The Sun.
London, England, 1865-10-27 00:00:00

The Reduction of the Price of Gas.

Yesteiday an influential 'deputation from . the
parishes of St. Olave, Southwark ; St. John,
Horselydown; St. Mary Magdalene, Bermondsey ;
and St. Mary, Rotherhithe, waited upon the direc-
tors of the Surrey Gas Consumers' Company at
their offices at Dockhead, for the purpose of repre-
senting to the directors the resolutions which had
been agreed to at various meetings which had been
held in the respective parishes on the subject.
Of the deputations who had been appointed from
the different parishes there were present—from St.
John's parish, Mr. Wilkinson, Mr. Sloe, Mr.
Rendle, Mr. Rees, Mr. Marks, Mr. Davis, Mr.
Mills, Mr. Gutteridge, and Mr. Meade, (who re-
presented the firm of Peake, Frean, and Co). From
the parish of St. Mary Magdalene, Bermondsey, the
representatives were Mr Slee, Mr. Rogers, Mr.
Bishop, lion. Sec. of the Gas Agitation Society
Mr. Battasby, Mr: Smith, and Mr. Braziel. For
the parish of Rotherhithethere appeared Mr. Searle,
Mr. Barratt, Mr. Clarke, Mr. Cox, and Mr.
Chandler.
The members of the deputation were summoned
together by Mr. Robert Slee, the vestry clerk of St.
John's, who has taken considerable interest in the
movement, to assemble, at the board-room of the
Rotherhithe Workhouse at- one o'clock, and from
thence to proceed to the premises of the Surrey
Consumers' Company, where they might have the
proposed interview with the directors.
Accordingly, at the hour the gentlemen just
named did assemble there, and after arranging the
course of procedure they were to adopt, proceeded
in a body to meet the directors of the company at
the appointed place. Previous to their doing so,
it was arranged that Mr. Rendle, who is connected
with more than one of the parishes, but who more
particularly represented the parish of St. John's,
should take the lead in the matter, and commenced
the proceedings by statingthe case of the consumers.
The chairman of the board of directors occupied
the chair, and there was a full attendance of the
board.

Mr. RENDLE, in opening the case on the part of
the deputation, repudiated anything of a personal
feeling which he entertained respecting the board of
management. It was true he had several disputes
with them, but these had all been amicably ar-
ranged, and he entertained no bad feeling towards
the board whatever. He, however, came before
them upon public grounds. He considered that in
the interest of the public they ought to lessen the
price, while at the same time the circumstances of
these companies was a strong evidence that they
ought to do so. He had attended at the meetings
which had taken place on that side of the water on
the subject, and he had found at all of them a com-
plaint that the Surrey Consumers' Company was
going beyond its bounds. The Districting Act had,
in fact, placed them in a most awkward position.
What he maintained was that the Districting Act
of 1860 had put into the hands of the directors of
gas companies a power which they were not entitled
to, and of which they did not give the consumers
the advantage. But so far as regarded the present
company, he had, upon the part of the consumers
he represented, to place before them the following
facts. In the first place, they said that the system
of districting which had been adopted was not such
as commended itself io the favour of the consumers.
In the case of the Surrey Gas Consumers' Company
it had been the very reverse. That was, therefore,
what they complained of ; that system was adopted
in consequence of an act of Parliament passed in
1860. That act had, to his mind, altogether failed
in its purpose. In fact, it was obtained under a
subterfuge, for the consumers were cajoled out of
what they considered to be their just rights. Then
there was another ground on which the consumers
thought they had a right to claim a reduction. It
was well known that the company had, in the com-
mencement of their proceedings, leased their works to
Mr. Croll, who had carried them on, under alease of
ten years, on the condition that he paid to the com-
pany a dividend of 8 per cent. per annum. That
agreement had, no doubt, been carried out, but the
consequence had been that the directors, having wil-
fully denuded themselves of the property for the
space of that time, the shareholders were deprived
of the dividends which might have accrued from it,
while the capital was now charged with the payment
of what was called " back dividend," and which went
to keep up the price of gas. He maintained that ,
the directors had no right to charge the dividend
upon the capital of the company.

Mr. MEADE, of Messrs. Peake, Frean, and Co.,
followed on the same side, and referred to the price
of gas in Plymouth as compared with London.
There they got it for 2s. 9d. per thousand cubic feet,
and he must say that their firm was astonished at
the sum they were now charged by this company.
He also complained of the quantity of the gas which
they had got some months ago, while he admitted
that it had improved recently.

Mr. FINLAY, the engineer of the company, stated
that the Plymouth Gas Company was altogether
different from the present one.
Mr. WILKINSON, the churchwarden of St. John's,
Horselydown, also supported the statement of Mr.
Rendle as to the exorbitant charge made by the
directors of the company for their gas, and he ques-

tioned the illuminating power of it.
Mr. NICHOLSON, one of the directors of the com-
pany, argued at great length in support of the sys-
tem the directors were pursuing. They had no other
course of action left for them. By the act of 1860

they were bound to pay the shareholdersl.o per cent.
per annum, together with a bonus in order to make
up past dividends, and the fact of the matter was
that, what with the dividends paid and the sums
paid in the shape of back dividends, that the share-
holders of the company had never received more
than an average dividend at the rate of 8 per
cent. per annum. He also went on to contend
that there had been actually a reduction in the price
of gas on the part of the company, that had been
effected in several ways.. In the first place, there
had been an increase in the illuminating power.
What they were bound to by the act of Parliament
was to give an illuminating power of twelve sperm
candles. Instead of that, however, the illuminat-
ing power of the company's gas was fourteen and
a half and fifteen sperm candles. Independent of
all this, he considered that the deputation from
the various parishes came with a very bad grace
to the board, inasmuch as they had each and all of
them very much increased their rateable value in
the course of the last two years. In the course of
that time they had raised their rateable value assess-
ment from £1,280 to £4,100, and in that respect he
contended that they had got a reduction in the price
of gas, for the additional rates they paid to the
parish must be the means of keeping down the rates

of the other ratepayers.
Considerable conversation then ensued upon the
quality of the gas supplied by the company. Mr.
Wilkinson, Mr. Rendle, and others contended that
the quality was bad, while several of the directors,
and Mr. Finlay, the engineer, contended for its

purity and illuminating power.
Ultimately, the CHAIRMAN, in following up the
remarks of Mr. Nicholson, expressed his regret that
the directors could not at the present time comply
with the demands of the deputation. The reason
Mr. Nicholson had explained—namely, that they
must keep faith with the shareholders in terms of
_ _

the act of 1860—as soon as they had done that they
would be enabled to meet their wishes. No man

would be more anxious to do so than he was him-