Any deficiency of income in any year, when not answered out of the reserve fund, is to be charged upon the local rate. Moneys arising from the sale of land and other receipts of a capital nature are to be applied, first, in reduction of loans for electricity purposes, and, next, in reduction of loans for other purposes.

ACQUISITION OF LAND BY LOCAL AUTHORITY AS UNDERTAKERS.-Section 8 gives power to undertakers who are local authorities to acquire lands by purchase or lease, and to dispose of any such lands not for the time being required. Not more than 5 acres are to be held at one time under this power, without the consent of the Board of Trade.

SYSTEM OF SUPPLY.-Section 10 authorises the undertakers to supply electricity for all public and private purposes within their area of supply, but stipulates that the supply may only be given by means of some system approved in writing by the Board of Trade, and subject to the Board of Trade regulations. It is further stipulated that no part of any circuit may be connected with earth, except so far as necessary for carrying out the Board of Trade regulations, or with the approval of the Board, and the concurrence of the Postmaster-General.

BREAKING UP STREETS, RAILWAYS, AND TRAMWAYS.Section 12 deals with the method of carrying out any powers, which may be inserted in the provisional order or special Act, for enabling the undertakers to break up streets not repairable by the local authority, and railways, and tramways. The powers are only to operate so far as the street, railway, or tramway is upon land dedicated to public use, and, as respects a railway, only as to such parts as pass across or along a highway on the level.

STREET BOXES.-Section 13 gives the undertakers power to construct street boxes for containing apparatus necessary in connection with the supply of electricity, and regulates the method of their construction, and the purposes of their user. Where the undertakers are not the local authority, no street box may be placed above ground, except with the consent of the authority, body, or person

by whom the street is repairable, and the local authority may, with the approval of the Board of Trade, prescribe the hours during which the undertakers are to have access to the boxes.

PROTECTION OF WORKS OF OTHER PARTIES.-Sections 14 to 18 contain elaborate provisions for the protection of the various interests ordinarily liable to be affected by the laying down of the electric lines of the undertakers, and the execution by the undertakers of works upon or in the immediate neighbourhood of streets, railways, tramways, canals, sewers, drains, tunnels, pipes, wires and other special properties. The sort of matters dealt with are the giving of notices and information; approval of plans; execution of protective works; payment of compensation for damage; reservation to the protected parties of rights for themselves to execute, in place of the undertakers, works affecting their special properties; reservation to both undertakers and protected parties of rights to execute works necessary for the discharge of their own functions, notwithstanding that such works may require an alteration of the position of the works of the protected parties or the undertakers, as the case may be; directions as to how such alteration is to be carried out; and generally the imposition of precautions and safeguards for the mutual benefit of the undertakers and the protected parties.

Section 19 gives a further general protection to railway and canal companies. It says that the undertakers in the execution of their works are not in any way to injure the railways, tunnels, arches, works, or conveniences belonging to any railway or canal company, or to obstruct or interfere with the working of the traffic passing along any railway or canal.

Section 20 imposes on the undertakers obligations designed to prevent injurious consequences, whether by induction or otherwise, to the working of telegraphic, telephonic, or electric signalling communication, as a result of anything done by the undertakers in constructing, laying down, and placing their electric lines and other works, and in working their undertaking.

OBLIGATIONS AS TO LAYING MAINS.-Sections 21 to 26 deal with the carrying out of compulsory works which the undertakers may be required by the provisional order or special Act to execute.

Section 21 requires the undertakers, within 2 years after the provisional order comes into operation, to lay down suitable and sufficient distributing mains for the purposes of general supply throughout every street or part of a street specified in that behalf in the provisional order or special Act, and thereafter to maintain those mains; and, further, the undertakers are required, at any time after the expiration of 18 months after the provisional order or special Act comes into operation, to lay down suitable and sufficient distributing mains for the purposes of general supply throughout every other street or part of a street within the area of supply, upon being required to do so in manner provided by the provisional order or special Act, and within 6 months after such requisition, or any further time allowed by the Board of Trade. When any such requisition is made in respect of a street not repairable by the local authority, which the undertakers are not specially authorised to break up by the provisional order or special Act, the undertakers are required (unless the authority or person by whom the street is repairable consents to the breaking up) forthwith to apply to the Board of Trade under section 13 of the Electric Lighting Act, 1882, for the written consent of the Board to the breaking up of the street, and the requisition is not to be binding on the undertakers if the Board refuses such consent.

