Moreover, the attendant need
not be highly paid, as he will not have required an engineman's training,
as will the attendant on an electric lighting plant. The latter, too,
must be present throughout the hours when light is wanted unless a heavy
expenditure has been incurred on accumulators. Furthermore, the capital
outlay on generating plant will be very much less for acetylene than for
electric lighting. General considerations such as these lead to the
conclusion that in almost all country districts in this country a house
or institution could be lighted more cheaply by means of acetylene than
by electricity. In the tabular statement of comparative costs of
different modes of lighting, electric lighting has been included only on
the basis of a fixed cost per unit, as owing to the very varied cost of
generating current by small installations in different parts of the
country it would be futile to attempt to give the cost of electric
lighting on any other basis, such as the prime cost of coal or coke in a
particular district. Where current is supplied by a public electricity-
supply undertaking, the cost per unit is known, and the comparative costs
of electric light and acetylene can be arrived at with tolerable
precision.
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