The Daily News. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1911. WATER-POWER SCHEMES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 72, 15 September 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1911. WATER-POWER SCHEMES.

Engineers and many others may be found to give enthusiastic approval to the Government scheme for the supply of electrical energy by harnessing waterways in the North Island. The Premier said in his Budget speech that Waikaremoana might be made to supply power for the North Island, from Wellington to Auckland. The scheme, as outlined by the Premier before he attended the Imperial Conference, was a highly ambitious one, practically providing that enough State electricity would be created to run every enterprise that needed power in most parts of New Zealand. The Waikaremoana scheme would, it is clear, need a tremendous outlay for problematical returns. It cannot be said at present that the existing necessities warrant the production of so much power. The'excuse for the great undertaking must be that problematical users will hasten to invest capital in new undertakings lured by the promise of cheap power. In countries containing huge populations, well centred, the "scrapping" of existing power plants might be reasonable enough. It was pointed out a while, ago, for instance, that the whole of the industries of Great Britain and its railways might be run by power supplied by the sea, but it is to be doubted, even if the State undertook the necessary works, whether private users of power would abandon their own system at great cost in order to fall in with the new order of things. If the great undertakings promised by the Government are to be inaugurated as a provision for the time when New Zealand is filled with people and is called upon to support itself, and if the system is inaugurated in order that the comparatively few power-users may "scrap" their own plants, there seems to be trouble in store. Most municipalities in New Zealand have spent a great deal of borrowed money for public services, lighting, traction, and so on. Unless these plants are made obsolete, necessitating the purchase of Government power, there seems to be small excuse for the expensive creation of this power. No one could be found to object to a scheme if New Zealand showed the faintest sign of becoming a manufacturing country. Our manufactures are small and unimportant, and as far as one is able to judge, the power now being used for these manufactures is satisfactory while they are in the baby stage. The electrification of the railways would, of course, be an immense advance, but the point for the public is, Would the entire renewal of the present system pay the small number of people who live in New Zealand? We. have limitless oil and coal to run the railways, and the railways appear to be able to carry all the goods and passengers offering. Is ■there going to be a huge inllux of people? Will the Government set about close settlement and connect these settlements with the Waikaremoana power distributing station before the settlers arc on the ground? Will power be available before roads? Will some settlors lw able to get home by electrical trains, and others lie refused even the use of such antique "billy puffers" as are to be found in the far and roadless north and the not very far south? The electrification of a railway that went nowhere in particular wouldn't increase the general comfort or the revenue. If capitalists rush to this country in order to use our State, power, well and good. Are the capitalists and the increased population arranged for yet? We read of the success of great schemes inaugurated in other countries, but there can be no comparison between the needs of the people within 100 miles of Niagara and the people between Wellington and Auckland. The Besian-Bittorfiold (Germany) electrical railway is a great success, but it serves a great population. It will not pay the New Zealand Government to run power to small isolated ens- I tomers. It has no guarantee that such ]

liig users of power as the Wellington! City tramways or the Auckland Tramway Company will cheerfully jettison hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of plant in order to buy State electricity. The use of electricity on the farm would be a boon, but the present day devices) must disappear at great cost to the users before the new era dawns. We want Lake Waikaremoana and all the other waterways harnessed, if the power is saleable when available. We want the railways run by electricity if the travelling population is likely to double pretty soon. We want electricity on every farm if the number of farmers is increased by the introduction of a vigorous land policy which no longer makes the acquisition of land a mere chance. We want higher hydrostatics when the ordinary everyday settler does not have, to jack his milk cart out of the mud. We want cheap eatables more than we want cheap lightning. We want to walk before we run, to put the horse before the cart, to fit the coat to the man and not the man to the coat. The creation of this great scheme is very much like the action of a man who buys fencing wire in the hope he may draw a section at the land gamble. On the other hand, the spending of an enormous sum of money in this undertaking may be wholly justified. Sir William Hall-Jones' three mijlion people may be already on the water, the Government may he contemplating giving land away, or the manufacturers at Home may be contemplating moving their headquarters to Ohakune.

YOUTHFUL IMITATORS. Tn these "piping times of peace" it is disconcerting to the adult who discountenances ancient methods of settling differences to find that the natural boy is exactly the same kind of animal he was in the "good old days." If he is a normal, healthy young'ster. he does not play at being a saint, and all his games are based on the use of his destructive capabilities. He much prefers playing at being an Tndian, or a robber, or a pirate than at any peaceful pastime, and in Xew Zealand he concentrates his predatory and fighting instincts in the game of football, which is often war in miniature. You- can't thrash instinct and imitativeness out of boys, however much you may blame them for being counterparts of what you once were yourself. Xo man we ever came across is proud of having been a nice quiet, good little boy, but the best' of men ar,e often unnecessarily boastful at having been "bad" boys who fought and stole apples, and played the wag, and imitated the schoolmaster and were a trial to their parents (who were a trial to their parents before tliem). Every normal boy is a hero-worshipper, and he doe.s not worship the man who can "do" fractions or is scholarly and peaceful and harmless, but the man who accomplishes feats of ■physical daring. It is as natural to the boy to worship physical force as it is for the Kaffir girl to worship a string of blue beads or a. white girl to fall in love with a lovely hat. The child is "father of the man," and it seems evident Mat in these degenerate days he is asserting his parental authority. Small boy cadets in Australia have' rebelled against discipline and have stoned their leaders, qnd it is eminently characteristic of the colonial idea of discipline that legal redress and not the wholesome physical conviction was sought by the slinky-kneed authorities. "If yon won't mark time," says the modern colonial drill-sergeant, "I'll set the law on you!" In England lately a grotesque situation ha 3 occurred in which school children have imitated trie grown ups and have struck. Nothing could be quite so absurd as the "picketing" of schools by these infant) strikers, the calling out of the police, to protect school property, and all the rest of the comic opera business. We read in the cablegrams that the ringleaders of one school were soundly thrashed and the strike ceased. If Australian or New Zealand youngsters bad been' soHmdly thrashed the good folk who plead for the release of criminal maniacs would be up in arms. We read, too, that the intervention of the mothers was useful in one other school strike, a bizarre situation pointing to the failure of the school authorities to quell children in their charge. There is something to be said for the constructive and organising capabilities of children who can lead their schoolmates to revolt, and it appears likely that England will not lack new blood in the ranks of the labor agitators, a profession that is now well recognised, and which pays much better than menial toil.