The times-news. [volume] (Hendersonville, N.C.) 1927-current, 1935-12-13
NEWSPAPERS OPINION
GOVERNMENT OWNERSHIP is FAILURE
In DOMINION

l Evarv once. in a while amid the hue and cry ol
tho nublc ownership protagonists, comes stlh'
rau voiceo which sets at naught their extraVagaht
! claims and spills the beans. Almost any govern
ment-ownership advocate will be glad to tell you, d.
/ great length and with gestures, that the DOMINION
of Canada has proven the efficacy of pohtlcay op-
GRATED utility plants and that all the United States
need TO do to be saved is to follow their example.
| Now, in REPUTATION, comes the Montreal Gazette
an independent Liberal daily, with a few bitter
words regarding government ownership as IL mas
| functioned in the Dominion
Zone of the grounds on which Mr.. Aberhart, the
new Premier of Alberta, is seeking loan Of large
proportions from the Dominion government is that
his province has lost heavily in the operation of It's
state-owned telephone system. The facts IN that
regard were given in these columns some eight or
ten months ago. They disclosed a condition 81
grave disorganizaton, of difference of many MIL
lions between the primary cost of plant and us
present value, of the extinction of once substah-
tal sinking fund by Withdrawals for other purposes
than the payment of liabilities capital account,
and of persistently heavy annual drain on the re
sources of the hard-pressed province because OF
revenues wholly inadequate to make one hand WASH
the other. These results the Edmonton journal
eSSNN.~NNO'N
tics with the administration of telephone services
A similar situation differing only IN the degree OF
disaster has arisen in Saskatchewan and Manitoba,
where public ownership of telephone systems nad
also been kiyen effect 1t is instructive TO observe
that coincdentally the three eastern provinces OF
Novia Scotia New Brunswick and Prince Edward
Island had entrusted their telephone requirements
to corporate bodies and that each corporation has
been able to earn fair return on capital invest
ment throughout the intervening years. ..''
at would be folly to ignore the plain teaching
of experience which is always better than theory.
Ontario plunged heavily into state-owned hydro
electric services, and is today counting the cost IN
terms of grave apprehension. The Dominion en-
barked Is years ago on huge scheme OF railway
naturalization, and is at this moment confronted
by the consequence of deficits which exceed biz
lion dollars In both these instances there was eX-
tensive political interference and manipulation In
both cases the undertakings had been begun with
aluring promises of service at cost to the people
served.
1T might be argued that these failures do not
necessarily discredit the underlying principle of
public ownership and that may be cheerfuly ad-
mitted without in the slightest degree altering the
obviously logical deduction. That deduction is that
public ownership, when administered by political
body, always becomes political ownership; and that
political ownership invariably makes a mess of
things Even the most ardent defender of public
ownership should frankly confess that the people
are owners only in the sense that they pay the bills
They have no voice in management nor in politics
Their ownership is grotesquely theoretical thing"
Tell your friend who believes in public owner
ship to try that his aph.-Public
Service Magazine.