president's address. 21 



improvements are postponed. When bad times come, then there is no 

 money to spend on improvements ; they are again postponed until 

 better times arrive. 



What can be done ? 



I would answer : Do as other nations have done and are doing ; 

 take stock annually. The Americans have a permanent Commission 

 initiated by Mr. Roosevelt, consisting of three representatives from each 

 State, the sole object of which is to keep abreast with the diminution 

 of the stores of natural energy, and to take steps to lessen its rate. This 

 is a non-political undertaking, and one worthy of being initiated by the 

 ruler of a great country. If the example is followed here, the question 

 will become a national one. 



Two courses are open to us; first, the laissez-faire plan of leaving 

 to self-interested competition the combating of waste; or second, 

 initiating legislation which, in the interest of the whole nation, will 

 endeavour to lessen the squandering of our national resources. This 

 legislation may be of two kinds: penal, that is, imposing a penalty 

 on wasteful expenditure of energy-supplies; and helpful, that is, im- 

 parting information as to what can be done, advancing loans at an 

 easy rate of interest to enable reforms to be carried out, and insisting 

 on the greater prosperity which would result from the use of more 

 efficient appliances. 



This is not the place, nor is there the time, to enter into detail ; 

 the subject is a complicated one, and it will demand the combined 

 efforts of experts and legislators for a generation; but if it be not con- 

 sidered with the definite intention of immediate action, we shall be held 

 up to the deserved execration of our not very remote descendants. 



The two great principles which I have alluded to in an earlier part 

 of this address must not, however, be lost sight of; they should guide 

 all our efforts to use energy economically. Concentration of energy 

 in the form of electric current at high potential makes it possible to 

 convey it for long distances through thin and therefore comparatively 

 inexpensive wires ; and the economic coefficient of the conversion of 

 mechanical into electrical, and of electrical into mechanical energy is 

 a high one ; the useless expenditure does not much exceed one-twentieth 

 part of the energy which can be utilised. These considerations would 

 point to the conversion at the pit-mouth of the energy of the fuel into 

 electrical energy, using, as an intermediary, turbines, or preferably gas 

 engines ; and distributing the electrical energy to where it is wanted. 

 The use of gas engines may, if desired, be accompanied by the produc- 

 tion of half-distilled coal, a fuel which burns nearly without smoke, 

 and one which is suitable for domestic fires, if it is found too difficult 

 to displace them and to induce our population to adopt the more 

 efficient and economical systems of domestic heating which are used in 



