The Metropolitan Board of Works and the City Corporation have,
it is said, resolved to introduce Bills into Parliament giving them power to buy up all Metropolitan gas-works, to make and supply the gas themselves, and to establish a grand manufactory on land to be secured in Woolwich and Barking, two places which, what with gas, soldiers, and sewage, will soon be too comfortable to live in. They also propose, as an alternative scheme, to be allowed to enter into competition with the existing Gas- works. The Gas Companies, on their side are preparing Bills allowing them to amalgamate, but they may not fight so hard as is anticipated. Their shareholders evidently enjoy the idea of being paid off in Metropolitan bonds at the rate of, say, /200 for £100, and Gas shares have risen from one to two per cent. The representative bodies would supply better gas at a cheaper rate, but the wisdom of the scheme will depend a good deal upon the aggregate capital required. London would look rather foolish saddled with a debt of some millions for gas-works which a new discovery in the art of illumination had suddenly made worth- less. No such discovery is probable, for light cannot be pro- duced without consuming something, but still it is within the
of possibility.
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