street — Coes & Young, Coes & Stodder, Bird & Taylor, and everything up as far as Province street, and through Province street to Bromfield street, and down Bromfield to Washington street, and along Washington street. When it pays a man to put a private plant into the basement of one of those buildings and sell light to those few customers in that small block, what would it pay the City of Boston, even if it didn’t do anything except furnish its own light? I say, further, that if you give me the contract to light Washington street — give me the exclusive privilege of laying conduits in Washington and Tremont streets, from Dudley street down to Haymarket square or the North Station, the exclusive privilege of putting electric light mains into those streets and the streets connected with them — I will pay the city a good sum of money, and will light its streets for nothing, and make money. And the Edison Company knows it. I want to tell you, my dear sir, and the members of the Committee, that they have the greatest gold mine in the United States right here — the Edison Company. Q. Let me ask you, Mr. Kiley, if there are any independent gas companies to-day in Boston, operating in Boston, except the Charlestown Company ? A. Yes, the East Boston Company is an independent company. It buys its electricity from the Edison Company at 13 or 1.9 cents a kilowatt hour, and if you go over to one of the residences in East Boston and ask any of those people over there what they pay for it you will see the difference. There is a gentleman here present to-night whom I heard speak before the Committee on Public Lighting. He is a practical electrician and has got some figures on that question, if you gentlemen want to hear them. Of course, I wouldn’t advise him to give them to the Committee. Mr. NICKERSON.— May I ask the gentleman why? Q. (By Alderman CURLEY.) I have investigated this matter closely myself, and from the information I have the Charlestown plant has been in existence and in operation and its stock selling at 120 or over, for some time, although it has not been manufacturing. A. That is true. I understand that it is selling at 126 now, and it was selling at 120 on January 10. I got the quotation at R. L. Day's. Q. I suppose it has been selling at 120 on the possibility of the final acceptance of the act? A. Further than that, Alderman, while you are on that question, I will say that they had the nerve to go before the Gas Commissioners last year and ask for the authority to increase their capital stock $100,000 to enlarge their plant over there — enlarge a plant where they were not making anything at all — and the Gas and Electric Light Commission said: “Go and do your work from your surplus.” They have a surplus. I cannot carry the figures in my head, but I did have them, and I think they are now in my desk. They have a surplus in their treasury and bills receivable amounting to 25 per cent. of their capital stock. Q. (By Alderman BERWIN.) You have grown serious, have you not, Mr. Kiley 2 A. Oh, no. Q. You are still joking? A. No, but I am telling you the truth; but I don’t believe, with these members of the Common Council on the Committee, recorded as they have been on the question of municipal lighting after the question was presented to the Common Council, with men who deliberately stood out in the anteroom and declined to be recorded when the vote was taken here on the most important question before the City Government for years, any serious consideration of this matter can be expected. I don’t think they are men who can treat this question fairly. I don’t look to see them treat it fairly, and I am absolutely honest in telling you that. Q. How would you feel, then, Mr Kiley, if you were disappointed in the result of the Committee's report? You would then probably come in and apologize publicly to the Committee, would you not ? A. I might. I am always willing to apologize when I am wrong. Q. (By Alderman CURLEY.) — Do they manufacture any gas at the Charlestown plant at the present time? A. Well, unless they have started very recently, they are not manufacturing. It may be that, on account of the agitation of this question, or perhaps because of the termination of their contract with the New England Gas and Coke Company, they are making gas there now. But they had a five years’ contract with the New England Gas and Coke Company to buy gas from them, which was pumped from the Everett Works across the Malden bridge and into their gas meters there, and furnished to them on a sliding scale basis at 30 to 37 cents per thousand cubic feet. If you question the correctness of that statement, you can go to the Gas Commissioners and ask them to let you look at the copy of the contract they have on file there between the New England Gas and Coke Works and the Charlestown Gas and Electric Light Company, and you will see that I am correct. Also ask them to let you see the copy of the contract between the Charlestown Gas and Electric Light Company and the Edison Company, and they will show you a contract which shows that they are buying their electricity at 16 cents per arc light per night. That is furnished on the street to the city lights at a charge to the city of 32 cents per night; and they are buying their electricity upon another basis for the incandescent service from the Edison Company at approximately 2 cents per kilowatt hour. Q. I was going to ask you about that. A. You will find that all on record in the Gas Commissioners’ office. Of course the Gas Commission, too, is like other bodies. They have their favorites. They say there is one an electric light man, one a gaslight man, and the other is with the people. If you go there, be sure and see the man who is with the people. Q. Alderman KNEELAND. — Might I ask the gentleman the name of that Gas Commissioner who is with the people? Q. (By Afterman CURLEY.) Was this information, Mr. Kiley, that you have given the Committee to-night ever submitted to any meeting of the City Council — this information in regard to the Charlestown Gaslight Company ? A. The most of it, I think, was submitted in the debate preceding the vote that was taken, forty-four