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Abstract

Public utility problems today have a conspicuous place on the stage of national life. The New Deal's imposing yardstick: program and its policy of encouraging municipal ownership and operation of utility services by means of P.W.A. grants have focused attention chiefly on the issue of public versus private ownership. However, there are indications that a truce between the federal agencies and the private utilities is at hand and that, in consideration of the undertaking on the part of the private utilities to finance capital improvements and additions on a large scale and thereby contribute to general economic improvement, the New Deal administration will curb its efforts toward public ownership of utilities. In the end, however, the survival of privately-owned utilities will depend on considerations more fundamental, namely, the adequacy and effectiveness of public regulation of those utilities. If consumers are led to believe, for instance, that commission regulation of rates has been a badly botched job or that it has tended to favor utility investors at the expense of consumers, the crystallization of political sentiment in favor of public ownership will be inevitable.

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