GAS LIGHT AND COKE.
It was suggested here last week that the accounts of the Gas Light and Coke Company were quite reassuring in spite of the fact that over £100,000 of the undivided profit had been utilised to maintain the usual dividend of £s x2s. per cent. The increase of .3d. per therm in the gas price had not yet come into account. Moreover, the company had enjoyed increasing sales in all departments. This point of view is more firmly established by the speech which the Governor, Sir .David Milne-Watson, made to the shareholders last Friday. He showed that the expansion in business was even better than the bare figures showed. It was achieved in the face of warmer weather, and of one trading day less than in the previous year, since 1936 was a leap year. Moreover the company has for several years been changing over appliances to modern types, which save between to per cent, and 25 per cent. in gas consumption for the same effective heat. The change-over is now reasonably complete, and he looks for more obvious results in future years. He disclosed that in the three years since the company seriously tackled the refrigerator market it had done substantially more than half the total business in household refrigerators in its area.
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