The Daily News FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16. THE ELECTRIC LIGHT.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XLVII, Issue 8051, 16 February 1906, Page 2

The Daily News FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 16. THE ELECTRIC LIGHT.

The business-like preparations being made by the Borough Council, with a view to popularising electricity, should afford satisfaction to consumers and ratepayers alike. Whether it likes it or no, the town lias to meet a very considerable charge for interest, and sinking fund on the cost of the electric lighting works, and it were surely to be preferred that these charges should be met out of revenue from the undertaking. This may only be accomplished by vigorously pushing the sale of light and power, on terms that should compare as favorably ns possible with those offered by the Gas Company, There is no disguising the fact that in the Gas Company the Municipality has an exceedingly strong opposition that, by leason of a vigorous policy, is commanding a large and increasing share of public patronage. To secure business for itself, the Council must see to it that the conditions under which the electricity is sold are as irksomeless as possible. * # * *

It was good business to dispense with the proposed charge for meter rents. As was pointed out by several Councillors, it was an unjust policy to charge individual consumers with that portion of the plant. Although the charge may have appeared a small one, when added to the annual charge for electric lighting, it brought the cost of electricity into unfavorable comparison with the cost of gas lighting. The same line of argument, however, hardly applies to the proposal to abolish the " minimum charge." The minimum has been fixed so low that it is almost inconceivable that any consumer could possibly use less electricity than the amount represented by the minimum charge. At the same time, while believing that a minimum charge is iiece.ss.iry, as a business safeguard, to deter extremely small and unprofitable consumers from putting the Council to the expense, of putting in connections and meters, it is only right that consumers should be charged merely for current which they actually use. As already stated, it seems impossible that any consumer should use less than the minimum, unless it were that a house should be for a time unoccupied. In such a case there certainly should bean exception made, and special provision made by the Council to provide for such contingencies. * * # *

With regard to the proposal that the Council should monopolise the business of supplying electric motors, while under certain circumstances it might be warranterl, there does not appear to be any reason for its adoption at present The object of the proposal—to encourage the use of electric motors by supplying them at prime cost—is certainly commendable, but, in the present state of the Borough finances, is too risky to be warranted. Furthermore, iji the face of nn assurance that local firms propose stocking motors and retailing them at a very cheap rate, it seems to us that it would be an unwarranted interference with private enterprise for the Council to endeavour to create anything bearing the appearance of a monopoly. It is as much to the interest of the private electrical engineering concerns, ax to the Council's, that the use of motors should be encouraged and popularised, and there does not soem,a single valid reason why the salo of electricity for power need be stultified by private enterprise. At the same time, we fail to see why the Council should not indent motors, when requested bv consumers, and it is to be regretted that the Council has rescinded its resolution in that direction. It is only to be hoped, and there seems no reason to doubt it, that those private concerns, at whose instance the resolution was rescinded, will honestly observe their part of a bargain that is implied if not explicitly expressed. * * * «

On the whole, ii; is a mutter for congratulation that the Ilorough Councillors are evincing a laudable desire to conduct this branch of municipal enterprise on a business basis, and have apparently recognise 1 that the sin est means of making the undertaking a commercial .success is to sell their commodity as cheaply as possible, and on conditions that will not be a source of irritation to consumers. We see no reason at all why, if this policy is consistently followed, the undertaking should not, in the very near future, instead of being a burden on the town, be actually a means of reducing ratepayers' liabilities.