Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, MAY 13, 1920. THE GAS WORKS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2127, 13 May 1920, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. THURSDAY, MAY 13, 1920. THE GAS WORKS.

THE position of the local gas works, as disclosed hy the profit and loss account covering the twelve months ended. March 31st last, presented at. Monday night’s Council •meeting, -is anything hut satisfactory. The statement referred to shows that at the beginning of the year the stocks of coal, . fittings, coke, etc., totalled £I,OBO 14s 3d, and the amount owihg hy consumers for gas, fittings, etc., was £266; the expenditure for the year outside of interest and sinking fund was £2,313 14s Id; the interest and sinking fund totalled £7lO 5s Od, making a grand total of £4,376 13s 4d. The receipts for the year wore £3,017 10s Bd, and the stocks at the end of the period were valued at £730 3s 7d, and the amount owing by consumers for gas, etc., was

£262 0s 4d, making a total of; £-1,009 14s 7d. On the face of it a deficiency of £366 ISs. 9d js shown, hut from this amount must be deducted the amount paid i:o the Public Trustee on account of the sinking fund, £220, leaving a loss on the year’s

working of £146 18s 9d. In connection with the contributions to the sinking fund, the- accumulated funds now in the hands of Public Trustee on this account, together with interest totals upwards of £2,400. The interest and bonus is equal to about live per cent. The best that can he said of the year’s working, however, is that *t loss of practically £l5O has resulted, and during that period the works have been credited with (he lull annua! charge for street lighting, whereas the lamps were not lit for several months. Further, the gas works account’ is only debited with the sum of £SO per annum for clerical work, an amount altogether out'of proportion to (he quantity of work entailed. If the works were called upon to pay their right proportion this amount should at least bo doubled, and a corresponding redact ion made in the amount allocated to the general and other accounts for office salaries and expenses. The Mayor and Councillors are fully alive to the fact that it is necessary to do something to make the works at least somewhere near selfsupporting, and the recent advance in the price of gas, together with the increase pul on tar and coke at Monday night’s meeting, will he douln: he responsible for a better position being disclosed at the end of the current year, ’fhe whole trouble is that when the work's were erected by private enterprise they were, as Or. Coley says, built with the object of selling them to the municipality, and the Borough purchased same at a price out of proportion to the value received, and will be called upon to pay interest nnd sinking fund on about £11,060 for live next: ten or twelve years, instead of on about £6,000, if the ratepayers had sanctioned the first, loan proposal for this purpose that was placed before them years ago. Had the works in the first place been erected by the Borough .at a cost of £6,000, they nvould have been a paying proposition almost from the start.