CHRISTCHURCH MONOPOLIES

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 262, 27 March 1911, Page 8

CHRISTCHURCH MONOPOLIES

ONSLAUGHT BY MR. TAYLOR. Christchurch, March 24. Mr. T. E. Taylor, M.P., who is a candidate for the city mayoralty, had a good meeting last night, and the opinion is gaining ground that he will defeat the present Mayor, Mr. C. Allison, and N. Thacker. As usual, Mr. Taylor "took the gloves off" on several subjects of local and colonial import. He singled out the Christchurch Gas Company for a characteristically fierce onslaught, saying that if the City Council looked after the contract with tlfe Government in regard to the water-supply from Lake Coleridge it would have a great effect on the monopoly df the company, and cause the price at which the works could be acquired to be reduced to a reasonable figure. He accused the company of having so compiled their bal-ance-sheets as> to make it impossible for any man not in the inner circle to know what was the true state of the accounts. The company owned to a capital of £183,000, but he would forfeit £IOO if an examination of their books did not show that £IOO,OOO of that capital did not represent profit made out of the monopoly and not disclosed in the shape of declared dividends. They allowed the money to accumulate as a reserve fund and then converted it into capital. The people, through the high' price for gas, were paying not only 10 per cent, on the capital subscribed, but on the £IOO,OOO profits. The company had a rescrvfe of £45,000 now, aad lie predicted that it would shortly disappear, and that at the same time the capital would be increased by that amount. He asked the Gas Company vPliether the coat of nearly every mile of the mains and a large part of the plant had not been taken out of profits and not out of capital.