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The Commoner.
WILLIAn J. BRYAN, EDITOR AND PROPRIETOR.
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- Vol. 3. JSo. 51,
Lincota, Nebraska, January 8, 194.
Whole No. 155
Growth of Municipal Ownership
(Copyright by New York Journal, 1903.)
Carved in the mantle of the library which
adjoins the reception room of the lord provost
of Glasgow Is the motto, "Truth will prevail,"
and the triumph of truth is illustrated in the de
velopment of municipal ownership in the British
Isles.
Probably no -city in the world has extended
the sphere of "municipal activity further than the
metropolis of Scotland Glasgow. By the cour
tesy of the present lord provost, Sir James Uro
Primrose, I learned something of the manner in
which the city of Glasgow is administering the
work that in most of our American cities has
been left to private corporations. It goes with
out saying that Glasgow owns and operates its
water system, for that is usually the first public
work that a city enters upon. In this case, how
ever, the water instead of being furnished to the
citizens at so much per thousand gallons or at
fixed hydrant rates is paid for by a tax upon the
value of the .property. The city's water supply
Is brought from Lake Katrine, forty miles away,
and the city has recently laid a second pipe lino
to 'the lake.
f Glasgow- also owns the gas plant and fur
nishes gas to consumers at about 50 cents per
thousand cubic feet. Moro recently the city has
entered :upon. thewjCTk . of, supplying electricity
both .to.xthe city and to private houses. The tram
ways, too, are owned and operated by the mu
nicipality. The service is excellent and the tare
depends., upon the distance traveled, 2d (4 cents)
being the rate "for a long ride and Id (2 cents)
for shorter distances. At certain hours in the day
there are work trams that carry the laboring
man from one end of the city to the other for d
or 1 cent. The Jord provost informed me that it
was the settled policy of the ,city to use all the in
come from public service corporations m improv
ing the service and lessening the charge. In some
places the surplus, as will be shown hereafter, is
turned into the city fund and to that extent less
ens the taxes (or rates, as city taxes are called
in Great Britain). The municipal authorities in
Glasgow have from the beginning opposed this
form of indirect taxation and insist that the ser
vice should be rendered to the public at absolute
cost, leaving the people to support the city gov
ernment by direct taxation.
Not only does Glasgow furnish water, gas,
electricity and street car service to its people at
cost, but it has undertaken other work still fur
ther in advance of American cities. It has built a
number of model tenement houses for the poor
and rents them at something less than the rate
private individuals charge for similar quarters.
These buildings have had for their primary object
the Improvement of the sanitary condition of the
city. Slums in which disease was rife have been
bought, cleansed and built up with the result
that the death rate has been reduced in those lo
calities. These tenement houses are rented by
the week or month and the charge for those that
I visited wa3 about ?36 per year, this covering
taxes and water. The rooms were commodious
and well lighted and each suite contained a cook
ing range fitted into the chimney place.
The city has also established a number of
lodging houses for single men and here lodgings
can be obtained ranging from 3d (7 cents) to
4&d (9 cents) per night. The lodger has Uio
privilege, and most of them tako advantage of it,
of cooking his meals in a large kitchen connected
with the building, and also has the ubo of the
dining room and reading room. One lodging house
is sot apart for widowers with children and is, I
am satisfied, the only one of its kind In tho
world. About one hundred families, including In
all 300 persons, have rooms here. Attendants are
on duty to look after the children during tho day
while the fathers are at work and meals are fur
nished to such as desire them at a minimum rate.
Tho reading. public is already familiar with
the public baths which have for a number of
years been in operation In Glasgow, and to these
baths have been added public wash houses where
women can bring the family linen and at tho
rate of 2d per week make use of the tuba aud dry
ing room. I visited one of theso wash-rooms and
found that the number of people taking advantage
of this public wash-room during the first year
was, in round numbers, 33,000, in the second year
34,000, in the third year 35,000, and in tho fourth
year 37,00p.