Under section 22, where undertakers who are not the local authority are about to lay electric lines in a street for supplying a particular consumer, and not for general supply, they must give at least 28 days' notice of their intention to the local authority, and to the owners and occupiers of premises abutting on so much of the street as lies between the points of origin and termination of the proposed electric line, and if within that period any two or more of those owners or occupiers require a supply for their premises in accordance with the terms of the pro

visional order, the necessary distributing main must be laid by the undertakers at the same time as the electric line intended for the particular consumer.

Section 23 prescribes penalties to be paid by the undertakers, and possible revocation of the provisional order or special Act by the Board of Trade, in certain circumtances, where the undertakers make default in complying with their obligations as regards the laying down of distributing mains.

Section 24 provides that any requisition requiring the undertakers to lay down distributing mains for the purposes of general supply throughout any street or part of a street may be made by six or more owners or occupiers of premises along that street or part of a street, or, where the local authority are not themselves the undertakers, and have the control and management of the public lamps in that street or part of a street, by the local authority.

Section 25 empowers the undertakers, where any such requisition is made by owners or occupiers, to serve notice on all the persons by whom it is signed, declining to be bound by the requisition unless those persons or some of them will bind themselves to take, or will guarantee that there shall be taken, a supply of electricity for 3 years at the least, of such amount in the aggregate (to be specified by the undertakers in the notice) as will, at the rates of charge for the time being charged by the undertakers for a supply of electricity from distributing mains to ordinary consumers within the area of supply, produce annually such reasonable sum as is specified by the undertakers in the notice. The undertakers may not, without the authority of the Board of Trade, specify any sum exceeding 20 per cent. upon the expense of providing and laying down the required distributing mains, and any other mains or additions to existing mains which may be necessary for the purpose of connecting those distributing mains with the nearest available source of supply. The undertakers are further empowered, if they think fit, to require, by the notice, that sufficient security shall be given for payment to them of all moneys which may become due to them from

the persons so binding themselves to take or guarantee the required supply.

The undertakers are further protected by being given a power of appeal to the Board of Trade against any requisition as to which they consider that it is unreasonable, or that, under the circumstances of the case, the provisions of this section ought to be varied. The Board may, after such inquiry, if any, as they think fit, either determine that the requisition is unreasonable, and shall not be binding on the undertakers, or authorise the undertakers by their notice to require a supply of electricity to be taken for a longer period than 3 years, and to require that the guaranteed sum to be produced annually by the supply shall be such sum or percentage as the Board may fix or direct, calculated either as in the section provided or otherwise.

If any difference arises between the undertakers and any persons signing any such requisition as to any such notice, or the agreement under which they are to be bound to take or guarantee the supply, that difference is, subject to the provisions of the section and the decision of the Board of Trade on any such appeal, to be determined by arbitration.

Where the requisition is made by the local authority, it is not to be binding on the undertakers unless within 14 days the local authority execute, if so required by the undertakers, an agreement binding them to take for a period of 3 years at the least a supply of electricity for lighting such public lamps as may be under their management or control in the street or part of a street in respect of which the requisition is made.

OBLIGATIONS AS TO GIVING SUPPLIES.-Sections 27 to 30 deal with the supplies which the undertakers can be required to give from their distributing mains when once these mains are laid.

Section 27 obliges the undertakers to give a supply, if so required, to the owner or occupier of any premises within 50 yards from any distributing main in which the undertakers are for the time being required to maintain, or are maintaining, a supply of electricity for the purposes