TOPICS OF THE DAY
THE ELECTRICITY BILL
THE choice which the nation, through Parliament, has to make this week is between chaos and order in the supply of electricity. At present there is no standardization, and no interconnexion between the various sources of electrical supply with their differences of frequency and their almost incredible differences of price. This country is behind nearly every other civilized country in the provision and use and cost of electricity. The time has come to set our house in order. It would be humiliating if we were to let things drift any longer.
There are two main political objections to the Elec- tricity Bill which is passing through the second reading debate in the House of Commons when we go to press. The Socialists condemn it because it is not Socialistic enough, and a certain number of anti-Socialists—mostly right-wing Unionists—condemn it because they find it too Socialistic. When objections to a Bill cancel each other as they do in this case it is reasonable to suppose that no great harm will come of them. So much for the political objections. The objections raised by many electrical experts and by those who supply electricity require more attention. It is said that the Bill will make all private and municipal electrical undertakings more difficult and more specu- lative. The objectors have a vision of an army of bureau- crats interfering and making the lives of managers almost unbearable. They tell us that all that need really be done is to set up a Board which would remove the arti- ficial barriers that now stand between the various under- takings. The answer to this, we think, is that the attempt made in 1919 to co-ordinate electrical supplies was thwarted at so many points that the Act as it emerged has had very poor results. More might have been ex- pected of it, but as a matter of fact it never instilled into the nation and still less into the providers of electricity the idea that order must be produced. Yet, again, there is the objection of the shareholders of existing companies, who doubt whether they will be fairly treated by the Government. They see in the conditions of the Bill something like a violation of the rights given to the various companies by Parliament.
A Bill of this kind was bound to produce nervous forebodings. When a vested interest is touched it is inevitable that there should be cries of alarm, and in a way they are quite natural and right. It is well to be warned of the dangers. We are convinced, however, that the nation as a whole, including all those who have invested money in electrical undertakings and who have thus indirectly given us a useful supply with only a small financial return to themselves, will in the end benefit by the scheme. The choice, we must say again, is between chaos and order. It is ridiculous that in this crowded country there should be at present a consumption of only about 200 units per head. In Canada the con- sumption per head is 800. Here it certainly ought to be increased to at least 500 units. As for the cost of the unit the average price at present is a little over 2d. That ought to come down to a penny ; and it is not too much to hope that some day it will be reduced to a halfpenny or even a farthing. The Government estimate the cost of the scheme at £83,500,000, and the ultimate saving at more than £40,000,000 a year.
The cost of supplying electricity becomes lower in direct proportion to the time for which the current is used. Obviously, therefore, we can get re411_y 'cheap. elf9R-43=1,1 only if it is universally used and used through most of the twenty-four hours. But this is a thing which we may talk and dream about but shall never get unless Parliament sanctions a wholesale standardizing scheme such as that which is presented in the present Bill. — Let us return for a moment to the argument that the Bill means nationalization. That, we think, is just what it does not mean.. Electricity is to be generated at selected stations and these stations will be privately owned and managed except in the extreme case when the Electricity Board is unable to find a station which can generate electricity at a reasonable price. When the electricity has been transmitted from the generating stations it will be distributed by " authorized under- takers ?' whether private or municipal. The only point at which the State, as such, will act is in the main trans- mission from the stations to the distributors.
No doubt there are many portions of the Bill which will have to be closely scrutinized. There may be dangers which have not yet been discovered or even suspected, but we beg our readers not to believe that it can be right to oppose this Bill on the ground that it is a first step towards nationalization." What would make nationaliza- tion inevitable would be to leave our electrical supply any longer unstandardized and ununified. Every case of State intervention must be judged on its merits. In the present case the intervention has been reduced to a minimum, and without that minimum there would be small chance indeed of universalizing the use of electricity-. We hope to see electricity going into every village and driving the small odd-job engines which are now driven by foreign oil or foreign petrol and lighting the cottages which are now lit by lamps burning imported oil.
Only one thing more need be said. It is essential to regard the generation and supply of electricity as insepar- ably connected with the reconstruction of the mines and the more enlightened treatment of coal. By treating coal so as to make it yield its by-products and at the same time yield a smokeless fuel we must inaugurate a new Industrial Revolution. We must rid ourselves of the curse and waste of dirt and of poison and of destroying acids in our atmosphere. The distillation or carboniza- tion of coal is evidently so near to being a commercial success that money spent, on accelerating the final stages would be money well spent. In this country we have never yet quite reached that great article of faith which says that research and experiment can never be included among the many forms of waste.
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