London is also making progress In the work
of municipalizing its publlq t service. The city
proper covers a very small territory, In fact, but
Marjnite squam, tho.greater ,part of the. city;, bging
under tlfe'conirorbT what is calicd the London"
county council. Tho London city council has re
cently obtained from parliament tho right to
deal with the water problem and a commission
has been created, for this purpose and is now at
work appraising the-.value of tho different water
companies which aro to be, taken over by tho said
council. Tho enormous prido( demanded by these
companies gives overwhelming' proof of London's
folly in having so long delayed the undertaking
of this public work. As there areno surface
street cars in tho city of London, tho city council
has not had the tramway question to dedljwilh.
The London county council has moved much
moro rapidly than the city council, and I am Iiii,
debted to Mr. John Burns, M. P., also councilman
for the district of Battersea, for much valuable
information on this subject. He and Mr. A. J.
Shepheard, with whom I crossed ine ocean, be
ing kind enough to Introduce me to the members
of the county council and to place before me tho
statistics in possession of the officials. The coun
ty council Is taking over the water service and Is
also furnishing to some extent electricity Just
now the county council is putting down tram
ways and preparing to follow in tho footsteps of
Glasgow in the matter of furnishing transit for
its citizens. Like Glasgow, tho county council Is
also furnishing lodging houses for the poorer
classes and by so doing Is improving the sanitary
conditions of the city. In some portions the
council is erecting tenement houses, here as in
Glasgow tho council selecting the worst portions
of the city and substituting modern and well
equipped houses for the unsightly and unhealthy
tenement houses that formerly occupied the
ground Mr. Burns took me through one of these
sections where about four thousand people are
being provided with homes with every modern im
provement and at very low rental. Finding that
the death rate among the children of the poor was
alarmingly great, tho county council established
a sterilized milk station and tho death rato
among tho children has been very materially do
creased. Nottingham, England, was visited on tho In
vitation of Mr. A. W. Black, until recently mayor.
I becamo acquainted with him on tho passage
across the Atlantic, and found that ho had In
terested himself In tho work of cxtondlng tho
municipal control of public utilities. From him
and tho town clerk, Sir Samuel Johnson, I learned
that tho city had been furnishing water to Its
citizens for about thirty years, and gas for a
still longer time. Tho price of gas has been re
duced from time to time until it Is now about 50
cents per thousand for private citizens, and even
at this low rato tho gas plant pays Into the city
treasury a net profit of about $120,000 a year. It
is only about five years since tho city entered upon
the work of furnishing electricity, but tho profit
from that source is now nearly $45,000 annually.
The city has recently takon over tho tramways
and notwithstanding that It has raised the wages
of the employes, shortened tnelr hours of labor,
improved tho service, extended tho lines and re
duced the fares, it has now derived about ?90,000
profit from thp earnings of tho tramways. This
has been the rule wherever private services hae
been undertaken by tho municipalities. Not
" tingham has a population of about 250,000.
I have taken these cities as an illustration,
they being the ones concerning which I have in
vestigated most carefully.
Birmingham furnishes water and light to Its
people, and has Just decided to tako charge of
the tramway service. It already owns 4ho tracks,
but has been allowing private corporations to run
tho cars. Tho people have decided to operate tho
lines in the future,
In Belfast, I found that the city had decided
to tako charge of tho tramway trackB, tho only
disputed question being whether the city would
pledge itself to tho permanent operation of the
lines or reserve tho right to permit private cor
porations to uso tho tracks.
'.Nothing has Impressed mo moro In my visit
to tn, British Isles than the interest which tho
leadingctizens of tho various municipalities are
taking in problems of government and sociology.
It must be rempmbered that here tho members
of tho city couriers receive no pay. Tho work
that they do is entirely gratuitous, and I have
found that the couiiqlls aro composed of repie
sentatives of all classes'of society.
Many of the successful, business men, profes
sional men and educators aro'ch bo found devoting
a portion of their time, somotlMif-a very consid
erable portion, to the work of tkdff Ltr. Thoy at
tend meetings, serve on committees aftd, carry on
investigations, and firfd their recompeire not In
a salary, but in tho honor which atlache&to the
position and in the consciousness that they are
giving something of value to their fellows.
Tho fact that English cities are doing tho
work that in American cities Is largely let out to
private corporations may explain the relative ab
sence of corruption as compared with some of our
American cities, but there Is no doubt that among
the people generally service in the city govern
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