J827.] Supply furnished to the Metropolis. 467 



districts lie together ; and all they have a chance of accomplishing, is, in a 

 certain degree, to displace the Grand Junction Company against which 

 some displeasure on the part of the public, at the present moment, very 

 reasonably exists. But this course beyond answering the end of some 

 half-dozen agents, directors, and attornies, who will gain ten times as much 

 by conducting the speculation as they lose by having a share in it will 

 have no other result than that of wasting the property of a great number of 

 small capitalists who are to be drawn into supporting it, without affording 

 the slightest security to the public against the recurrence of the evil of 

 which they really have to complain. 



There may be and we are rather afraid there is in despite of the 

 exposures which have taken place of the late monstrous frauds and bubbles 

 connected with the formation of joint stock companies a remnant of incli- 

 nation in the public mind for speculations of this character ; and. there- 

 fore at the hazard of being tedious we will venture to go a little further 

 upon this question of the formation of a " New Joint Stock Water Com- 

 pany." 



All that any new establishment can possibly expect to accomplish, com- 

 ing into the market to oppose a company already in possession of a district, 

 w i[l foe standing at an outlay equal to that of the company attacked,- 

 which shall supply, we will say, ten thousand houses to obtain the supply 

 of halfi\\o.i number of houses, at a considerably decreased average rent or 

 rate of payment. The West Middlesex Company, for instance to select 

 an establishment against which there is no accusation, and which certainly 

 supplies excellent water, and from an unobjectionable source, to its custom- 

 ers this company possesses say with an expenditure of 1 3,000 per 

 annum an income arising from the supply of eleven thousand houses, at 

 an average of fifty shillings per house of 27,000. A company which 

 started to oppose the West Middlesex Company would certainly in order 

 to get away half its customers have to reduce the average price of the 

 supply from fifty shillings to thirty-five shillings. It is probable that the 

 reduction would go a great deal further : but, at least, it would go so far 

 which would bring down the whole income arising from the eleven thou- 

 sand houses, from 27,000 to less than 20,000. Taking the expenditure 

 of each of these companies, then, still to be 13,000 a year for to supply 

 one side of each street in a district, or half the houses of any district, would 

 cost, within a mere trifle, as much as to supply the whole then each 

 company would receive not quite 10,000 a year of income. And, even 

 supposing that we have put this calculation unfavourably a fact which 

 we entirely deny and that more fortunate circumstances might increase 

 the revenue of each competing company to 15,000 instead of 10,000 

 although we see no source which could possibly lead to such a result ; still 

 the trade of the entire district of eleven thousand houses would only be 

 done at double the first cost that performed it originally ; and neither of 

 the two companies, after defraying its annual expenses, would have five 

 shillings per cent, to divide, for interest on capital, among its proprietors. 



This is precisely the course of events supposed to arise out of an over- 

 extended competition, by the Parliamentary Committee of 1821. The 

 people who supplied the funds for a new company would lose their money. 

 The town would be parcelled out unless one establishment was finally 

 exterminated into st\r districts, instead of five. And the little " com- 

 mittee," who superintended the expenditure of the 300,000 capital, 



3 O 2 



