The present position of Birmingham and its improved appearance in these
later years are largely attributed to the work and influence of Mr.
Chamberlain. To him, certainly, the credit is largely due. At the same
time it is only fair to say that he was not the first man who had
discovered that Birmingham, some thirty years ago, was, compared with
what it should be, in many respects lagging behind. Other persons had
been impressed with the idea that the town, in a municipal, sanitary,
and social sense, was not advancing at a pace commensurate with its
commercial and material progress.
To go just a little farther back for a moment, it must be recorded that
Birmingham, in a political sense, made a great step forward when it
elected Mr. Bright as one of its members of Parliament in the year 1857.
This served to focus the eyes of the country on the midland capital, and
from this date the town became a new centre of political activity. The
great meetings addressed by Mr. Bright were not regarded as mere
provincial gatherings, but they attracted the attention of the whole
nation. The proceedings were no longer chronicled merely by the local
press, but the London daily newspapers sent representatives to furnish
special reports of our new member's speeches. Indeed, the interest and
excitement at these political gatherings was often feverish in its
intensity, and for many years Mr. Bright's visits to Birmingham were
red-letter days in the history of the town.
Mr. Bright, however, not being a resident in Birmingham, took no part
in its local and municipal affairs, and the man was wanting who would
come forward and energetically take town matters in hand. Mr. Joseph
Chamberlain was the man, and the time was ripe for him. He was known to
be smart, able, and energetic, and also to be imbued with decidedly
progressive ideas. Further, he was justly credited with having a lofty
conception of the real importance and dignity of municipal life and the
value of municipal institutions.
In the year 1869 Mr. Chamberlain was elected a member of the Birmingham
Town Council, and he began to make things spin and hum at a pace which
literally soon reached a pretty high rate. His example, and possibly his
persuasion, induced several of his friends and associates to become
candidates for Town Council membership, and in a very short time he had
a strong and influential following, made up of men of energy, substance,
and good social position, who soon began to overpower and make things
more lively perhaps than pleasant for the anti-progressives in the
Corporation. In Israelitish story we are told that a new king arose who
knew not Joseph, but in Birmingham a new municipal kingdom arose that
knew Joseph and trusted him.
The changes that soon began to take place were enough to take away the
breath of some of the nice, complacent, arm-chair, "Woodman" members of
the Town Council. If the preceding rulers of the Corporation had been a
trifle too parsimonious in the matter of expenditure, Mr. Chamberlain
and his party soon began to make amends for any trifling mistakes or
past errors in the way of economy. In a very few years the town had a
debt, I don't say of which it might be proud, but of which it very soon
felt the weight.
When Mr. Chamberlain entered the Town Council the municipal debt stood
at some £588,000. When he left it, after about ten years' service, the
debt had mounted up to the neat and imposing sum of £6,212,000. Of
course, there were very valuable assets to place against this heavy
indebtedness, assets which are likely to improve considerably in value
as time goes on--that is, if the city continues to progress and prosper.
Still, a good many people were not a little alarmed at the big figures
that grew on the debtor side of the Corporation accounts, but more
persons applauded the spirit, courage, and enterprise of those who had
taken the reins of the town into their hands.
When Mr. Chamberlain and his friends had fairly got hold of the Town
Council ropes, they set to work in strong earnest. Sanitary improvements
were promoted. The principal streets and their lighting and paving were
improved, and the general appearance of the town quickly presented a
change for the better. Trees were planted in some of the chief
thoroughfares. They did not it is true show much disposition to grow and
thrive, but they were planted and replanted, though we may still have to
lament that our Birmingham boulevards will not compare favourably with
those in some other cities. Mr. Chamberlain, however, was not the man
to be content with such trifling reforms as these. He had large and
spacious ideas in his mind, and he quickly brought them out to air and
grow.
