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work it is a very fortunate circumstance that the Vestry have now such a direct
control over the work that any complaints can be immediately attended to, and the
Vestry do not run the risk of incurring heavy penalties through the neglect of a
careless contractor.
ELECTRIC LIGHTING.
The Shoreditch Vestry is the second local authority in the Metropolis and the
first in the Eastern District which has obtained powers to undertake the supply of
Electricity for public and private purposes. Electric lighting and motive power
have passed from the experimental stage to that of proved success. From being
regarded as the luxury of the rich, electricity is fast showing itself to be a necessity
for the poor owing to the great sanitary advantages which electric light possesses
over all other means of illumination. The Vestry of St. Pancras have demonstrated
that electricity can be produced in large quantities at an actual cost much below
the present price of gas, and the vast strides which are being made every year in
the application of electricity to the industries and necessities of life, make it certain
that the monopoly of supplying this universally useful force, will in a few years
become the most valuable and highly prized undertaking of local authorities. With
the experience before them of the enormously increased value of the water and gas
undertakings of the Metropolis for the benefit of private Companies, it is
lamentable that so many local authorities in the Metropolis have allowed the
monopoly of electric light, which will probably excel in magnitude those of water
and gas, to pass out of their hands for forty-two years, and even then only to be
re-purchasable by the local authority at a large expense.
On the 2nd of July, 1891, the Vestry received notices of the intention of
three Electric Lighting Companies to apply for provisional orders for supplying
this Parish with electricity. I reported to the Parliamentary Committee that if the
consent of the Vestry continued to be refused to these Orders without anything
being done by the Vestry itself, the Board of Trade might in their discretion grant
such Orders in spite of the Vestry's consent not having been given, and in that case,
it at a future time the Vestry desired to get the monopoly into their hands they
would have to pay dearly for it, as in the case of Gas and Water Companies. I
also pointed out that the Board of Trade had granted Orders to local authorities
with power to transfer their powers and duties under the Order on favourable
conditions to contractors, and by this means the local authority obtained the
monopoly, and could make its own terms with private companies as to division of
profits, &c., if required. That if the Vestry obtained such an Order (the cost of
which, if done in my department, would not exceed £120), they would not be
bound to take any steps for two years, or for a longer period on reasonable grounds,
and that 1 considered that the monopoly was worth a very great deal more than the
cost of obtaining it.