An Oil-gas Company is mak...
An Oil-gas Company is making strenuous efforts to obtair by act oF Parliament the privilege of lighlting London and XVestminster, and certain parishes adjacent, wit'h oil-gas, The undertaking is as vigorously opposed by the chartered "Gas-light and Coke Company" already existing. Wt assume it as a thing of course, that the new association can have no idea of forcing their article upon the public, but merely desire to have a legislative sanction for furnishing light to such parishes or individuals as may think proper to deal with them in preference to other companies. To such a project we cannot see that there lies any reasonable ob- jection. The public have an undoubted title to the enjoy- ment of a commodity so essential as ]ight, on the easiest terms on whiich it can be procured in the market; and if the monopoly held, by the " Gas and Coke Company" has enabled its directors to sell at a higher price to the me. tropolis than that at which another establishment is willing to ensure the same article in equal amount, and of equal or superior quality, it is difficult to imagine on what principle such an advantage can be justly refused to the inhabitants of Westminster ard London. As well might an individual butcher, or company of butchers, obtain-and having obtained, demand to be per- petuated-a charter for the exclusive sale of beef, as this Gas and Coke Company pretend that they ought tb have the undistturbed privilege of lighting the kitchens in which the beef is roasted. If, !s the Gas and Cokcepeaple say,l coal-gas can be provided ior less money than-gas fromn oil; why then the public -iill continue to- liy;cOal-'as-the new company will get xn custom n the actrwhich incorpb-' rates them must remain ; dead leLier, and the dealers in the coal article may save thema selves the trouble of opposing it. If, on the other hand, oil be cheaper, then the public have surely a right to the benefit of that cheapness; if a struggle between the rival gasses should take place, and each at- tetupt to undersell the other, then, again, very manifestly, so much the more fortunate for the consumer-we shall thence be certain of enjoying a universal comfort to rich an(t poor at the lowest price at which a reasonable profit can be derived from the maniufacture and the sale of it; for at a loss, it is self-evident that neither gas-making nor any other trade will long continue to be carried on. The interest of the consumer ig the only one about which, generally speak- ing, we need entertain much anxiety. 3ndividuals or sub- ordinate bodies know how to protect their own concerns, and can accommodate the application of their capital to each successive change of circumstances; but when a monopoly is established and defended, where is the con- sumer to seek redress ?