Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/619

 THE PHILADELPHIA GAS WORKS 605

44 I know that the lease proposes that this should be done too ; but in order to find the value before we consider anything else, we will do what any business man would do show what I can make before I give away anything. Because 1 give away something, it does not alter the fact that I made it ; therefore it is right to add to the $352,986, $674,000 for 674,000,000 cubic feet of gas used by the city for public lighting. But I under- stand, Mr. Chairman, that you asked certain gentlemen if they did not think that the city should only claim credit for the actual cost of manufacturing this amount of gas and not at $1 per 1000 cubic feet, and that they said yes. It is hard to tell what it did cost the city, but, reading from Councilman W. H. Brown's cal- culation, it cost about 60 cents. If so, even then the profit would be $892,213 on last year's (1896) miserable basis, with a miserable plant, with miserable pipes and everything else. Another question which I believe you asked was whether water rent should not be charged, and should not interest on the plant be charged, and the answer was yes. The water rent should be charged according to cost. I know the director reported that the water rent would be $i 1,756. If anybody but this city owned this property, and they had to pay that much water rent, they would promptly build artesian wells or pump from the river.

44 Now the taxes. These amount to $69,652 on a valuation of $3,765,000. This is pretty large. There is a big farm at Point Breeze, unnecessary. You can build a water plant for 20,000,000 cubic feet a day on about 500 square feet, and the taxes on that would not be very much.

44 Interest on the plant. That is the hard thing to calculate. What is the plant? It is the generators, pipes, etc., not the franchises. The mayor and others have said it is worth $30,000,- ooo. Mr. David H. Lane said in 1893, before council's com- mittee, and Mr. Lane is supposed to represent the Philadelphia Gas Improvement Company I suppose he was not attending the meeting out of mere curiosity he said the plant is not worth over $3,000,000. I do not think anybody would give for the plant, as it stands outside of the franchises, over that; but we will call it