CORRESPONDENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 8 August 1919, Page 2

CORRESPONDENCE.

HYDRO-ELECTRIC GENERATION. To the Editor. Sir, —That you should have submitted my letter on the above to Mr J. Clarke is purely, as cdilor, your own affair, but the contradictions and statements made by Mr Clarke seem to require some rejoinder /by myself. In the first place I do not pose as an electrical expert and cannot adopt the lofty and patronising tone of Mr Clarke when ho remarks that I "had fallen Into a trap 011 electrical quotations without it full and scientific knowledge, etc." I am quite content to be an efficient farmer, and have no ambition to claim experience to ivhlch I am not entitled. Ono wonders whether Mr Clarke has ever heard tho quotation:— "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. Think deep; or, tasto not the Pierian spring." I am astonished that an eipcrt person of Mr Clarke's pretensions should have taken the unsupported statement of an opponent of hydroolectvicai development that the Government plant at La'ie Coleridge lost thirty-three thousands In the first three years' working. As a matter of fact this misleading statement was taken from a report, "Hydro-electric and schemes compared .vltli the (las Industry," by -All' .lames Lowe, engineer Auckland Gas Co. When I say this report was called for by his employers, tho Auckland Gas Co., and printed "for the benefit of shareholders," one need not look far for tho "nigger in the woodpile" when reading the criticism levelled at the Arapunl scheme to harness the Waikcto above the present Horahora wor!;s; a proposal to generate 30,000 h.p. for the supply of Auckland and cities en route. The endeavor is to show that all Government schemes to harness rivers are ruinous and that in the one In operation, Lake Coleridge, the State had really lost £ 11,956 In the first year of working, and Mr Lowe also argues that the State should have paid Import duties on the machinery used and also income lax on £13,743. This, of course, Is contradictory. If the scheme, as he endeavors to show, did not pay. naturally there would be no income to lax . I do not lntqnd to be sidetracked on this matter, however, and simply recommend your readers who are Interested to read the above pamphlet and the reply by Mr Parry, Government Electrical Engineer, together with "Fubllc Works Statement Appendix D. Chief Electrical Engineer's Report and Water-power Accounts " I get my Information from the above, and also from one of the foromost electrical engineers of this Dominion. I must disclaim any particular knowledge of electricity or lis generation, but I yield to no ono my right to lake a common sense view of the question and lis economic application to the commercial and social betterment of this and future generations I note Mr Clarke says: "It was not a question of what profit Now Plymouth could make, but a question of being able to supply cheaper than from any other source." Now, Sir, what have I been reiterating hut to protest against this very attitude? I maintain that a charge of nearly three times tho Government price for current Is an extortion and tending to tho monopoly of a natural assot owned In common through the State by the populace of this Dominion. If, as stated, it is a cheap scheme, which for argument sake we are willing to concede,, and that it may be harnessed for little more than a third of a similar power scheme at Lake Coleridge, la it necessary (0 exploit surrounding districts and charge them nearly three times more for current than obtains elsewhere? Outside this gross monopoly, what will happen In the future when manufacturers using this current In Taranaki have to compete with makers of a similar article or product who use the cheap South Island supplies of motive power? It has been shown that Lake Coleridge power though much enlarged by recent works (to the extent of 7CB kllowats), Is still too small for the demands made upon It, and applications totalling 3,!i00 horse-power have had to be refused This seems to show that electricity supplied at nearly cost rate will foster industr in 3 '. U3el ' 05 ' a dividend paying monopoly it will kill enterprise. Among applications refused for Coleridge power we find that one of *,500 hp. was for electric smelting purposes, and one of a thousand horse-power was fop steel smelt,ng, facts which should have an Immediate bearing on power In Taranaki, with Its complex ironsand ore, as perhaps evolving a process of payable treatment. I have little more to say, but I think your readers will perceive that the monopoly I have tried to expose Is neither healthy nor conducive to tho general good of laranakt and calls for interference hv the Stale; Indeed I think it Is high time that 1111 agitation should be set 011 foot to rescind the water license of the borough preceding its resumption by the State, for development and sale of current at a price somewhat on a parity with that of Lake Coleridge or even less when we consider tho relative cost of the installations "M;,! August. ,OHNLYON - '