More and More Electricity
One of the more curious beliefs held by Lenin was that industrial and social problems of the most intractable kind could be rapidly solved by the use of electricity. There was little indication of such enthusiasm in the Minister of Fuel and Power's urbane exposition in the Commons on Tuesday of the First Annual Reports of the British Electricity Authority and the Area Electricity Boards. He reserved his commendation for the past achievements of the nationalised electricity industry and for an attempt to harness the wind at a place in Vermont called Grandpa's Knob. But the figures of past and future expansion were spectacular enough, the most remarkable being the Authority's estimate that total capacity may have to go up from 13,000 megawatts in 1949 to 30,000 megawatts in 1970. It is therefore a little surprising that the debate itself never at any time rose to a height in any way commensurate with the vast importance of electrical expansion. Interference by power stations with natural beauty, for example in the Snowdon area, was pretty thoroughly examined, but for the most part the debate, consisted of political exchanges concerning the quality of coal, the number of officials and their salaries, the dangerous load on some transforming stations, and various local grievances. In fact, it was demonstrated once more that the House of Commons has not yet learned how to debate effectively the affairs of nationalised Indus. tries. The enormous heat-value wastage involved in the use of electricity was mentioned but not pursued, and the possibility of any alternative to the B.E.A.'s policy of meeting every peak demand, however unreasonable or uneconomic, was never examined. In fact, the B.E.A. goes quietly on its way, pursuing its own policy without any proper check by Parliament, the people or, it may be suspected, the Ministry of Fuel and Power. The case of electricity provides no evidence to contradict the impression that one of the results of nationalisation is to remove matters of public concern from the public notice.
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