MUNICIPAL LIGHTING.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXXXII, Issue XXXXII, 9 January 1900, Page 2

MUNICIPAL LIGHTING.

Br Edward W. Bemis. J

(Now York Outlook, 19th. August, 1899) : The development of interest in public ownership and operation of lighting plants during the past five years has been wonderful. A short , time ago one could hardly admit a . belief in such operation in this country without being looked at askance by society. Now whole communities are ) voting for it by enormous majorities, i and clubs of our most prominent citizens are listening with great respect i and even approval to its advocacy. At . the annual Convention at Detroit, last l August, of the League of American - Municipalities, the fifteen hundred 1 city officials present were almost a unit • for public operation of lighting plants. At the annual Conference of the i National Municipal League at Indiana - 1 polis, last December, the sentiment was

unanimously in favour of the report of the special committee on a model charter. This committee, consisting of Dr. Albert Shaw, Professor Frank J. Goodnow, and Horace E. Deming, of New York, Mr. Charles Richardson, Glintor Rogers Woodruff, and Professor Leo !3. Bowe, of Philadelphia,

a urged that every city should be given the right to own and operate any of its t city monopolies when approved by e popular vote, and, in order to render d such a step easy, constitutional or legislative restrictions on municipal e indebtedness should not apply to the r acquisition of revenue-producing property.

The first municipal electric-lighting plant in America was purchased by Fairfield, lowa, in 1882, Eight years thereafter at least fifty such plants existed, and at the end of another eight years 353 were known by the writer, and it is believed that there are many more. These public plants i are now nearly one-seventh of all the electric-lighting plants mentioned in i the American Electrical Dictionary, i and have about nine per cent, of the i total number of arc lights and five per cent, of the total number of incandesi cents there enumerated. The movement has found its greatest development in the States between Pennsylvania and the Missouri River. Duly eight instances have been found of abandonment of public operation when once started, and in at least three of these the city officials do not con- ■ sider that there was any failure of public operation. Of over one hundred plants especially investigated, less than

3, ten per cent, were considered unsatisfactory by those in charge. !- The advocates of private ownership insist tnat to all the expenses commonly e reported by public plants there should ,t be added, for fair comparison with 1 other forms of ownership, not only t iaterest at four or five p9r cent., and such taxes as a private company would :s Have to pay, but sovea per cent, de- ', jjreciation; yet the average deprecia- : rion allowed m the accounts of the 8 3 ', private electria-light companies of e Massachusetts during the last sevon e years has been less than two per cent., i! and five per cent, is recognised by 2 eminent authorities to be ample with l. plants constructed since 1892. t In an investigation by the writer a

t careful comparison was made b tween i ill the public plants—74 in number—- ) aom which full details (ould be secured, J mil the 133 privato plants most like ohem in respect to size, cost of coal, j to. The plants were divided into ten , 'roups, in accordance with candlei power, cost of coal, hours burned by • sheet lights, etc. In every one of i ohesi groups it was found that the e average cost to the taxpayer of the i street lights furnished by private com--1 panies was greater than in the case of i the public plants similarly situated. '■ This was true even after adding to the p operating expenses of the public plants - 12| per cent, for interest, depreciation, d and taxes.

Allegheny produces her public street - lights for about $72 each, including all fixed charges, whila Pittsburg, directly across the river, was, at last accounts, e paying a private company $96 a year :■ tor lights of the same character. Even - Chicago, which for a time did not I manage her public electric-light plant ) much better than she regulated her ; private gas-works, lias within two i years reduced operating expenses from ) about SIOO to about S7O per arc light, i \ full allowance for fixed charges r would hardly raise the total cost above i Sl2O, while the great private company of that city charges private con--3 sumers !bloß for lights burning only ' until midnight, and receives on the ' average from all consumers about $175 i fpr the same amount of electrical ■ en B r gy fig is yearly used in a single Chicago streGt-laiifp." In Britain the development qf ■ public ownership has been still more , rapid than in America.' In 1895 muni-11

