresees, does not weigh against the old idea of' Me. Skddon that the State should encourage, or at any rate should not discourage or prohibit, the development of the country's water-power by private people. If there is any real future lor hydro-electric activity, that activity will come soon enough if the State does not persist in a prohibition against it. ' The State will be protected against loss, direct and indirect—against the direct loss entailed by extravagant management, and the indirect loss involved in unwarranted schemes— and it can attach to any such waterpower franchises such conditions as will keep thein under regulation by the State and secure to the State the right of purchase on equitable terms. Although far too much, in our opinion, has been expected of the development, at this time, of the hydroelectric resources of the country, it is obviously desirable (even if there were !no alarmist coal statistics current at all) that every industrial resource that lends itself to profitable use should be used. There is not such a general consensus of trust in the basis of the Coleridge scheme as to forbid our expressing the view that the question, owing to the uncertainty of public opinion, is far from being closed in the public' mind,'