EDMUNDSONS' CONTINUED PROSPERITY
Further substantial progress during the first four months of i939 was recorded in the speech which Sir Thomas Royden, the chairman of Edmundsons Electricity Corporation, made at Wednesday's meeting. He announced that during the first four months of this year the increase in the number of con- sumers, the connected load and the number of units sent out show a highly satisfactory increase over the corresponding period of 1938. It is reasonable, he thinks, to assume that if fairly stabilised political and economic conditions are main- tained during the remainder of the current financial year, the final results for 1939 should be satisfactory.
This does not mean that Sir Thomas has no anxieties in the present state of the electrical industry. He complains that pending the prospective legislation for the reorganisation of the electrical industry uncertainties are multiplying the company's difficulties. In particular, he complains that the conflicting views between the industry and the Ministry of Transport over the control exercised by the Electricity Commissioners are a serious difficulty. Edmundsons' sub- sidiary, the Wessex Company, applied last October for per- mission to raise debenture capital at about 31 per cent. The permission has not yet been granted, and in the meantime the price of money is anproximately per cent. higher, which over the thirty-year life of the proposed debenture would cost the company an additional Liso,000.
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