power: its significance and needs. 
31 
water-power site especially favored by natural advantage is sus- 
ceptible to development under these conditions in competition with 
the prevailing cost of steam power. These favored examples also 
frequently provide a bone of contention over which conflicting in- 
terests raise a great to do, tending to create the impression that the 
water-power resources of the country constitute a tremendous asset 
whose possibilities are being arbitrarily withheld from their normal 
course of unfoldment. Nothing could be much further from the 
truth. With the exception of the few conspicuous instances that 
serve as a stimulus in keeping the question alive, no particular sig- 
nificance attaches to the country’s undeveloped water power under 
existing conditions of finance, or will, until either these conditions 
have been lived down or steps have been taken to better them. The 
former represents a tendency which left to itself is not likely to yield 
anything of consequence for years to come. Nor is there any room for 
hope in technological advance. The issue of cost is a matter which, 
like the legal and sentimental obstacles just outlined, must be over- 
come, and the only wajr in sight lies through arrangements which 
will impart a degree of stability to water-power securities such that 
they will receive the benefit of a reduced rate of interest. This 
phase of the subject will receive further attention later on. 
Thus the influences holding back water-power development are of 
a threefold order. These do not operate separately, but in conjunc- 
tion with one another. Water-power development stands in need 
of special consideration; instead, it meets with special opposition. 
There is none to work in its behalf except those with special objects 
in view, and the recognition of this quality in their efforts has gone 
to establish opposition. The contention in this wise has grown to be 
organized on both sides, with each alike oblivious to the real com- 
munity of interests involved and legislative action caught fast in 
an entanglement of compromise. In all three respects the situation 
is in a deadlock and the likeliest chance of a break toward progress 
lies in the entry of a new standard in the field, a standard under 
which the rights and best interests of all concerned can have the 
assurance of fitting recognition. 
The carboelectric issue, on the other hand, is far less advanced 
and correspondingly less complicated. It has scarcely progressed 
beyond the general setting of inertia which characterizes the failure 
to locate power stations at the source of fuel supply and still de- 
termines their establishment distributively at the points of use. 
There have been no special interests involved to stimulate any par- 
ticular activity otherwise; there has in consequence arisen no basis 
for the provocation of organized opposition or legal byplay. The 
hydroelectric issue has been seen to stand in need of a new stand- 
ard ; the issue of carboelectricity has not even been popularly recog- 