1 cipalities sold thirty-two per cent, of ' all the olectrical energy used for lighting purposes, and in 1897 forty-live and 1 two-tenths per cent., whilo outside of J/ondon there are to-day only two private electric-lighting plants in cities bl' 100,000 population—Newcastle and Norwich, lu 1897 thirty-six private c impanies leported to Garcke's Manual ( ol Electrical Undertakings an average price of 11.2 cents, per kilowatt and a j profit of 0.5 per cent, on the capital expended, while fifty-four municipalities repgrt aj> average price of 9.4 cents per kilowatt and a profit of 5.7 per cent. Of the forty-ono new plants' in process of erection in 1898, thirty-seven

| were by public bodies, | Public interest in the gas question* i both in this country and in Engl.tndi was greatly lessened by the development of electric light, which was thought t6 be the illuminaut of the future. If n«t that, it was at Jeagfc thought to be the only light that would be d&sired for streets and public buildings, and there- j fore pre-eminently within the province 1 of public ownership, Also, bocause the .eleolric Ijgljt was new, it was possible! fcp municipalities to? nuderoake its manufacture ■without the purchase of aa existing plant at a valuation based upon the earning power, as court decisions or State laws have frequently required in the ease of gas, when the tranche litis not expired. It seems likely, however, that new interest will toon b.ij taken in the gas question, for ; :t is now begiuniijjj f;.» Ijb realised that j 1 ;he use of gas for fuel purposes it} iij- < sreasing much faster than its displace- j I sCftt for lighting purpysosj by electro.|

f i iI l the introduction of the Welsbach burner has made gas a forM , m P et . ito r even for street lighting and business places. als ? J* noti °ed that there in no moi e complete monopoly in our cities than gas, and that the trend of all legal decisions and the vie* of all mode g r „ Ppjfcal scutate and economists is es must either regulate or operate any complete monopoly, even though not directly patronised by the municipality. Whatever is the concern of the citizens should be the concern of its government, if the action of the latter will really help the community. The spoils system and general unprogressiveness characterised the Philadelphia gas-works, but neither made public operation a failure nor justified the recent lease. During almost nil of the fifty-six years of public operation of the works gas was cheaper in Philadelphia than in New York, Brooklyn, or Washington, while the city was paying for the plant and securing other large advantages, and in 1894 the city was able to reduce the price of gas to SI, which the Yanderbilt, Kussell bage, and Standard Oil interests emphatically declared before the New York Legislature in 1897 to be utterly impossible with them in New York City.

It was the current belief in Philadel-! pnia that the benumbing influence of the lessees, who had been supplying for m £ 6a f, S aboufc one-third of the gas sold by the city, wag responsible for the refusal of the Councils to improve the works, and that it was the same influence that secured the lease. The is' f? ne remirk in a publio address at the time has become tamous: "Every man who has votes for this ordinance will go through the rest of his life with the brand upon his forehead, ' Bribed by the rich to rob the poor.'" The Councils refused to submit the lease of the works to a referendum vote. In the Twenty-eighth Ward such a vote wa« taken, with, regular ballots and ballot-boxes, by the Philadelphia inquirer. The vote was 2,583 against the lease of the works and only 22 in favor, and all parties admitted that the masses of the people were very much against the lease. All the municipal gas plants in this country are succeeding. The oldest is , at Richmond, Virginia, whose populatjon in, 1890 was 81,000. Before 1885 the streets had been lighted and the works more than paid for out of the net earnings of the works. Since that time the price of gas has been reduced from 41.50 to Si, all extensions and newconstruction have been paid for out of the receipts, $342,000 in cash has been paid into the city treasury, and ove $500,009 of free gas, if reckoned at the average price charged to private consumers, has been burned free of charge on the streets and in public buildings. Every yeai shows better and better results. TTnprogressive A-lexandria, with only 14,000 population at the last census, has paia for itjs plant and turned over to the city •5160,000 since 1853, besides getting free gas for public use. Even th]e sm .11 city of Fredericksburg, in comlmencing public ownership in J 891, re-; duced the price to private consumers from S3 to 51.50, and-it that price earns a good profit. Similar reports are made by the remaining cities with publio plants - Chat lottesville and Danville, Va., Henderson, Ky., Wheeling, W. Va,, B -llefontaine and Hamilton, Ohio. It is worthy of note that the two cities having the lowest prise of gas for illuminating purposes in the United States are Wheeling, W. Va., and Hamilton, Ohio. The prioe in the former city has been 75 cents for many

