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41
Electricity Developments.
The
Rapidly increasing use of electricity is one of the outstanding
features of modern developments in British economic life.
latest official returns show that 1,918 million units of electricity
were generated in Great Britain during July, 1939, compared with
1,650 million units in July, 1938, the increase being 15.8 per cent.
For the first seven months of the year there was an increase of
1,879 million units, or 13.8 per cent.
There
Progress in the use of electricity has been particularly rapid
in the English countryside in the past decade, and at the end of
1938 there was an electricity supply available to 67 per cent of
In 1929 there all premises in the rural areas of Great Britain. were only 3,700 miles (5,920 kilometres) of lines running from the
transformer-stations to the consumers' premises, whereas to-day
the total is over 20,000 miles (32,000 kilometres). Despite this
steady record of progress, the construction of such lines proceeds
at an even more rapid rate this year, and Great Britain is now
among the leading countries in rural electricity service.
are many English counties in which it is hardly possible to find
a village or even a farm without electric light, and in others, which until two years ago were classified as "backward" in the
matter of electricity, the transformation has been radical.
interesting point is that the greater part of this development has
been due to private enterprise. The large initial capital suns
needed for such work in country areas have been provided by groups
in the City which have been sufficiently strong financially to be able and willing to wait for some time before receiving any return on their investment. It may be added that the standard of British
electrical equipment is a particularly high one.
An