The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30, 1929 POWER FOR NEW INDUSTRIES

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 575, 30 January 1929, Page 10

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30, 1929 POWER FOR NEW INDUSTRIES

'THERE is every reason for congratulating- the Public Works * Department on the speed and efficiency with which it has completed the first unit of the Waikaremoana hydro-electricity scheme. The first stage of the enterprise has been achieved five months earlier than the scheduled time of construction. This result shows clearly that the department, when not hampered by political and other adverse circumstances, can not only get things done, but can get them well done.

The appreciable gain in time at Waikaremoana offsets to some extent the exceptional and extravagant delay at Arapuni where the State department had to take over in tantalising conditions from an overseas firm of contractors the work of constructing the power-house at the big Waikato dam. These two schemes and the Mangahao system represent the key stations for supplying hydro-electric power for the whole of the North Island. It will be a long time yet before the chain has been completed, and some difficulties involving a great deal more expense than was ever anticipated by experts may be experienced in the process of synchronising the various groups of generators, but it is something to know that the work goes forward steadily as a whole and that ultimately the countryside from one end of the island to the other will secure the boon of electrical service. It is to be regretted,, of course, that the aggregate cost of the three schemes will be a far pitch beyond the original estimate, hut, if the country should make the best possible use of the full supply of electricity, that unpleasant phase of hydro-electric power development will be overcome without serious embarrassment. The final prospect of completion brings into a prominence that calls for serious attention the question of utilising the supply of power to profitable advantage. It is not enough merely to make town and country life brighter and easier through the widespread domestic use of electricity. That feature of progress is by no means to be despised, but success will not be complete unless and until the advent of an ample supply of electricity has provided at least a three-fold increase in the development of new industries.

Perhaps it has not yet been generally realised that when all the State’s schemes for the generation of liydro-electric power have been completed the estimated result of their operation will mean a saving of one million tons of coal a year out of the present annual consumption of 2,400,000 tons in the whole Dominion. The effect of that saving in one way will strike a severe blow at New Zealand’s coal industry. It will reduce almost by half the employment of labour on the coalfields. Is anything being done now by way of preparing for the ultimate slump in the coal industry? It looks as though it were time the mineowners began to consider the need of developing coal carbonisation so that their industry in a different form, will secure a new lease of life and reasonable profit for all concerned. There is no end apparent to the scope for industrial development in all the Dominions. It is even greater in this Dominion than in Australia, for New Zealand is blessed more generously by Nature in the abundance of water-power. But New Zealand is much slower than Australia in the development of local industry. It could be demonstrated, of course, that good use of electrical power has been made already in this country, but when everything has been considered and generous allowance made for initial difficulties the measure of local industrial progress is a reproach to New Zealand enterprise. The time has come for manufacturers and politicians to prove their alertness and briskly to go ahead in the building up of an industrial nation.