EI.ECTRIC POWER FOR COUNTRY DISTRICTS 



tracts for the purchase of current and the concession of electric plant, as 

 well as the management, examination and approval of installations of 

 electric plant and inspection of the accounts relating to them. 



The first to promote such advisory and practical action in connection 

 with the supply of electric power, was the National Federation of German 

 Co-operative Societies. The technical office founded in connection with it, 

 the central society for the construction of machinery [Maschinenhauzentrale], 

 immediately after its foundation in 1906, offered its services to the move- 

 ment, and the co-operative societies have profited by this largely. Later 

 on, in those districts where the tendency to make use of electric power 

 has made great advance, a number of co-operative federations provided 

 for the constitution of their own electrical engineering divisions. In 

 other federations, the departments for the sale of machinery or their 

 central societies for purchase and sale undertook the work of advising in 

 matters connected with electricity, engaging competent engineers for the 

 purpose. In other places again, the Chambers of Agriculture or the pro- 

 \dncial or Government authorities have founded electrical engineering 

 offices for the purpose of giving information or advice. Thus almost the 

 whole German Empire has been in a brief period covered by an almost 

 uninterrupted network of competent advisory electrical engineering offices. 



At the International Congress of Baden-Baden, Herr Saenger, who is 

 president of a federation, described very clearly the advantages of these 

 advisory offices. He showed how there has been a considerable amount saved 

 through a carefiil examination of prices and the encouragement of compet- 

 ition for contracts of work. Nor is the preference always given to those 

 firms that offer the most advantageous conditions, but account is taken of 

 the general circumstances, the economic strength and the guarantee offered. 

 As we have said above, there is free competition for the installation of 

 electric plant in houses. And by means of free competition prices have 

 been reduced, while the supervision on the part of the federation is a 

 serious guarantee of the quality of the work. The establishments of the 

 local system and the installations were from time to time visited by 

 engineers and their defects immediately reported. Of course such a system 

 of super\dsion was not too readily accepted by the electric plant firms. 



Where, as in the Province of Saxony, large central societies have 

 been formed under the legal form of co-operative societies, the work 

 of the electrical engineering officers has proceeded on a larger and more 

 complete scale. The electrical engineering office has from the first aimed 

 at avoiding every unreasonable subdivision due to the foundation of 

 small societies of too little strength, and only encourages those under- 

 takings that, on a careful examination of all the economic and technical 

 circumstances, give promise of ? prosperous development. Nor does it 

 limit itself to acting when electric enterprises are proposed or the buildings 

 for them erected, but it attaches the greatest importance to constant 

 vigilance in regard to those already started and gives them advice. The 

 object of this continual vigilance and advisory action is to collect all the 

 practical experience obtained and to effect that every undertaking concerned 



