Shanghai, Apr. 22.
N appeal to consumers of electricity in the Settlement to exorcise every economy and not waste electricity was made in a press conference yesterday by a spokesman of the Shanghai Power Company who disclosed that the measures adopted to reset usage and conserve fuel during the present crisis have failed to achieve their purpose and fuel is being consumed at a rate substantially in excess of replacements.
If this continues, he declared; Shanghai would soon have to curb its use of fuel at least by half. The company, he disclosed, had made no real progress in getting additional fuel to Shanghi He revealed that the company has secured permission from the Shang hal Munlelpel Council to charge any consumer whose established usage of electricity is 1,000 Kilowatt hours or Tess per month who shall exceed the 1000" kilowatt hours a rate six times fig mich as the average alsin rate charged for the first 1,000 kilowatt hours, instead of three times. The additional revenue which the company I derive, he explained, will be redited to" a {wel conservation reserve which will be utilized to purchase high-priced coal.
Only. 3,000 out of the 85,000 consumers of the company would be affected by the mew measure, and explained that the entire purpose of the measure was to dis-the use of electricity. as much as possible, He admitted 1 the method could not be called selentifie way of controlling consump Mien as it would discriminate against the factories where power consump: ion wax n major part of the cost of the total finished product. The mea sure, however, was a temporary one pending the decision of the Council garding the report of the special committee appointed to study the power question. After paying Hlowing tribute to the committee, he said that they had worked unhinderany member of the public. While he did not disclose particulars fof their allocation scheme, he said was a matter which needed the most careful consideration owing to the Inbour problems involved,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.