CR. RICHARDS REPLIES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVII, Issue 97, 24 December 1913, Page 5

CR. RICHARDS REPLIES.

rTo Thk Editor Stratford Post.]

Sir,—Mr R. Masters, chairman of the Electrical Supply Co., poses as a champion of the County ratepayers, and works himself into a line frenzy over the supposed selfishness ■of the Borough; but I feel sure that he has greatly mistaken their intelligenceand his own ability—if lie imagines that they cannot see through his action. He previously stated that the Company did not in the first place apply for the license, hut de does no! deny my statement that the Company has done all in its power to secure i. license over the Borough and County nor will he deny that such a license if granted would result in a greai financial gain to shareholders of tlu Company; and ye,t he is distressed or account of the County ratepayers, and says: “Let us have no cant about it.” I am quite content for readers to judge whether his frenzy is due to solicitude for the interests of the County ratepayers or to disappointment in not securing the coveted license. The Borough, without cant or reservation, opposes any license affecting the area within its boundaries, but has not and will not attempt to interfere beyond. The Electrical Supply Company has rights at present which enable it to supply to a radius of three miles from Stratford Post Office, ana the Government has advised them that it will favorably consider an application for a license applicable to the whole ol the County. If, therefore, the County and Company can come to terms, there is no bar to a speedy installation ol electricity throughout the County. It is quite apparent, however, that what the Company desires is to get a higgei hold on the Borough, and the best interests of the Borough demand that all attempts in this direction should be strenuously opposed. The present position is that the Company has rights which' terminate in six years, and it would be Utter folly for the Borough to idly countenance an extension of those rights for a further period of 40 years. % The Borough should certainly possess its own lighting system, which would then ho removed from the necessity of producing excessive revenue to pay fat dividends or to meet excessive interest charges, and the bickerings which have been constant between Council and Company would ho avoided. As the town grows, the value of the lighting system must increase, and it is quite a feasible supposition that with an up-to-date municipal-owned lighting system, current could be su|>plied at a limit half the present cost. The burgesses of Stratford can during the nexte six years secure for themselves, at a reasonable cost, their own lighting system, and they should keep their best business eye on t(m matter. If that proposed license, or the like of it, were once completed, my humble opinion is that their chance would he gone for ever. And now lot me quote Mr Masters’ own words; “Until the Borough sent its deputation to the Minister, the Government was quite I satisfied that it wa? doing the 'lightJ

ching, and, should have done it had the Borough not objected.” Thus the persistent and lull efforts of the Company to secure the license were almost successful, because the Government had not been informed of the other aspect’; but one interview by the Borough representatives was sufficient to quash it. It is apparent that the. Borough case must have been good. Foiled in that direction, there now appears on the horizon some attempt at coercive influence per medium of the County Council. How it has been engendered I will not suggest, because it, will not lie successful; but no good or credit can come of setting country against the town, and that is what the manifest result of Mr Masters’s letter will be. What concerns us more is to anticipate the next move. Will it be a carefully conceived appeal to the sympathy of the burgesses!" Cr. Mastqrs’s letter requires a brief reply. He says that 1 used the words “for putting their (the County’s) linger in the Borough pie.” What I did say was that the “Borough “had not in any way put its finger in the County pic.” (See “Stratford Post” report for confirmation). The resolution which Cr. Masters says was so “strongly and offensively worded that the Council would not pass it until modified” was as fololws-“That the Council place on record that it has not, in any way, opposed the granting of a license enabling the Electrical Supply Co. to operate in the County, and protests against the County urging the Government to issue a license over the Borough.” On Mr Dingle’s suggestion, the latter part was deleted without contention, and the Mayor and myself were instructed to wait on the County Council instead. I will leave your readers to conjecture why Cr. Masters misrepresents me and why he persists in maintaining that the Borough has opposed the issue of a license for the Countv. —1 am, etc., .), B. RICHARDS. Stratford, tilth December.