The Maui news. [volume] (Wailuku, Maui, H.I.) 1900-current, 1920-05-28
HIGH FINANCE N ELECTRIC COMPANIES

We are using a good deal of space in this issue in publishing a
letter from Robert Z. Bond, president of the Island Electric Co.. be
cause the subject matter of that letter is a very live issue IN Maui
just at present. Also for the reason that the letter is of no more i'm
portance or interest to the editor of this paper, to whom it is addressed,
than TO any one of the several hundred residents of Waikiki and Ka-
hului who are victims of the Island Electric Companys fra1ies.
We do not intend to comment upon the different points touched
upon by Mr.. Bond. Most of his arguments and conclusions are not
new to Maui people. Nor are his falacies and misconceptions new or
any less apparent.
He, as usual, does not appear to suspect that the lack of support
he complains of may just possibly be due to some of his own natural
pecuEarihes.
And while some parts of his letter seem calculated to arouse
sympathy for a man who has carried on for 8 or 9 years a fight against
heavy odds, and for that mans family, in whom he has vested most
of the title to the property for which he struggled, still it must also
be remembered that for all this length o. time the public has been
helpless; forced to pay an outrageous price for a service that has al
most from the first been inefficient in the extreme.
The community, which presumably should have something to say
about what it pays for, in this case apparently has had no rights at all;
and Mr.. Bond strongly hints that it even now has no right to get up
on it. hind legs and assert itself under the goading it has been getting.
He suggests that it has been guilty of conspiracy!
And this is the real faDaCy in Mr.. Bonds reasoning. The thing
which probably has in the past and which will defeat him now in his
plans, is the idea that a public utility is some kind OF a gold mine for its
owners. Mr.. Bond is about fifty years behind the times. Time was
when a public utility franchise was a license to bleed a helpless COM
munity. That day is no more. Hawaii may be a little behind but it
is nearly enough up with the procession to make it absolutely ridicu-
ton like the Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co, with those of the Is
land Electric. He perhaps may properly use the Hawaiian Electric as
a criterion, but it must be remembered that the value of any such pub
lie utility lies not in the big dividends it pays but like a bank, in the
money represented in its property and in its pernanence and stability
as an asset.
There is little doubt that some day there will be a big electric COM
pany on Maui, and it is also true that those who own it will have 4
very high grade of investment because it will be practically guaranteed
by the public it serves. But it is also true that that same public which
makes for such soundness will never long submit to being bed at a
rate that will pay 80 percent dividends which some of Mr.. Bonds
Any mai who Contemplates putting his money into an electric
company on Maui has a right to expect only two things-hrst, making
a sound investment that will return a moderate interest rate; and sec
ond helping boost his community as any good citizen should be glad to