years. The expenses for operation, repairs, etc., are usually about 50 to 60 cents. As the plant has been paid for out of net earnings, there is every year a handsome surplus for the city treasury ia this city of about 50,000 population. To be sure, the low price of coal is an advantage to Wheeling, aud the works have not been as economically managed as they might have been, but private plants equally fortunate in location, such as the one at Pittsburg, have not done nearly as well by either taxpayer or consumer. In Hamilton the private company refused to reduce its price in 1890 below $2, but since the public plant was built and earns interest on its bonds by selling

gas at 80 cents, the private company has reduced its price to 75 cents. The city officials believe that powerful financial interests are sustaining this private company, ia order to ruifl the promising experiment in public ownership. In one or two cities there are some traces of the spoils system, but, on the whole, political influence has not uorioijsly aflectpd most of the plants. The people seem thoroughly convinced that in both price and direct financial benefits to the city public ownership has been a great success. Facts seem to boar out this claim. The possibilities of public gas-works, however, wjil not bo fully testod until tried by some of the larger and more progressive cities of the North and East,

M Jn Oroat Britain the success of JI public gas-works is as clear as of puhlio electric-light and water works, The 5 average receipts per thousand feet from i both gas and residuals in the private ' companies in 1897 were 84 cents, and in the public plants only 74 cents. The * average operating expenses of the former were 02 oet)ty and of the Utter 5(5 cents, no reduction for residuals being made. From Field's famous nonpartisan yearly analysis of the accounts of eight of the largest public and ten of the largest private plants it appears i that the operating expenses, both for j labor and material, were slightly less |in 1897 in the case of the public than jof the private companies. The public ! plants charged privato consumers 55 | cents per thousand feet and the private 'plants charged 54.2 cents, but the ' public plants averaged nearly half a i cent more in taxes and turned into the | city treasury at the end of the year six cents profit and nearly one cent toward

the sinking fqr ultimate payment of the capital inyestpdi la comparing these results with the charges in the largest Airferican cities, it may be noted that, despite the somewhat higher pay—about twenty-fly* per cent, for labor per hour—in American gas-works, raw material is so much cheaper, at least Wbst of New England, jbbucgas fs often put in the burner as wty (W ift vbjilfi UU)

of construction of gas-works is u as low here jas abroad. Water-gai cesses have ( been developed cHell" side of the Atlantic.

