Electricity and Efficiency While the wholesale distribution of electricity has
been reorganised, its retail distribution remains chaotic and inefficient. Over 600 different undertakings, using 43 different voltages and levying different rates, supply the coDsumer, in the rural areas very inadequately. Sir Harry McGowan's Committee on Electricity Distribution, appointed by the Minister of Transport, has now reported and recommends that an adequate service, in rural as in urban areas, with standardised voltages and rates, be organised through the compulsory amalgamation of the many small with the few large undertakings. The saving in costs should make considerable price reductions eventually possible. The committee, for no very adequate reason, rejects public control at the present moment. It may be indeed that the reduction in the number of undertakings will facilitate public control in the future. But there is the danger of creating, by Act of Parliament, a few large monopolistic concerns, without adequate guarantees for the interests of the consumer. Certainly the Committee's plan is an immense improvement on the present lack of system ; but if the recommendations are acted on by Parliament, it is essential that the consumer should be assured of the benefits that should follow.
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