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Gas Companies, and we are aware that they have very great
power of taking security from would-be consumers of gas, and
as a matter of fact in some parts of the parish where the change
of tenancy is frequent that power is very largely acted upon
within my own knowledge. The great bulk of the parish is
quite free from the operation of that particular legislation, and
we assume that while it is right for the Electric Lighting
Companies to be protected from bad debts, inasmuch as they
cannot decline to serve on ordinary terms of trade, we are quite
content to believe that the Electric Lighting Companies will be
so far alive to their own interests as to largely abandon those
precautions which are given to them as safeguards. We have
never insisted upon an impossibility. We have never asked the
Companies to lay a main in every street, for instance, and we
have even abandoned the idea of Schedule A and Schedule B
with regard to the Metropolitan Company. We have abandoned
the idea which, in 1883, found favour with Mr. Moulton,
among others, of specifying streets for the laying of mains in a
select area, and we are quite willing that the whole area should
depend upon its requirements for the supply of electricity. . .
Up to last autumn the Yestry had voluntarily selected two Companies,
the St. James's and the Metropolitan, to supply their parish;
but matters were considerably complicated by the receipt of
notices from several other Companies, among them the London.
These, five in all, were very carefully considered, and the line
adopted by the Vestry was this: We prefer to be left to two
Companies, but we acknowledge that the London Company are
supplying something over —I do not know the exact number—
but something over 100 of our parishioners and our ratepayers,
and those 100 ratepayers are entitled to consideration. If we
reject the London Company altogether, our 100 parishioners may
suffer temporary inconvenience, until they are able to draw their
supply of light from the authorized Companies. But we say this :
that we are not prepared to assent to the London Company
coming in upon any terms they please. If they will adopt the
amendments that have formed the subject of protracted negotiations
with the Board of Trade, and which have proved acceptable
to two other Companies, we will assent to their Order, but on no
other terms. With regard to the other applicants (the House to
House Company for a licence, the Westminster for a Provisional