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August the 6th was regarded as a red-letter day in the history of Marlborough, for it marked the completion of the first section of the provincial hydro-electrieal scheme, and the switching on of power and lighting current in Blenheim and the surrounding districts, known, for convenience’s sake, as ‘‘The Delta’’ area.

Reticulation is proceeding apace in other parts of the province, and it is anticipated that within a few months electricity will be available in all parts of Marlborough, from Ward in the south to Rai Valley, at the opposite end of the province.

The harnessing of the Waihopai River, at a point abont 25 miles from Blenheim, and the erection of transmission and reticulation lines, is expected to involve an expenditure of something in the neighborhood of £275,000, which sum has been borrowed by the Marlborough Electric Power Board. To meet interest and sinking fund charges on this loan, and to pay running expenses and allow for depreciation, an annual revenue of about £35,000 will be required.

The scheme will develop more than sufficient power for the requirements of the province for some years to come, and is capable of extension as the demand for power grows. In a word, there is power, and to spare, and all that is required to make the Waihopai scheme a financial success is that the people should make use of it.

£35,000 per annum has to be found, and it rests with the ratepayers as to whether they will use £35,000 worth and secure all the benefits of electricity, or whether they will find the money by way of rates.

It has been found that after two or three years almost every electrical undertaking in New Zealand has paid its way; but the Marlborough Electric Power Board confidently anticipates that the Waihopai scheme will pay from the start, being assured, as it is, of the active co-operation of the ratepayers.

N these days of its wide application, there is hardly any need to extol the virtues of electricity in the service of man. It is an established fact that no energy yet discovered is of more universal use; wherever men and women toil there will be found a use for this power, be it in the home, the farm, or the factory. In a word, it is the universal servant of mankind.

The Marlborough Electric Power Board is not a private company established to make all the profits it can out of consumers; but it is a co-operative undertaking, in which every ratepayer in the district is a shareholder. The Board has been elected on a wide franchise by the ratepayers, and is in existence for the good of every inhabitant in the district. The Board has only to pay its way, and therefore is in a position to distribute electricity without looking for a profit. In the course of a few years profits will accrue, but these will be handed back to the consumers, in one way or another ― either by increasing facilities, or by reducing the rates charged for the current. The more consumers there are, the cheaper can current be supplied; but it requires the whole-hearted co-operation of all to bring about the desired end.

Experience in other districts has shown that the ratepayers are sometimes slow to grasp the opportunities offered to them, and are prone to overlook their share of responsibility in the Boards’ undertakings. It has generally been found that for the first two or three years there are great financial difficulties to be faced, due to the delay in securing sufficient consumers to place the schemes on a payable footing, and, in order to overeome this as far as possible, the Marlborough Power Board, ever sinee the ineeption of the Waihopai scheme, has employed canvassing contractors, who have covered the district in an endeavor to enrol sufficient consumers to make the scheme payable from the start. With the same object, the Board has arranged a system under which it pays the initial cost of wiring-up