The Sun.
London, England, 1847-11-29 00:00:00

GAS COMPANIES. ,

The gas movement is gradually but steadily worm-
ing itself into the most vital interests and anxieties,
and resolutions, of the people, far and wide. C.
Un*.FA,
this now well-recognised title, the Bedfor4 Tithe 4-1
intimates that the price at Bedford has been reduced
from 10s. to 7s. 6d. A correspondent, " X.Y.Z.,"
informs us that the movement is at work. in
Slough, where Mr. J. C. Buckmaster has been
lecturing and advising the Sloughites to take
so safe- an investment into their own hands
ere the Great Western monopolize it, (by
the, establishment of some coke manufactory,
we presume). His hearers took the hint, and
next day called a meeting and opened a share-list
with 500/. on the spot. In consequence of the im-
portant and significant movement of certain manu-
facturing and other firms towards the manufacture
of their own gas, the Lincoln Gas Company were
again lately urged by some of their own shareholders
to authorize "a still further reduction of the price
as a b. on to the consumer, and a matter of
policy, to prevent private enterprize in the
manufacture." The Winchester consumers can-
not see why they should be called upon to pay
the enormous price of 1 ls., while at Southampton
the charge is now reduced to 65., and this is likely
hence to be " the win'er of their discontent," which
will he follow( d by a summer of a mparative satis-
faction. Tne Roinsey gas consumers have been
grumblirg and aggrieved, nit only at the enormity
of the price of their gas-12s. 6d. per I,ooo—but
at being obliged to pay more for it than the commis- •
si.mers for lighting the town do. The commis-
sioners have power, probably ; they are united as
an association, and might soon erect gas works for
themselves. The British Branch Company have
been feasting several of the large consumers at
Norwich !—as if the Norwich public were not the
largest consumers in the town. For public companies
at Doncaster—in whom even the Doncaster Gas
Company seem still to stand in salutary awe—
the price charged is only 3s. 00. per 1,000
feet. But why not regard the public itself as
a large company, and charge them all the same ?
It is indeed a company alone a league—that
will do. Why, the average prices charged to public
companies almost everywhere else, significantly point
in the same direction. Public companies at Bradford,
Barnsley, Dewsbury, Halifax, Huddersfield, Leeds,
Pontefract, Rotherham, Sheffield, Wakefield, Ste.,
pay very little more than at Doncaster, viz., 3s. Sid.
per 1,000.—A new consumers' company, by the
way, was some time ago determined on at Belper,
where the price to private consumers' has
been 9s. per 1,000 cubic feet. This is one way to
convert small consumers into large ones, only they
must feast themselves. Safer investments than many
such projects mast inevitably prove to be, in prepara-
tion for the coming general illumination, cannot wall
be conceived. As the Albion reminds its readers,
the committe of the Guardian Consumer's Company
have already saved nearly 50,0001 per annum to the
people of Liverpool—ay, while even greatly improv-
ing the acknowledged prospects of those very com-
panies from whose pockets the 50,0001. per annum
have been taken or withheld !—The Builder.