ELECTRIC WORK

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4773, 7 November 1924, Page 1

ELECTRIC WORK

POWER BOARD TRADING. PROTEST BY PRIVATE FIRMS. At the Thames Valley Electric Power Board meeting yesterday Mr J. Price, member for Matamata, read an extract from a paper stating that the Wellington Chamber of Commerce had received a letter from the N.Z. Electrical Traders’ Association protesting against the trading operations of electric power boards and asking the chamber to support the association in a deputation to the Prime Minister. The letter stated that the electrical business was developing to a greater extent than any other new business in this country. Many firms, some of long standing and others more recent, had invested large sums of capital in the business, .and these firms were carrying on in the interests of the country generally. There was no combine, and there was no reason why they should not -be given absolute freedom of trading rights. The unfair methods adopted by the boards were seriously interfering with the business of private firms. In many long credits were given. Deferred payments and cut prices acted unfairly on the private firms, and in some districts it was almost impossible for them to secure business owing to the restrictions placed upon them by power board regulations. If competitive trading, financed by latepayers money, wap allowed to continue, the firms would find their business success threatened with entire destruction, and the chamber was appealed to to give support on the ouestion of the general principle involved. Ihe chamber, although not liking to lend itself to political deputations, decided to grant the support requested, and expressed the opinion that the public bodies should be made to place their activities on the same business basis as private traders. Mr Price said he thought the board sh.ould take strong exception to such statements. No right thinking person should object to fair competition, even if ratepayers’ money was being spent. The chairman (Mr F. H. Claxton) said that private tirms could not hope to give the service that tne power boards were able to render. Firms were willing to try, and had to admit that the boards could sell goods and catry out repair work far cheaper. He repudiated the statement that unfair trading had been entered into in any w.ay, and suggested that the Prime Minister should be given an opportunity of hearing the boards’ side of things before he arrived at any decision. Mr Claxton stated that the matter had been introduced at the recent Power Boards’ Conference, and that he had been on the sub-committee ap - pointed to go into the matter. Mr F. M. Strange said that the private firms had been given the opportunity of supplying, but had found that they could not compete with the power boards. Mr F. E. Flatt objected to the direct charges contained in the letter to the Chamber of Commerce, and moved that a copy of the letter be sent to the Prime Minister, together with an expression of the board’s resentment of the statements made, and advising that the board courted the fullest investigation of its trading accounts, which had been carried out with the greatest good for the greatest number. Mr Price seconded, and the resolution was carried unanimously.