Land & Water 
A Village on Exmoor 
'4 
Revolution that it 
gave new power 
and range to in- 
dustry', and that it 
only ser\'ed human 
n^ds in so far 
as the improve- 
ment of industry 
increased the 
opportunities of 
freedom, and hap- 
piness, and wealth. 
In many respects 
it degraded human 
hfe, and made men 
and women less 
their own masters. 
With a new revolu- 
tion in prospect, 
are we going to 
apply the stan- 
dards of our fpre- 
fathers, or are we 
going to say that this new power must be regarded 
primarily as a means of improving and enriching human 
life ? If we take the first standard, we shall let electricity 
go the way of steam. We shall trust its development 
and direction to the guidance of economic motive, just 
as our great-grandfathers threw their generation to the 
tender mercies of the steam engines and the railwaj's, 
and left the whole art of social hfe to take care of itself. If 
we take the second standard, we shall ask of the new power 
that it shall serve not merely the big industry in the town, 
and the big house in town and country, but that it shall 
serve every village and every cottage, reducing labour, 
increasing comfort, enriching liic. s 
Let anybody with his eye on the village as it is to-day 
think what it would mean if the country roads were lighted 
by electricity ; if every cottage had electric light and electric 
heating ; if every village had its village club and its village 
cinema lighted and worked by electricit\'. This might have 
seemed an ambitious programme before the \var, but we 
have learnt a new perspective during the last three years ; 
we have learnt it at home, and the soldiers have certainly 
learnt it in the trenches. And in this new atmosphere it is 
natural to ask ourselves not " What will this or that improve- 
ment cost," but what will it cost not to make this improve 
ment ? And if man has aimed himself with a new f)ower, 
why should the town benefit and not the village ? 
What are the wants of a village ? Decent houses, with 
gardens ; a decent water supply ; decent lighting in the 
roads and in the cottages ; convenient and "economical 
arrangements for heating ; an efficient school, with arrange- 
ments for a travelling library and travelling pictures. The 
centre of village life of every kind for men and women should 
be an institute supplying the various needs of the village, 
managed by the village itself. This would include a club 
house where people can buy wholesome beer, with newspaper- 
rooms and rooms for games ; recreation grounds ; a hall 
where trade unionists and co-operators can transact their 
business ; rooms for entertainments, lectures, classes, and 
dances ; and a cinema. It is probable that a good many 
Y.M.C.A. huts would be available for these uses after the war. 
If we could see five years from to-day that every village 
was completely supplied on this scale, how we should have 
added to the happiness and health of our nation. 
In working out such a programme, cheap electricity does 
more than half our work for us. It effects an enormous 
reduction in the labour, the discomfort, and the dirt of every 
cottage. Think what it means not to carry coal to the 
cottage ; to obtain your hot water and your hot oven without 
trouble ; to be rid of the lamp that has to be trimmed and 
tended ; to have light and heat without delay or dust. 
Think what it means to have electricity to light your club, 
to work your cinema, to warm your concert-raom. Under 
such circumstances, even Horace's bailiff might have recon- 
sidered his objections to country life. 
Let anybody, after making up his mind that the English 
village deserves to be a happy and comfortable place, turn 
to the report of the Coal-conservation Sub-Committee on 
electric power supply in Great Britain. This document was 
published by the Ministry of Reconstruction a short time ago, 
and can be bought for threepence. We learn from that report 
that there are infinite possibihties if we decide to organise 
the production and distribution of electricity on sensible 
lines. At present there are some 600 different authorities 
dealing with the supply of electricity in as many- 
different districts. This arrangement is obviously un- 
June 6, igi8 
economical and 
obstructive. It is 
as inconvenient as 
it would be to con- 
trol our railways 
on the principle 
of allowing each 
small district to 
be treated as a 
separate area for 
railway adminis- 
tration. 
The committee 
recommend that a 
single authority 
should be set . 
up — a Board of 
Electricity Com- 
missioners — with 
full power to deal 
with the supply 
of electricity 
throughout the 
country. Great Britain should be divided into some 
si.xteen districts, in each of which there should be one 
authority deaHng with all the generation and main dis- 
tribution. Sites should be chosen suitable for electric 
generating purposes on important waterways as the future 
main centres of supply for each of the districts into which the 
country is to be divided. These sites should be large enough 
for the erection of plant suitable for the processes necessary 
for extracting by-products from the coal. 
Certain important truths emerge from this report. What 
are the great advantages of the large power station over the 
system by which power is generated for their own use by 
individual manufacturers and railway companies, each with 
their separate plant ? There is, first of all, the enormous 
economies in the use and transport of coal. Secondly, there 
is a great deal of coal that can be used for generating elec- 
tricity, which it does not pay to transport any distance. 
Thirdly, there are many by-products to be extracted from 
the coal of great value for agriculture. Fourthly — and, in 
some respects, most important of all — the secret of economy 
in generating electricity is the use of plant to its maximum, 
and that is secured by supplying all the diverse needs of a 
community. One station is supplying electricity only for 
certain hours of the day when the factory is working. Another 
station is supplying electrical power to industry in the day, 
and electric light in tlie evenings. During the night and on 
Sundays it is pumping water ; that is, it is always occupied. 
What an engineer aims at is obtaining a regular "load," 
keeping his plant in constant use. The committee estimate 
that, apart from the manufacturing and industrial advan- 
tages of a cheap and efficient electric supply, we should save 
a hundred millions a year by putting the generating and 
distribution of electricity on a proper basis. 
Let us now apply these tonclusions to the case of the 
village. It is obvious that the more various the demand for 
electricity, the cheaper it is to supply it. It is obvious again 
that agriculture and village industries will become important 
consumers. The saving of unnecessary transport will no- 
where have a more marked effect than in the country. At 
the same time, though the increase of the quantity and 
variety of consumption cheapens the supply, it remains true 
that one form of customer will be more profitable than 
another. This, then, is the question which we have to put 
to ourselves. Are we going to leave it to the ordinary motives 
of commerce to choose what places and what persons shall 
have cheap electricity and what shall go without it ? Or 
are we going to say that in the hght of the infinite possi- 
bilities revealed in the report of the committee, electricity 
may now be treated as a necessary of life to be supplied for 
the community as a whole. 
A great part of this programme depends on public action. 
The new standard of civilisation in respect of housing, water, 
light, electricity, niust be established by law. But there is one 
part of this programme in which private people can play 
an important part. Every country, every parish, will be 
thinking, sooner or later, about its war memorial. What 
better memorial could be found than a village institute, with 
the role of honour inscribed in a conspicuous place, to com- 
memorate the religion of comradeship manifested in the 
trenches ? There are various organisations in touch with 
rural life that might combine to set up committees to raise 
funds. These committees might be organised for this 
purpose to-morrow in the several counties, and architects- 
and artists might strive to make the humblest and simplest 
of these clubs a fit monument to the spirit of the war. 
