We do not often agree with the Times upon industrial
questions, but we must endorse most heartily the views of that journal upon the Bills for the distribution of electric power. The House of Commons has a kind of dread of electricity as a force which in private hands might do infinite mischief, and is inclined to confine its control to great corporations like municipalities and railways. That, surely, is a great mistake. Electrical power is the motor of the future, and the more experiments are made in generating and distributing it the better. Those experiments will never have variety enough, or practicality enough, till money is made out of them by private individuals intent, in the first instance, upon gain. When millions have been spent, and experience fully gained, the State can step in, and either regulate private enterprise, or municipalise all such under- takings. That is the regular English way, and the only way in which new undertakings involving great early losses ever succeed in this country. If there is an undertaking which seems to require official guidance and control, it is the supply of water to a city, but has any municipality surpassed the feat of the New River Company, which was seeking its own profit? Let one electric traction company succeed in making a, long tram pay, and the problem of housing our city people will be half solved.
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