162 SHOULD SCALE SLIDE OR NOT 



on the first quantity of water that is sold from each service. 

 In other words, instead of putting it equally on all the water, it 

 is divided unequally. Some of it, of course, should go with all 

 the water, because there is some cost of distribution in all cases, 

 and the manufacturers ought to pay a part, but not in propor- 

 tion to the yolumes of water that they take. 



When this method is followed we have the sliding scale. 

 The difference in distribution cost furnishes a rational reason 

 for the use of the sliding scale, and perhaps it is the only rational 

 reason that can be assigned for its use at this time. 



The calculations that have been made from the examples 

 from water-works systems taken from our office files will not 

 be presented in detail. One of them is given as an illustration 

 of the method of analysis and computation, in Chapter XVII, 

 p. 182. As a result of that study as far as it has proceeded at 

 the present time, it seems very clear to the writer that sliding 

 scales of the kind that have been and still are in use, where -the 

 ratios between the rates charged for water to the smallest con- 

 sumers and those charged for water to the largest manufactur- 

 ing estabsishments, reach 3 to i and even 5 to i and more, 

 cannot be justified. They are a relic of conditions that are 

 gone, and rates that have grown out of conditions that have 

 gone ought to be discontinued. But, on the other hand, a 

 sliding scale having a ratio of perhaps 1.50 to i.oo, that is to 

 say, a scale of rates under which domestic consumers are charged 

 50 per cent more per 1000 gallons than is paid by manufactur- 

 ing takers, has good, substantial reason for its ex'stence, and it 

 is not by any means clear that such a sliding scale ought to be 

 discarded. 



As a result of the rapid study it appears to the writer that 

 this ratio of 1.5 to i or at most 2.0 to i is all that is justified 

 by existing conditions in the plants that have been taken for 

 study, but other cases will undoubtedly be found representing 

 more nearly the condition of a new plant with large surplus 

 capacity, like that used above as an illustration, where a wider 

 ratio may be desirable. 



For example, Mr. Leonard Metcalf writes of a case where 



