Expensive water

What would you say, dear reader, if your baker wanted to sell you bread for 2 francs per kilo?
I assume that you would answer him: "Why 2 francs, since the other bakers in the department sell this same bread for 1 fr. 50 per kilo?"
And if your baker, to justify his price, told you:
- I will explain, my dear customer, the bakers of Saint-Maur took the initiative of making you pay 2 francs per kilo of bread until 1937; but, in 1938, they agree to sell it to you at 0 fr. 75 per kilo.
I also assume that you would answer him: In 1938, you or I will perhaps be dead, and, in the meantime, I will have paid 2 fr. for the bread sold to all the suburbanites 1 fr. 50 per kilo. What interests me, in this time of high cost of living, is the price charged today, and not the one expected for 1938.
The answer that you would give to your baker for the price of bread, don't you think that you should oppose it to Mr. Marin, mayor of Saint-Maur, who, in agreement with his majority, will make you pay:

In 1925: 2fr.20 per cubic meter.
In 1926: 1fr.20 per cubic meter.
In 1927: 1fr.07 per cubic meter.

water which will be sold by the Compagnie Générale des Eaux 0 fr. 60 and 0 fr. 65 per cubic meter to all users in the Parisian suburbs.
In support of my assertion, I will recall that I wrote in the issue of La Dépêche of 15 January last:
Considering that Mr. Marin envisages a surplus in expenditure for these three years:

In 1925: 400,000 francs.
In 1926: 301,000 francs.
In 1927: 216,000 francs.

It follows that the water will return to the users of Saint-Maur:

In 1925, 0.80 plus 1.40 additional centimes = 2.20 francs per cubic metre;
In 1926, 0.80 plus 0.40 additional centimes = 1.20 francs per cubic metre;
In 1927, 0.80 plus 0.27 additional centimes = 1.07 francs per cubic metre.

Thus, for thirteen years, the inhabitants of Saint-Maur will pay much more for water than all users of the Seine department.
It is true that Mr. Marin promises for the year 1938 - will he still be there? - to supply water at 0.30 francs per cubic meter.
This distant promise recalls the "Tomorrow we will shave for free" of a clever wigmaker. In the meantime, we are being shaved "dearly" today with a project that will reserve costly disappointments for the people of Saint-Maur.
But then, you will object, would you have been in favor of renewing the contract with the Compagnie Générale des Eaux?
Not at all.
But I believe that, when one has the good fortune to be able to free oneself from the grip of a "Large Company", one must provide one's constituents with the advantages of this liberation, and not "AN AGGRAVATION OF CHARGES".
Mr. Marin began by burdening his first establishment account with the fabulous price of 2,250,000 francs for the resumption of the pipelines that the Compagnie Générale des Eaux would have left at a much better price if Mr. Marin had been a more skillful maneuverer. I would add that, in certain municipalities, the Compagnie Générale was bound by its contracts, this was not the case in Saint-Maur, to abandon its pipelines FOR NOTHING in the event of non-renewal of the concession.

Finally, the mayor, ALWAYS acting ALONE, entered into negotiations subsequently ratified by his majority, purchasing on credit, by mutual agreement, without prior award, equipment worth several million, the prices of which could not be freely discussed, given the conditions of purchase by instalment."

Mr. Marin, who is willing to acknowledge in his presentation of the Water issue that he is not "a technician", has "EMBARGOED" the commune of Saint-Maur in an -adventure- the word is Mr. Naudin's- of which the least that can be said is that it is as crazy as it is thoughtless.

Our mayor, who was probably kept awake by the laurels of "CHÉRON-PAIN-CHER", will now be able to claim in the history of the economic life of Saint-Maur the justified title of "MARIN-L'EAU-CHÈRE".

SALOMON HIRSCH, Municipal Councilor.