160 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 
small or large. ‘The small producer, in other goods as well as electricity, 
may show very low costs of production, but fail to find a steady market. 
The grid can offer such a market, and while it has no warehouse or other 
means of storage, it can harmonise the consumer and producer by varying 
the output of the large stations, which will work on the principle of 
keeping up the pressure at distribution centres, and the current will flow 
naturally to where it is demanded. The stations will gradually be placed 
where their costs are lowest, and the pit-heads and coal-cleaning floors 
will be their natural sites for the greater part of this country. The 
economies thus made possible will attract consumers that are at present 
in doubt, and a great increase will ensue. 
The process of introducing these new supplies need not be sudden or 
simultaneous at all parts, nor need the existing stations be hastily dis- 
carded. What is required is a policy of making all extensions of power 
at pit-head stations, and allowing a natural development of this policy 
as is found good. The closing down of the present small stations, and 
the normal rate of growth, will give opportunity for a large-scale trial in 
a few years, and commencing with the most suitable places, the process 
can be steadily continued. Every improvement in methods of trans- 
mission will place the pit-head station in a stronger position for the supply 
to large towns. 
The question of the ownership of these large pit-head stations will 
require consideration. Several solutions are possible, but for all of 
them it is essential that there shall be co-operation between the producers 
of coal and the producers of electricity. ‘The one party must be assured 
of a steady sale of their cheap fuel, that they may be willing to remodel 
their business to suit the new outlet ; the other party must be assured of 
a steady low price, that they may not be exploited after they have given 
hostages by large expenditure on the new stations. It seems a suitable 
case for a central control, as without guarantees neither party would be 
wise to commit themselves, though the advantages to both seem fairly 
certain and considerable. A proposal of such wholesale common action 
would have seemed impracticable ten years ago; but we are becoming 
used to Central Boards, and the Coal Board and the Electricity Board 
are already in being for the purpose. 
To the owners of large generating stations these proposals may appear 
rather alarming. The supply companies in whose areas are coal-pits 
will be able to put their new stations at the pits and reap the full advantage, 
and they constitute the majority. The others will have the choice of 
importing a bulk supply, if it is cheaper than their own product. The 
case of the large cities in the coal areas, which have their own stations 
but no pits in the city area, presents some difficulty. Sooner or later 
their stations may be outclassed by foreign imports. But it must be 
recognised that there is nothing permanent in engineering, least of all in 
electrical engineering, and a fitting motto for the supply industry may be 
taken from In Memoriam : 
* Our little systems have their day ; 
They have their day and cease to be.’ 