or forty-five to sixteen or forty-six to fourteen, something like that, the last vote, and then we got a committee six to two against the proposition. Q. I was not aware, Mr. Kiley, that this information had ever been submitted to the Common Council. If you say it has, I don’t question it. A. You evidently do not read the speeches delivered in the Common Council. You will find them interesting at times. Q. Some of them. You probably, Mr. Kiley, have had an opinion rendered on the question as to whether or not a purchase by the city of either the Charlestown gas plant or the East Boston gas plant would be sufficient to come within the scope of chapter 34 as regards the city engaging in municipal lighting 2 A. There was, I believe, an opinion sent in by the Corporation Counsel, which is the basis of a suit at law against me, which I suppose you refer to, which the Corporation Counsel felt hurt because I criticized. But, however, I am here to criticize that now, if you want my criticism, notwithstanding the entrance of his suit. Q. You still believe that the acceptance of this act and the purchase by the city of the Charlestown gas plant would be sufficient for the city to go ahead and engage in municipal ownership and distribution ? A. I think the city could furnish plenty of electricity for its own purposes from that plant. I think it might be necessary to enlarge the plant to furnish enough electricity to sell to private persons. I don’t think the Charlestown plant has got a capacity sufficient at present to furnish all the electricity in the city. Q. But, Mr. Kiley, do they manufacture electricity at the Charlestown plant? A. No. Q. They do not? A. No ; but they have got a gasometer there and they have an electric power station there. They have got apparatus there. Of course they sell the City of Somerville, you know, under their charter. The company was incorporated when Somerville and Charlestown were independent towns, and was incorporated to sell light to the towns of Charlestown and Somerville. But it is an easy matter to span the Charles river at the Warren bridge or the new bridge and carry the cables over here and send the current through our streets. I would like to say further, if you want me to do so, that I have the authority of an eminent engineer to the effect that he can take 1,000 cubic feet of gas out of a pipe, meter it, pay 90 cents per thousand for that gas, and, upon the prices charged by the Edison Company to-day, take out $7 worth of electricity by using a gas engine and a generator. He can take 90 cents’ worth of gas, 1,000 cubic feet, and turn it into $7 worth of electricity at the present prices charged by the Edison Company to the ordinary consumer. You know they have a wholesale discount that they talk about, that they give to big concerns that force them to reduce the rate under the threat of instituting a private plant, their plan as to rates being something like the railroad rebates that the President is trying to stop — the same thing. Q. I am well aware of that. We had a large concern in our district that installed an electric plant at tremendous expense, and it has decided to discontinue the manufacture of electricity in the future, the terms offered to it by the Edison Company being cheaper. I presume that they will not have to pay more than about two cents per kilowatt hour. A. I would like to say further, and I think the alderman on your right will corroborate it, that the City of Boston pays $127 to $130 per year for an arc-light on the streets, and the average cost to cities that make their own electricity for their own purposes, for the lighting of their own highways, is approximately $60 per year for the same light; and in a great many cities, where they buy it from private companies, $75 is all they pay for it. There are figures in my desk that will corroborate that statement, taken from authentic reports. Q. Another question, Mr. Kiley. You seem to be pretty familiar with the Charlestown gas and electric light situation. Have you any idea what the stock of that company was worth two years ago, before this question was considered 2 A. Oh, I know they pay about nine or ten per cent. dividend on their stock. Of course, it wouldn’t do if they paid much more than that, because then the people would get after them, or the Gas Commissioners would get after them, and make them come down in their prices. So, when these companies, like the Edison or the Charlestown Companies, are earning more than a reasonable dividend, the first thing they do is to try to find channels in which they can bury their surplus earnings, so that the people won’t know anything about it. Q. Ten per cent, and 50 is the par value of the stock? A. You know the Charlestown Company and the Edison Company are like a good many other companies of this sort. They have had their fights, and one day they got together and said, “Fellows, what is the use of our fighting among ourselves and letting the other fellows have the benefit of it? Let us call quits, get together, so that nobody can come between us, and then increase the value of our stock for dividend-paying purposes, putting water into it and paying dividends on the water.” And that is what they will go on doing if you don’t adopt municipal lighting. I am not a prophet, but I make this prediction: if we don’t get municipal lighting in Boston in the near future you will have the Consolidated Company and the Edison Company coming together. They are not very far apart now, but they will come together in actual consolidation. The people of Boston then will be absolutely at their mercy. You will have them going up to the Gas Commission, their friends, and asking for an increase in their capital stock, from one to three or four million dollars, and the public will have to pay dividends on that. That is the way they do it. First, for sake of illustration, we will say that they start in with a capital stock of $5,000,000, and are paying 9 per cent. dividends on that. Then their earnings show that they can pay 12 per cent. on that. Well, it wouldn't do to have the public see that in the annual report filed with the Gas Commission. So