NOTES AND COMMENTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18708, 14 May 1924, Page 8

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

SELLING ELECTRICITY.

In his presidential'address to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, Mr. . • illiam H. Patchell pointed out' that in Britain, with a population of 40 millions, there is one 30,0(X)kw. electrical generating unit. The population of the United States is about ICO millions, and last year he and a friend, when travelling in an American train, jotted down from memory the' number of 30,000kw. units they knew to be on order. The list amounted to 915.000kw. for home supply only, and he afterwards learnt that one firm alone had uncompleted orders ' for 1,845,000kw. in units of 20,000kw. and over. Such units were not only possible but practicable in America, not because American engineering was better, either in design or in workmanship, than British; it was the direct outcome of the skill and zeal of those who handle - the sales departments of the electricity supply undertakings. No doubt these found customers more ready to. listen to their charming, but where in England were the voices of such charmers heard? The American'consumption of electricity would never have been 500 to 700 Board of Trade units per annum per head of the population if the consumer had been left to go out and buy it. It was 'so, because people, after study, had gone out to sell it, and they had sold it. Now the public were not only happy in paying for it, but were eagerly wanting more. What was needed was a broad view of the commercial side of the business and its possibilities. When the electricity supply authorities really got busy and sold electricity, a flood of work would, be brought into the shops of the mechanical and the electrical engineer.

BRITAIN AND THE SEA. In "The Contrast," which was recently published, Mr. Hilaire Belloc says— "This State (England) enjoyed an increasing security which, after Waterloo, became a thing taken for rranted, like a function of Nature itself. This security —the great mark of the English and the source of half their humour, imperturbability and pridewas due to a supreme mastery in the art of reamanship. How much the English are seamen is a commonplace but what is not, a commonplace. unfortunately, is knowledge of the. details which still prove this English temper. Go where you will throughout the world, .an English ship is better managed than the ship of any ' other nation. The tradition of the sea seems, with the English, to be in another class from the same tradition in any other peopleeven the Scandinavians. There is' in truth an alliance between the English and the sea which no other nation knows. . . . This supremacy at which was more a moral than a material supremacy—has been the great military experience of the English. Relying upon this, the English have used only small professional armies; relying upon this they quite forgot (and are still most reluctant to admit) the principle of a universal national levy; favoured by this complete security of defence, the English' became both ignorant of and contemptuous of defeat or even peril. Their small professional armies were excellent: they could be landed wherever maritime supremacy chose to use them. When they were out-numbered or out-manoeuvred they could always retreat to the sea' or fortify themselves upon a port; they could await the opportunity for victory and strike at their own moment, coming in at the end triumphantly, as the invaluable unexhausted . allies of much greater Continental forces. In this way there was built up in the English mind a military experience of unquestioned universal, continuous success, coupled with a general ignorance of what was meant by land warfare upon a large scale, and a vast and most legitimate pride in that wherein it had no rival, the handling of boats." '

~ TRAMS AND BUSES. According to a Board of Trade report published early in 1914, it appears that in 1911 licenses were held by 2748 motorbuses in London., This figure has now been substantially" increased, and the London General Omnibus Company had. 3869 buses in operation last December and was increasing this number at the rate of 25 per week. Other companies ran 208 buses, making a total of somewhere over 4000. In addition to the gain in numbers, the modern motor-bus is both larger and more reliable than its predecessor. In any case the greater number now at work adds very materially to the frequency of the services, and it is this which is often the determining factor as to whether a bus does or does not secure a passenger, says Engineering. This is very obvious in certain parts of the London area where'buses and trams are running in competition, but where the latter are giving the more frequent service. If' the bus chances to arrive at a starting point at the same time as the tramcar, it secures most of the passengers, since, owing to the facility with which it can wend its way through traffic, its trip time between competing points is less than that of the tramcar, although * the latter has the higher maximum speed. The difference in the speed of transit, however, is not sufficient to induce passengers to wait for a bus if a tramcar is immediately available, since on the average a net saving of time is effected by taking the first vehicle to hand. There .has been extraordinary growth of the bus traffic. In 1911 the buses carried 401 million passengers, and the electric railways 436 million. Last year the motor-buses carried 1214 million passengers. The tramways, including all services, carried 1050 million, so that the more modern vehicle has definitely' outstripped its rival*. 'I