The age-herald., 1900-06-26

the end of seven years we will have paid $l050 for 1000 feet. The differ ence in thirty years under the new con tract and seven years of the present rate and 23 years at $1 per 1000 feet will be only Sl2O. For fifteen years the difference would be only cents The attitude of the Age-Herald in the matter was laudable; it is an innqyation in local journalism but l don't think its editors have studied the question.
 'The contract with the Birmingham Gas Company does not prevent another com pany coming in; the Mayor and Board of Aldermen would not dare refuse a fran chise to a new company.
 What We want is immediate reduction, and this proposed contract gives us re- auction of p cents per thousand at once" MT. Steiner said he considered $65O,OOO as very reasonable price for the Gas Com pany's plant.
 In answer to a question asked by Captain White, he said he was not sure as to the amount the plant was assessed for taxa ton, but believed it was about $2OO,0OO
 Alderman Thsch
 Alderman Thach member of the Judiciary committee of the City Council, was re- quested by President Roden of the Gas Company to explain the proposition of the Birmingham Gas Company. MT Thach said he had given the subject much thought. As he understood the proposition the city was to grant the Birmingham Gas Company the right for thirty years to lay pipes under the streets and alleys of the city, and that the Gas Company agrees not to charge for gas furnished consumers over $l.26 per thousand feet, with deduc- tions made, for the first ten years; at $1.17 for the next ten years; at $1.0S for the next five and at $l for the last five. He said that the average cost of gas for the thirty years under the present contract for seven years longer and dollar gas for the re- maining twenty-three and the new contract with the sliding scale would be only si2O for the thirty years.
 Mr. Thach here read resolution adopted by the Mayor and Aldermen on February 24, 1891, and which reads as follows
 Another Contract
 Resolved, That the change and ex- tension from ten Q0) to thirty (30) years of the original contract, dated Septem- Der 19, 1890, made by the Mayor and AL dermen of Birmingham and the Bir- mingham Gas Company is hereby &C., 5 cepted, and that the Mayor be and is hereby authorized, empowered and di- rected to cause to be prepared and to accept for and on behalf of this city a formal contract with the said Gas Com pany embodying such amendment and change so as to make the said contract a thirty-year instead of ten-year con- tract with a further provision that once at the expiration of each and every ten years during the period of said contract the cost of gas to the city, for police ! buildings and camps and for private consumers is to be compared with the price of gas paid for by other cities in the United States of like size and popu- lation, and the price regulated and ad- justed between the parties, so as not to make the gas for the city, for public buildings, camps and for private con- sumers cost exceeding the price that other cities in the United States of like size and population are paying; and that said Gas Company is to furnish this city with gas free of cost for fif- teen street lights for thirty years, as set forth in their proposition to the Board of Mayor and Aldermen of Bir- mingham, dated the 24th day of Feb- ruary, 1884,"
 The Contract Signed On May 6, 1891, the Mayor informed the board that he had signed the contract with the Birmingham Gas Company in accord- ance with the authority delegated to him by the resolution of February 24.
 Continuing, MT. Thach said:
 "As member of the Judiciary and Light Committees, and one who was trying to