ELECTRICAL POWER

Levin Daily Chronicle, 3 October 1918, Page 4

ELECTRICAL POWER

AND rUTUBE >BO|PEOTB. The aims and ambitions ofthoso who believe in the future of'electricity and all that it implies inJSTew Zealand, werethe subject of a lecture by Mr L. Birks ;in the Workers' Educational! Association's rooms at Christchurck. With regard to tie country < supply, the .speaker said that the ideal was to have every house in the Dominion, supplied with electricity. It ' was easy enough to conceive of every house in the towns or ten miles from, the'towns being supplied, but when it came to supplying a house, ten miles .from nowhere the suggestion was rather startling. It would be impossible thus to supply gas, water, or sewerage. But electricity could be supplied to. every house in the Dominion, and should be supplied, because it could tie put to all sorts of uses both on the farm and in the farmer's house. Mr Birks then read from a pamphlet the many ways in which electricity could be used on, a farm. The result would be to give the farmers and their families some of the: comforts of city life, and also relieve much of the drudgery of their lot. ;Of, eourse, at present electrical power was not as as .it probably would be. It was necessary" to make the scheme pay at the start, but later, when-large profits were not necessary, the coat of electricity would probably be only a trifle. It was in the domestic sphere, however, that he : considered, electricity would be found of most use. The waste with coal was simply appalling. Coal involved one-half of the housewife's.labour. A ton of coal cost between £5 and £7 actually, according to how high a man valued his wifo's work. A rich man eould afford to use coal, for he wag able to employ labour, but a poor man could not afford to use coal. In conclusion, the speaker said -that hydro-electrical power would stimulate industry, but still more important was the sociological effect it would have. By making, the housework easier, it would give mothers more time to spend in the proper training of their children.