EARLE : THE SUPPLY OF [Manchester, twenty-five miles with mains costing £1,800 per mile and with a 25 per cent, load factor, the interest charges alone on the cable equal "49 pence per unit, and that the cost of carrying fuel equals only "059 pence per unit. Mr. Word-Mr. C. H. WORDINGHAM (Chairman) said that he could speak in all intfham the capacities enumerated by Mr. Earle, having criticised power schemes as a professional witness, as an opponent on behalf of corporations, and as a

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... ous objector, and he was further induced to take part in the discussion as he had devised one of the earliest schemes of the kind in this country to take practical shape. So far he was still dependent upon other food than his own words, not any of which had he found it necessary to eat. Mr. Earle had thrown down the gauntlet, and he was quite prepared to take up the challenge. Mr. Earle said that in opposing one. of the power schemes, he (Mr. Wordingham) had taken 10 per cent, interest on capital. The print of the evidence to which Mr. Earle referred must have been incorrect, as what he had said, and what he had written in his proof, was " that the interest on capital was 5 per cent, and the rate of depreciation on the mains was 5 per cent."; and he could not consider that either of these figures was excessive; indeed, they tallied with Mr. Earle's within one per cent. It so happened that he had that very day looked up his proof in order to refresh his memory, and, far from disowning his own figures, he desired to use them on the present occasion. He would refer to page 897 of Mr. Earle's paper in which he stated that the cost of transmitting i j million units per annum a distance of 10 miles with a load-factor of 5 per cent, including transformation, would add o"2d. per unit. Mr. Wordingham maintained that this cost was greatly in excess of the cost of carrying the coal. Assuming that coal cost id. per ton per mile for carriage, and 6d. per ton for upkeep of wagons, together with is. per ton for carting, the total cost for transmitting the quantity of coal corresponding to the case Mr. Earle had taken worked out to o -o25d. per unit, so that electrical transmission cost eight times the carriage of coal. Another point that Mr. Earle had attacked in the evidence given by the speaker to which reference had been made was the price taken for the mains. Mr. Earle had assumed £1,000 per mile, whereas the speaker had assumed £1,800. Perhaps the difference was to be accounted for by Mr. Earle having taken a current density of 1,000 amperes per square inch, whereas he (Mr. Wordingham) had taken a current density of 600. He could only express the hope that when Mr. Earle ran his rotatory converters, he would not have to come down to the lower density. Having replied to Mr. Earle's challenge, he would turn to the general question, and, in the first place, he was glad to see that Mr. Earle demolished the fallacy that water-power was much cheaper than power developed from coal. In many cases it might actually be dearer, on account of the great cost that usually had to be incurred in utilising the water as well as the payment required for the water rights. There was, however, another fallacy that underlay much that was 1902.] ELECTRICITY IN BULK: DISCUSSION. 905 said about these power schemes, a fallacy which he did not think had Mr. Wordbeen pointed out. Comparison is made between power production here and on the Continent and in America, and it is stated, very truly, that power can be produced as cheaply from coal as from water-power, and the inference drawn is that large power schemes will therefore pay as well here as abroad, if not better. The fallacy underlying this argument is that abroad there is no choice ; that, whereas in England coal can be obtained cheaply in any district, abroad, in many places, there is either no coal or it can only be had at prohibitive prices. It seemed to him that there was no analogy between the power schemes abroad and the proposed power schemes here, and it by no means followed that because water-power abroad had met with a wide field, power derived from coal and distributed over wide areas from single stations would be in great demand here. Coal, as he had already shown, could be transmitted so very cheaply mechanically, that there was no necessity to transmit it electrically, and it could be burnt with great economy in small stations. By the use of gas engines, a Board of Trade unit could be obtained with substantially less than 2 lbs. of coal, even when working on a very small scale. In point of fact, Mr. Earle's own firm had recently guaranteed, under a specification of his (Mr. Wordingham's), to give a Board of Trade unit for 16,000 British thermal units of heat, which corresponded, if any ordinary producer were used, to r 8 lb. of coal burnt in the producer. He had every confidence that the guarantee would be fulfilled. It would have been interesting if Mr. Earle, besides enumerating the schemes abroad, had given a few of the financial results attained, and, also, if he had stated whether interruptions in supply were frequent or serious. On page 889 figures were given which were no doubt useful in Parliamentary estimates, but to him they were not very convincing. It might well be that in a given radius there were mills requiring two million horsepower to drive them, but he believed that if there were, and they were ever driven electrically, and he were to see them, he would by that time be a very old man. Mr. Earle had stated that the local authorities had opposed the power schemes, and he implied that they did so from selfishness and because they did not like competition. This was not the case; the local authorities did not object to competition. What they did not like was unfair competition, and, if the Bills in their original form had passed into law, the local authorities would have been most unfairly treated. What was sought, originally, was to give the companies power to select all the plums, leaving the refuse to the local authorities ; that is to say, the companies could select their consumers, while the local authorities must supply any one who chose to make the demand. It was quite true that the local authorities were now fully protected, but the local authorities had only themselves to thank for this protection. On page 888, reference was made by the author to small towns, and to the benefits that they were to derive from the power stations. He very much questioned whether much work would be done in this direction by the companies, and he altogether failed to see how the 906 EARLE: THE SUPPLY OF [Manchester, Mr. Word-companies would make this class of work pay. If they obtained these in