Mar. 22.
Seldom has it been more difficult than it is to-day to gauge the trend of popular opinion before the ratepayers' meeting. The Electricity Committee's fireworks appear to have left most people cold. Possibly it is felt that the main question was settled last year and that the Department can have as much money as it! wants but that schemes of company conversion will not be listened to and need not, there-' fore, be advanced. Of these questions more presently. Mr. Little's opium resolution has occasloned a certain amount of correspondence, but we do not think the majority are with him, We cannot agree with his proposals, because they appear to us to contain little practical sense and a great deal of practical danger. Let us remember that the trade is bound to stop in two years' time, by which date persons directly or indirectly affected may be presumed to have made their preparations or must take the consequences. What is to be got by cutting down this period by year except to risk immense dislocation of trade all round, to the injury of innumerable innocent persons? We set out the economic facts of the position elsewhere to-day and will not deal further with them here, but we hope Mr. Little will not, in this matter, be successful. Dr. Patrick's resolution in favour of a tuberculosis hospital is fairly sure to pass, if only because he comes now to bless what last year he! stood up to curse. The present: scheme is rather larger than last year's but still experimental. Meanwhile, the need is very great and no more time ought to be lost in practical study of how it ought to be met. We wish Dr. Patrick all success.
To turn once again to electricity, we believe that the rate. payers will have as little difficulty as they had last year in deciding that any scheme of converting the Department into a company is undesirable and ought to be rejected. From the financial "point
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.