12 CONSTRUCTION AND MANAGEMENT OK SMALL GASWORKS. 



regarded as a tower of defence against hostility. Disputes 

 between small gas companies and local authorities are rare ; 

 but this is rather to be accounted for by the fact that the 

 two bodies are to some extent synonymous, than by the 

 non-existence of exciting causes. In urban districts, there 

 is not a superfluity of suitable candidates for public 

 positions, and it not unfrequently happens that the chair- 

 man of the gas company is also chairman of the parish 

 council or urban district council, and that some of the 

 members of the one are directors of the other. The small 

 company is not altogether looked upon as a profitable 

 investment, but is promoted, from a sense of public spirit, 

 to provide the advantages incidental to a gas supply. 

 Difficulties are more apt to arise when the ownership of the 

 gasworks is of an absentee landlord character, as may be 

 the case if the property gets on to the market, and is pur- 

 chased by parties at a distance. Assuming that a Provisional 

 Order is secured, the clauses usually embodied in it, 

 referring to the right to lay mains, are so strangely worded 

 and badly expressed that they are of very little use in the 

 face of a hostile authority. 



Referring to sections 6-12 of the Gasworks Clauses Act, 

 1847, it W M De seen tnat sections 6-8 are clear enough, 

 but that any advantage given by them is greatly dis- 

 counted by section 9, which stipulates that no street shall 

 be broken up except under the superintendence of the 

 persons having the control thereof, or of their officer, and 

 "according to such plan as shall be approved by such 

 persons or iheir officer." Under this clause, the authority 

 can practically force any terms thty think fit, in the form 

 of conditions, without which the consent or approval will 

 not be granted. It is not clear whether the word " plan " 

 is used in the sense of a general scheme, or of a drawing to 