According to Brown's Di American G-s Companies, consumption of gas in this only about 51,500,000,000 feet in The consumption in Great wifJi hall the population, 101,886,371,130. There is surelß close connection between the the linglish consume four much gas per capita as wo do and fl» other fact that gas if sold for lew thai* [75 cents per thousand feet on the average, or only about hilf the current Amerfean prices. These lower prices, with the great social as well aa benefits resulting therefrom in the saving of labor from the substitution of gas for coal aid oil, are notdue to any great difference in the cost of placing gas in the burner in the two countries. Bather is the lower price and mom extensive use of gas abroad due to the public control of privrte management and to the prospect of eity ownership ever impending over the English private companies if they do not fairly apptoach the record of the publicowned plants. The greatest difficulty with the light* ing question in Amenoa, as with the street railway problem, is the demoralizing relation between audi enterprise when in private hands and city govecni ments. Many of our wealtnitst ""i , most powerful oitbena, who «r» tine , supporters of our ohorahes and the donors to our colleges, libraries< aidart , galleries, are finaSylZ*ted in , weak and corrupt munimptl government. From such governmeits only ; can franchises of incalculable value be obtained without due return 1o public. By this same class our newa« papers are muzzled, and [municipal re* form rendered almost impossible. The Governor of one of oar large States informs the writefthat he waa offered the chance to buy<2o,ooo shares [ of stock without any payment* down, if he would aign ascertain franchise bill. He waa aanired, and believed, that his signature would pro* bibly raise the value of thaee shares from 51,400,000 to 92,000,000. Although he did not sign the measure, a similar bill was signed by his suoowsor, and was attended with greater rise of value of the securities.; Mr Henry Doherty, of the Oolumbus (Ohio) Oaa Company, in an oddresj before the twentieth annual meeting of the Ohio Gas Light Association, m Cincinnati. March 18, 1890, on Soiling Gas, said : " Kee,.i the newspapers in your also the city authorities. jNow how to do this is sometimes a problem. . , Say you would go to the yuaagete and proprietors of vour newspapers with such a proposition aa thif: ' I lam a few shares of stock to sal you on the following terms: I will t«e your sote, secured by indorsing thenoek orer to me, with Interest at a rate lew tfcf" the earning capacity of the] stock, with privilege of paying for it! at an«time, upon giving sixty daya' nttioe.' fflo be brief, it should be our business fco-day to keep the stock of our etoiariMUftf' tribUVt'alnong those position to promote the wmHi our business." „ Against such demorali*m|influonae reform has hard fear that publio operation would oxchange existing corruption {Jj that of the spoils system. Even if tftU should at first prove true, the apotfaiio C aa be cuffed and kicked atoft i& the gutter without the slightest jjaoger tfl| one's social or business poapon. l| fact, it is bocoming almost tyehioj^yjl express disgust at the seeker. Mrith the aivil service reform of public activities is sure publio attention, the likely to die, unhonored It is not likely to die, people see no goal beyond destruction will become Under municipal element of the wealthy will cease to have opposing good likely to become its friend|^^^^^^| Honest and efficient is easier than equally efficient regulation of and is therefore more' America than in Europe,aa asserted. Not only is ship likely to develop among the rich, but mass of voters. A*

Richardson, of Philadelphia the Indiannpolis Conference! ""it large maj-'rity of the voters ha vet no private property directly 6ubjoot touseßmvnt, and are therefore muoh men likely to take an interest in tho miumgement of their public property aid public servicos than they are in anr qaestio « of municipal income or id its of taxation. If we v. unt tlm poonljto develop higher civi- ideals, we maatpnlarge the scope and importance of (their city government. If we want th»m to appreciate the advantages jof intelligence and fidelity in thjnr public servant', we must give thofe servant* •such duties and responsibilities that incompetence and dishotasty can neither be conoealed nor endured." [ln tho United Kingdom jbe electric lighting (public and prime; of the following municipalities falndertaken by the town or city ooi|f*tioo• Aberdeen, population 1091JB8; Bedford, 19,533; Burnley, 58,7*1 J Blackpool, 14,229; Bolton, 108,4*3» Bradford, 194,495 ; Bray, 0,425', Brighton, 128,440 ; lJr'stol, 208,874-; ®urton-o«J Trent, 39,288; (Jardifl,B2,7ffl; Chelten. * Jiam, 5tj,482; Coventry, 42,111; Derby 81,168; Dover, 30,270 a Dund w .' 140,063; Glasgow, 411,415 jpreat Yarmouth, 46,159; Halifax, 7030; Bar., ley, 48,3(1] ; Hudderefi#, 87,107 ■ Hull, 165,690; King«»*n-Tt* Q)( V , 20,648; Lancaster, 20,60® I