Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 25 July 1922.
Mr. J. JONES:
Some of us are not business men, and therefore we cannot altogether understand the arguments that have just been advanced by the hon. Member for Mossley (Mr. Hopkinson). As far as we are concerned, we recognise the position, those of us who happen to belong to authorities that represent localities where we have invested a great amount of public money in electrical development, and I venture to suggest that if the hon. Member had represented a Constituency where they had gone in for the development of electrical undertakings he would not have argued in the way he has just done. A public body investing its money in an electricity undertaking is not investing its money for the benefit of people who want profit. It invests its money for the purpose of-developing its industries in its own district. We have spent in West Ham, although we are a poor neighbourhood, nearly £2,000,000 in the development of cheap electricity; and we have, in a period of years, to redeem all the capital invested. I want to point out that the consequence of that has been that we have been able to develop subsidiary industries to our main industries, and have established several factories which otherwise would not have been able to to be carried on. While private firms engaged in electrical production are only expected to pay dividends on capital invested, we are expected to do more. We are expected to produce a profit to some extent upon the result of our activities, and are expected to redeem our capital within a certain limited period of years. That places us in a different category from the ordinary investing public. We have been successful in our task. We have been able to keep the price of gas down as a result of our electrical development. As far as I understand the argument of the last Speaker, it is that we must be "cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd."
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