RATING NON-CONSUMERS.

Shannon News, 20 July 1926, Page 3

RATING NON-CONSUMERS.

f POWER BOARD DISCUSSES PROPOSAL. “BIG STICK” NOT NECESSARY. A suggestion 'that those people in boroughs who will not put in the electric light when the lines run past their doors he rated was made at Monday’s meeting of the Horowhenua •Power Board by Mr C. Kilsby, of Otaki,, who said there were a. lot of people in Otaki well able to instal the light, ami who were getting a certain amount of benefit from the street lighting. Tlie chairman (Mr Monk): You mean an availability rate. We have power to strike that, but I don’t know that the state of our finances warrants us doing it. We are actually getting on our load as fast as we can handle it.. At the same time I can quite understand your feeling.

Mr Petheriek said another point was the meter rent which had brought in £IOOO. in a year or two’s time the Board would be cutting that out. The people who came.in then would get their meters free, while present consumers were practically buying theirs. The chairman said they could re-' quire new consumers to pay meter rent for the same period as original consumers.. The Board recognised that 'the meter rent was the next question to be considered. He asked that the question of rating be held over for the present. Mr Kilsby said the meter rent might be reduced to Is. ! The chairman thought the Power Boards were to be congratulated on getting the power to strike an availability rate through Parliament. When consumers did not come on fast enough, they had in it a lever they could use, but he did not think Horowhenua needed any lever just at the moment. He was quite in sympathy with Mr Kilsby as he knew some of the people lie had in mind, and wondered why some of them who could afford it had not accepted the benefits of electricity. So far Horowhenua had managed to go on.without any rate. That was a very flue record and he would like to see it continue. It was the non-consumers’ loss.' The staff was fully occupied handling installations and would have to be increased if people came on faster. It was®just as well ' for people to know, however, that the Board had got a big stick which they could wield if they wanted to. Mr Petheriek considered that if something‘were obtained in the centres in this wav,- it might be possible to help people further out. , If people who could afford it would not- take the current when it was available to them, a rate on them might assist tile Board to take the lines to tlie outlying parts where there were people wanting the power. Tlie Chairman: One thing we can say is that, as long as we don’t strike a rate, we are not making people pay for something they are not getting.