fair price for their properties, the gas companies practically
£1,900.000, the waterworks company £1,350,000. But still they were not
happy. They resisted the proposed purchases.

Mr. Chamberlain, however, was not the man to be daunted by the
opposition of the gas and water company proprietors. He had made up his
mind that it would be for the good of the town for these undertakings to
be in the hands of the municipality, and in spite of the Town Council
"old gang" and outraged gas and water shareholders, who felt they were
being fraudulently despoiled of certain prospective advantages, he
carried his point.

There are still those among us who, for various reasons, murmur at these
extensive purchases. They maintain, for one thing, that the possession
of the gas influenced the Corporation to turn a discouraging eye upon
the electric light. Certainly Birmingham has been rather lax in taking
up electric illumination, and possibly more enterprise would have been
evinced in this direction if the Corporation had not become dealers in
gas and water on their own terms, viz., no competition allowed. Some
self-constituted prophets shook their heads and said that before the gas
debt was paid off gas would literally have "gone out" as a general
illuminant. Before the eighty-five years allowed for the redemption of
the capital invested in the gas have elapsed a good many things may
certainly happen. So far, however, gas is not extinguished, but is in
increased demand, and even water is believed to have a future.

With regard to the water purchase, however, a good deal of opposition
was offered on special grounds. Having purchased the waterworks
undertaking the Corporation were, of course, desirous to make it pay. To
buy the thing was a blunder in the eyes of some, to let it be a source