Hokitika guardian & Evening Star FRIDAY. MARCH 16, 1917 THE POWER PROBLEM.

Hokitika Guardian, 16 March 1917, Page 2

Hokitika guardian & Evening Star FRIDAY. MARCH 16, 1917 THE POWER PROBLEM.

At the monthly meeting this week of the Christchuroh branch of the Overseas Club a very interesting address was given by Mr Lawrence Birks (Government electrical engineer) who spoke on the subject of “Hydro-Elec-tric Power and tbe After War Industrial Problem,” This is of importance to this district which contains so many power propositions for development when capital comes this way and applies it to industries. In his recent address Mr Birks said that the end of the war would not find the industrial problem tbe same as it was before the war. Britain had been unprepared for war; she must not be unprepared for peace aud the vastly altered conditions which would exist after the war, Britain would have to reverse her old trade methods, which allowed for a large margin of imports over exports. In order to discharge her liabilities she would need a large margin of exports over imports. At present, owiDg to the expenditure of vast loans, thousands of English workpeople were earning more money than they ever did before. Were they to be forced back, after the war, into their pre-war condition, or worse, into the depressed conditions which history showed had followed every previous great war ? The increased margin of oomfort granted to a great proportion of the workers could not be entirely taken away from them. Yet the industries in which these people were engaged would have to find the money to sustain the eror* mons burden of debt assumed by Britain owing to the war. Unless this problem were faced in a proper manner the conditions of these workera would be very similar to the conditions described in Jack London’s imaginative work, “ The IroD Heei.” The key to the problem was to be found in only one direction increased efficiency. The übb of hydro-electric power had a distinct bearing on the problem. In Christchurch tc-day the hydro-electric power plant produced power equivalent to that of 27,000 tons of coal per annum. To produce this power only forty men worked, in place of the 400 men necessary to produce coal for the same power. The mining of coal would not cease, even if all the power in the Dominion were hydro-alectric but it would be possible to use alLcoal first in gas retorts, aud fchen~to heat it further for tbe prod notion of coal tar and the great variety of coal tar derivatives, as wellaa other by-pro-ducts of great industrial utility. It has been said that if Britain utilised all her “ waste ” by-produots as thoroughly as Germany did in recent years, she would pay off the whole of the war debt out of the proceeds in thirty years. The'speaker referred to tho great possibilities inherent in the application of electricity to the railways—quite practicable in Canterbury. Despite thegreafc efficiency of the petrol automobile engine, the electric motor would give quieter service, cost half the money to run and would prove enormously more durable. The number of electric automobiles in uee in Christchurch was slowly but

surely increasing. In a day cr two there would be introduced in Christchurch oity an electric invalid chair, which could be used indoors or out, and which would run thirty miles on one charge of the batteries. The installation of electricity iu domestic dwellings would mean a great saving in the coat of building. There need be no chimneys, though most people would insist on having at lenst one open fireplace in the' bouse. Electricity, however, could provide at the cheapest possible rate heating, cooking, and lighting, and would also give effioient assistance in various domestic- tasks. Electricity was also giving wonderful assistance in agriculture and horticulture. In conclusion the lecturer said that electrical or political scientists would find nothing new in bis remarks, but if he hsd stimulated thought on th 9 part of laymen on the lines he had suggested, he would not have wasted his time. The chairman (the Mayor of Christchurch) said that the returns from the city’s electrical undertaking showed a profit for tbe first ten months of the present financial year £9OOO iu advance of the return for las t year.