POWER BOARD RATE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXVI, Issue 4799, 16 January 1925, Page 2

POWER BOARD RATE.

(To the Editorj. Si r —i have received from the Thames Valley Electric Power Board a demand for a rate of one farthing in the pound on a capital value of £lOO. with a minimum of £l. There must be very many in a similar position, and it is so unjust co the man of slender means that I feel bound to enter an emphatic protest against such an imposition. If this is the board’s handiwork and acme of their business ability, the only conclusion the suffering public can draw is that they are adventurers and limelight opportunists. If they are allowed to collect this rate they will have found their El Dorado. At one of their public meetings they told us they were one of the first power boards in the country, and so had to blaze their own trail—the scar they are leaving on the ratepayers is very deep. Then, again, they say they are not allowed to make a profit. At ninepence per unit it must be a sad misfortune, for we can read of other boards doing it at sixpence and under. There is failure and incompetence somewhere. The whole thing is so unjust that 1 cannot believe a sane body of New Zealand’s best can have given this any serious thought. I think a careful review or investigation by some expert body would evolve a more equitable scheme. I should like to know l - and the public has a right to know—why the board is making this demand, and what amount it calculaies to collect for this wonderful financial scheme, and who is the great and mighty wizard that got such a brain-wave. If anyone in business on his own account made such blunders he would be honoured with the broad arrow.

MAX M. WILDE.