Canton, Aug. 19.
All the vicissitudes that the Canton Electric Supply Ca. has experienced are recounted in a printed history that the old Board of Directors has circulated. The attention of the public and the Government is to be focussed on the question of the restoration of the plant to the private investors. An extraordinary meeting of the shareholders is being called, whereupon a petition will be sent in, calling for the ending of public ownership.
The company was organized In 1907. Of the $1,500,000 capital, the Government subscribed half, but by the second year of the Republic all of the Government's shares had been assigned to private owners. The original power house could furnish only 2,000 kilowatts of electricity, but by 1932 the capacity had been increased to 24,000 kilowatts.
'The output should have been sutficient to give a first-class service, had not Chen Chi-tang and Mayor Lam Man-kol endorsed the stealing of electricity by all in the government service, by persons who had influence in' the Kuomintang, by labour unions, and by various other organizations." With many exempt from paying for current consumed, there was a tremendous wastage un-Ail lights had to be dimmed all over the city so. that there would be enough electricity to go round.
"Excessive Charge"
To make life more miserable for the electric company, the Government found fault with the "excessive" charge of 25 cents per unit which, though high, under the circumstances, did not bring in enough to cover expenses, The rate had to be reduced to 20 cents, and the company was ordered to acquire more dynamos so that the capacity of the plant would bbe increased. Two dynamos were subsequently installed, each capable of producing 1,000 kilowatts, and these were put in a new building on the Honan side of the Pearl River.
It cost $1,200,000 to provide this auxiliary power station, 'The Government then found fault' with the service and Commissioner Tang Yin-wah, of the Reconstruction Department, was made responsible for an improvement. As long as Mr. Tang remained in office restrictions were not onerous, for he never moved without consulting the company's officers first. After he retired, how-lever, matters went from bad to worse, and: in 1930 the municipal government assumed control of the plant. Tu June, 1931, the company should have been restored to the private owners, but the period of public contro!' was extended. On July 8 832, an order appeared by virtue of which the oticers lected by the shareholders were ousted, and ownership by the Government became a fact.
Private investors then had about {$10,000,000 tied up in the property of the electric light administration, None of what they had invested has ever been paid to them by the Gov. ernment, nor had any interest. Contrary to the policy (which it had been demanded should be followed) of reducing the rate for current, the Government raised it to 25 cents per unit; {wo cents was supposed to be for education purposes and three cents for reconstruction purposes, New Plant Being Built 'A large, new plant is now going up at Saichuen, and those connected with the old private company have ascertained that it was the intention fof the regime that has since been deprived of its power to hand back the old plant to the shareholders once the new one began working. Accounts would thus be deemed to be "squared, but the shareholders would have had to serap the old plant. This would have brought very little, giving them back only a fow cents on the dollar of what they had sunk into the enterprise.
The land on which the new power station is being erected at Saichuen was acquired with power income. Out of this income, the buildings are being constructed, and the dynamos bought. The shareholders therefore contend that their money made the more up-lo-date power house possible, and that it as well as the more antiquated plant on the Bund, should be given into their hands, and service for all Canton should, as before, be furnished by the company which they founded.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.