HARNESSING THE STREAMS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 9059, 19 February 1908, Page 4

HARNESSING THE STREAMS.

Time and again applications from private persons have been made to the Government for authority to harness streams to generate electricity for industrial purposes, but they have been uniformly rejected. The Government reserved the utilisation of the dominion's running water for Statemanufactured electrical power, and thus a dog-in-the-manger policy was adopted. The Administration itself would di nothing, and would not permit private enterprise to do anything to enable the water power running to waste to be turned to good account. A vague notion floated in the mind of the Premier that the railways might be run by water - generated electricity, and people were encouraged to hope that something might be done, in this direction in the near future. On Monday last the dream was dissipated, maturer consideration having convinced ths Premier that the Government would be unable to harness the streams with the funds available or likely to be available. With £60,000,000 of borrowed money to provide interest for, and an expenditure of £2,900,000 during the current financial year, it was impossible to do anything in the matter of harnessing rivers without stopping railway construction. So said Sir Joseph Ward, speaking at Hamilton on Monday. The public indebtedness is only a few millions more to-day than when the Government's great scheme of running the mechanical machinery of the dominion was pro jected, and it must have been known approximately how much the expenditure would be for public works for a year or two in advance; yet it is only now discovered that the great idea of the Government has been a chimera. "There is no great loss but what there is some small profit," says the proverb. There is now a prospect of private enterprise undertaking what the Government is unable to perform. Sir Joseph informs us that the Governmnet intends to make regulations, and to gazette them soon, stipulating the conditions under which water-power can be acquired by private individuals or companies. This,will be good news for those who have been looking forward to the time when the waste waters of the country might be utilised for manufacturing purposes. With the freeing of the streams for the development of electrical power for industrial pursuits, a further stimulus to manufacturing enterprises will be given, and the dominion should be greatly advantaged thereby.