§ DR. MACNAMARA (Camberwell, N.)To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will explain why the Board of Trade have decided not to sanction the application of the London Electric Supply Corporation, Limited, for an extension of its area in the northern portion of the borough of Camberwell, so as to include the entire borough, such application haying the approval of the local authority, having regard to the fact that an application of the County of London and Brush Provincial Electric Lighting Company made in 1896 to supply the entire parish of Camberwell, including the area then granted to (and in competition with) the London Electric Supply Corporation, Limited, was granted by the Board of Trade; and whether, seeing that the practice of the Board of Trade has been to grant competitive orders throughout the Metropolis when application for them has been supported by the local authority, he will state in what previous cases the Board has refused such applications; and whether the decision of the Board not to grant the order now applied for by the London Electric Supply Corporation, Limited, can be re-considered and the order granted, so that the matter may be decided by Parliament.
(Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) It appeared from the evidence which was submitted at the inquiry that the London Electric Supply Corporation, who obtained parliamentary powers in the northern part of the borough of Camberwell in 1890, executed no works there until 1898, and at the date of the inquiry had only sixty-four consumers. Having regard to this and to other circumstances 1204 connected with the case, and also to the fact that the Company had made no survey of the proposed area, and no estimates of cost or revenue, it seemed to the Board that the order ought not to be sanctioned, and if sanctioned, that there was no probability of its receiving the assent of Parliament, In these circumstances they did not think it desirable to put the parties to the expense of fighting the case before a Parliamentary Committee. It has no doubt been the practice to grant competitive powers in the Metropolis, but only in the more urban and populous parts. In reply to the second part of the question, the Board of Trade have refused to grant competitive orders in Clerkenwell, St. Luke's, Hackney, Newington, and Wandsworth. I am not prepared to reconsider the decision.