The municipalisation of the gas supply (1891)

Lighting by gas has become a necessity of the life of a great city ; nevertheless some persons who advocate the public supply of water hesitate to apply the principle of municipalisation to their local gasworks. Few of these, however, can be aware of the rapidity with which the public supply of gas is increasing. Already one-half of the gas consumers in the Kingdom burn gas which they them¬ selves as citizens have had made through their local governing bodies ; excluding London and its neighborhood, the proportion is, indeed, over two-thirds. The number of local authorities undertaking the gas supply has grown from 148 to 173 in seven years. No public authority in the United Kingdom having once municipalised its gas¬ works has ever retraced its steps or reversed its action. But London, along with Liverpool and Dublin, Sheffield and Bristol, and a few other large towns, still leaves this essentially public service in the hands of private speculators. London’s gas supply has now fallen, by successive amalgamations, into the hands of three colossal companies (in 1855 there were 20), whose capital outlay, including past competitive waste and lawyers’ bills, exceeds £11,000,000. On this amount they manage to obtain a handsome profit, the annual surplus being over A MILLION AND A QUARTER, or over eleven per cent. So abundant, indeed, is the profit that huge salaries and pensions are paid, and unnecessary renewals executed, merely to avoid returning a larger surplus. For, unlike t, :