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85
increased rents, to enable the Vestry to bring to a successful issue
such a large undertaking as that of electric lighting ? These are
queries that have given your Sub-committee serious thought, and
although doubts have arisen in their minds upon the questions, they
cannot advise your Committee and the Vestry to abandon a truly
progressive policy by allowing the present company to step in and
usurp the rights of the parishioners The Baths and Washhouses
movement is one solely to promote the health and comfort of the
working classes, but not so the electric lighting question The
working men could not hope for many years to come to have the direct
comfort of the electric light in their homes Their support to the
undertaking would have to be purely from unsel6sh motives, and in
support of a body that had in the past, and were bound in the future,
to do all they can in other directions, such as increased wages and
better and improved sanitary dwellings, to improve their condition
in life Whether they can always be educated up to the high
standard of thought and action it is most difficult to say, with a
shifting population such as that of Newington, but your Subcommittee
feel that they ought not at least to shrink from discharging
a public duty ; and therefore whatever may be the ultimate opinion
of your Committee, the Vestry and the electorate upon the serious
question before them, they have determined to support a purely
unselfish and progressive policy which would actuate all rightthinking
working men and ratepayers, whatever their political views
may be, by recommending : —
That the provisional order promoted by the County of London
and Brush Provincial Electric Lighting Company, Limited, be
opposed, by the Vestry giving an undertaking to the Board of
Trade to promote a provisional order in the next session of
Parliament for supplying a competitive supply in the parish to that
undertaken by the London Electric Supply Corporation
Dated this 27th day of March, 1895
A SMITHERS, Chairman
JAMES C HAMMOND,
W WESTCOTT,
O NEWMAN,
GEO W HENLEY,
J P CLARK
Your Committee having unanimously adopted the foregoing SubCommittee's
Report, beg to recommend:—
That the provisional order promoted by the County of London
and Brush Provincial Electric Lighting Company, Limited,
be opposed, by the Vestry giving an undertaking to the
Board of Trade to promote a provisional order in the next
session of Parliament for supplying a competitive supply in
the parish to that undertaken by the London Electric Supply
Corporation (Signed) A E SMTTHERS, Chairman
(Signed)