In the year 1873 Mr. Chamberlain was elected Mayor, and in the following
year he brought forward his schemes for the purchase by the municipality
of the gas and water supplies. His proposals encountered very formidable
opposition, principally from those interested in the gas and water
companies, whose undertakings he proposed compulsorily to purchase. Some
of the shareholders in these prosperous companies were fierce in their
denunciations of his schemes. They regarded Mr. Chamberlain's proposals
as nothing short of confiscation. For years they had supplied the town
with gas and water. They had found the necessary money in the "sure and
certain hope" of having a good and secure investment for their capital,
and lo! when they had fairly established their undertakings, it was
proposed to blow out their profitable light and dash the refreshingly
remunerative water from their lips. It was hard--I don't mean the
water, but the situation! Of course the shareholders were to receive a
fair price for their properties, the gas companies practically
£1,900.000, the waterworks company £1,350,000. But still they were not
happy. They resisted the proposed purchases.
Mr. Chamberlain, however, was not the man to be daunted by the
opposition of the gas and water company proprietors. He had made up his
mind that it would be for the good of the town for these undertakings to
be in the hands of the municipality, and in spite of the Town Council
"old gang" and outraged gas and water shareholders, who felt they were
being fraudulently despoiled of certain prospective advantages, he
carried his point.
There are still those among us who, for various reasons, murmur at these
extensive purchases. They maintain, for one thing, that the possession
of the gas influenced the Corporation to turn a discouraging eye upon
the electric light. Certainly Birmingham has been rather lax in taking
up electric illumination, and possibly more enterprise would have been
evinced in this direction if the Corporation had not become dealers in
gas and water on their own terms, viz., no competition allowed. Some
self-constituted prophets shook their heads and said that before the gas
debt was paid off gas would literally have "gone out" as a general
illuminant. Before the eighty-five years allowed for the redemption of
the capital invested in the gas have elapsed a good many things may
certainly happen. So far, however, gas is not extinguished, but is in
increased demand, and even water is believed to have a future.
With regard to the water purchase, however, a good deal of opposition
was offered on special grounds. Having purchased the waterworks
undertaking the Corporation were, of course, desirous to make it pay. To
buy the thing was a blunder in the eyes of some, to let it be a source
of loss would have been a crime. Consequently, it became necessary to
force the water supply business, and the municipal authorities went
about it in a way that pressed hardly sometimes and provoked not a
little hostility and resentment.
"Waterologists" and analysts are somewhat divided in opinion as to what
is pure water, or at least good wholesome water. Some authorities take
one standard, some another. The Corporation, with an eye to business,
selected a very high standard, for this brought grist to the mill, or, I
should say, trade to the tap. It meant the closing of a large number of
wells yielding water which, under a less rigorous standard than that
adopted, would have been considered wholesome. But in this matter again,
Mr. Chamberlain and the "new gang" paid no heed to the growls of the
disaffected, and pumps were disestablished in all directions, chiefly,
it was maintained, to swell the returns of the water department. "O ye
wells, bless ye the Lord"--but few were suffered to remain.
Mr. Chamberlain, however, was not long content with having municipalized
the gas and water. In accordance with the strong impetus of his nature
he sighed for more worlds to conquer. Consequently he was soon ready
with a gigantic Improvement Scheme, to be carried out under the adoption
of the somewhat misused and delusive Artisans' Dwellings Act. His
proposal was to make a grand street and a more direct way to Aston, and
in doing so to demolish some dirty back thoroughfares and a large number
of foul and filthy unsanitary dwellings.
The scheme was a big one. It affected many interests, and before it was
carried out it caused a fierce amount of strife, ill-feeling, and
hostility. The discontent and disaffection which Mr. Chamberlain's
previous schemes aroused were but as morning breezes compared with the
storm and tempest his new proposals raised. His daring and dash almost
dazed his fellow townsfolk, for, like Napoleon, he rushed on from one
exploit to another with a rapidity that astounded his friends and
confused and overwhelmed his foes.