COAL AND THE GAS COMPANIES.
[To THE EDITOR Or THE " SPECIATOR."]
Six,--Yon suggest (p. 271) that "the gas companies charge an unduly high percentage of the cost of distilling coal to the con- sumer of gas, and an unduly low percentage to the selling-price of by-products." The fact is, I believe, that the by-products are commandeered by the Ministry of Munitions, which pays its own price for them. This price is much less than the by-products would fetch in the open market, consequently the gas companies have to raise their charges for gas in order to meet the doubled costs of wages, coal, and sundries. Really, I might argue, the price of gas has not been raised. Our companies give so many cubic feet in exchange for an hour's labour, or its equivalent. Wow we get more cubic feet for an hour's labour than we did before the war. This is just one of the many disturbing results of a GovernmeW paper currency. Another is the sequence of
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