It is a great disaster that this Bill was ever introduced. It is a remnant of the old Bill. It is unsound in principle. I do not believe you will ever get, under this Bill, electricity at the cheap rate which is necessary, or under any other Bill which is aimed at electricity being produced ad hoc by ad hoc companies. There is only one way you will ever get cheaper electrical power, and that is by taking advantage of the facilities which might be offered by the railway companies of this country if it were possible for an enlightened Parliament to see its way to grant a franchise to the railways to electrify themselves and provide the power of heat and light which this Bill fails to do in an adequate way. Then you might have the railway companies of this country producing electricity as a side line for public purposes, whereas you have under this Bill ad hoc authorities to supply electric light and power, and long before they have been able to obtain a sufficient volume of business to justify their cost and their heavy overhead charges, they will sink under the weight of their overhead charges, and their unit prices will have to be kept up for a great many years to come.

The consequence will be that electric consumers will be burdened with charges from which they can never recover, whereas if a more imaginative and practical policy had been adopted, if more vision had been shown, if the railway companies had been told that the State would assist them to electrify themselves and give them powers subject to due provision that they shall not overcharge the consumer, we should have had a more