GAS v. ELECTRICITY
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] am a great admirer of Major Yeats-Brown as an author, and I condole with him on having been pushed into controversy about gas and electricity by those who have not been too careful in posting him with information. It has even led him, I am sure unconsciously, into considerable misrepresentations.
Who, on reading his letter in the Speciator dated Novem- ber 29th, in which he says Other cooks prefer electricity - for instance, those at the Kit lint Restaurant " ; and the subsequent sentence in which he refers to "other restaurants —using electricity entirely for cooking," thus implying that so does the Kit Rat; who, I ask, would imagine that the consumption of gas for crooking at the Kit Rat Restaurant during the twelve months ended two days ago was over five and a half million cubic feet, and is steadily going on at that rate Who, when they read in that letter the statement "nor did I say that electricity was cheaper than gas," would imagine that in Major Yeats-Brown's original article there occurred the sentence : "At id. per unit, electricity is cheaper than coal or gas "—which led to my original protest and correction of fact ?
Major Yeats-Brown "is informed" of two hotels and five restaurants " using electricity entirely for cooking "— Ilow accurately in one case at least I have shown above— and has " no doubt there are many more." If he will give me one guinea for every gas-equipped hotel or restaurant kitchen in Great Britain in winch no electrical cooking appar- atus is used—to furnish a list of them would require a special supplement of the Spectofor—I will gladly give him fifty for every hotel and restaurant " using electricity entirely for cooking" in which no gas cooking apparatus is used :
and I give the balance—which will be a very handsome cheque—to King Edward's Hospital Fund under the pseudonym " Fair Play for Gas."
If our electrical friends—and their literary allies - only stick to facts, there would be nu need for any of this distasteful controversy. But gas is that type of wicked animal that sometimes defends itself when attacked—and we have bad just it little more of this illSidiOUS State-aided inaccurate propaganda than reasonable people can be expected to stand without protest.—I am, Sir. Ac.,
FRANCIS COODENOUGII.
The British Commercial Gas Association,
28 Grosvenor Gardens, Victoria, SW. 1.
Yeats-Brown writes :—" I will take Sir Francis's only serious point first. Perhaps I was wrong in saying that electricity at Id. a unit would be cheaper than coal or gas, although I do not admit I was. It depends what is meant by cheapness. For some purposes electricity is cheaper than coal or gas at that price ; and some hotels and restaurants find electricity suitable for cooking at a considerably higher price. Other kitchens, as Sir Francis says with such superabundant emphasis, prefer gas to electricity. I never said they did not. The point I made should have been quite clear. I mentioned some hotels and restaurants which use electric cooking, including the Kit lint. Sir Francis does not deny that these places do use electric cookers. Why accuse me of misrepresentation ? Why say that the Kit Rat also uses five and it half mill' cubic feet of gnus: it can use five and is half billion feet, for all I care. Finally, I must say that I am surprised at Sir Francis's concluding paragraph, which seems to me to convey a disagree- able suggestion. Perhaps he will accept my statement that 1 um not 'the literary ally' of the electrical or any other industry, neither have I anything to do with" insidious State-aided pro- paganda "—if he meant to imply that, which I doubt. How- ever, he and I will probably agree that this correspondence is in need of refrigeration, gas-operated or otherwise." This correspondence is now closed—En. Spectator.]
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