GROWTH OF MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP.
Carved in the mantel 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 development 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
courtesy of the present lord provost, Sir James Ure 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 without saying that Glasgow
owns and operates its water system, for that is usually the first
public work upon which a city enters. In this case, however, 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 a second pipe line has
recently been laid to the lake.
Glasgow also owns the gas plant and furnishes gas to consumers at
about 50 cents per thousand cubic feet. More recently the city has
entered upon the work of supplying electricity, both to the city and
to private houses. The tramways, too, are owned and operated by the
municipality. The service is excellent and the fare depends upon
the distance traveled, 2d (4 cents) being the rate for a long ride
and 1d (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 1/2d or 1 cent. The lord provost informed
me that it was the settled policy of the city to use all the income
from public service corporations in improving 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 lessens
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 insisted that the service should
be rendered to the public at absolute cost, leaving the people to
support the city government 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 further 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 localities. These tenement
houses are rented by the week or month and the charge for those that
I visited was about $36 per year, this covering taxes and water.
The rooms are commodious and well lighted and each suite contains a
cooking range fitted into the chimney place.
[Illustration: THE BROOMELAW BRIDGE AT GLASGOW]
The city has also established a number of lodging houses for single
men and here lodgings can be obtained ranging from 3-1/2d (7 cents)
to 4-1/2d (9 cents) per night. The lodger has the privilege, and
most of them take advantage of it, of cooking his meals in a large
kitchen connected with the building, and also has the use of the
dining room and reading room. One lodging house is set apart for
widowers with children and is, I am informed, the only one of its
kind in the world. About one hundred families, including in all 300
persons, have rooms here. Attendants are on duty to look after the
children during the day while the fathers are at work, and meals are
furnished to such as desire at a minimum rate.
The 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 washhouses where women can bring
the family linen and at the rate of 2d per hour make use of the tubs
and drying room. I visited one of these wash-rooms and found that
the number of people taking advantage of it during the first year
was, in round numbers, 33,000, in the second year 34,000, in the
third year 35,000, and in the fourth year 37,000.
London is also making progress in the work of municipalizing its
public service. The city proper covers a very small territory; in
fact, but a mile square, the greater part of the city being under
the control of what is called the London county council. The London
city council has recently obtained from parliament the 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 the different
water companies which are to be taken over by the said council.
The enormous price demanded by these companies gives overwhelming
proof of London's folly in having so long delayed the undertaking
of this public work. As there are no surface street cars in the
city of London, the city council has not had the tramway question
to deal with. The London county council has moved much more rapidly
than the city council, and I am indebted 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 the ocean, being kind enough to introduce me to the members
of the county council and to place before me the statistics in
possession of the officials. The county council, besides taking over
the water service, is also furnishing to some extent electricity.
Just now the county council is putting down tramways and preparing
to follow in the footsteps of Glasgow in the matter of furnishing
transit for its citizens. Like Glasgow, the 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, the
council selected 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 improvement and at
very low rental. Finding that the death rate among the children
of the poor was alarmingly great, the county council established a
sterilized milk station and the death rate among the children has
been very materially decreased.
Nottingham, England, was visited on the invitation of Mr. A. W.
Black, until recently mayor. I became acquainted with him on the
passage across the Atlantic, and found that he had interested
himself in the work of extending the municipal control of public
utilities. From him and the town clerk, Sir Samuel Johnson, I
learned that the city had been furnishing water to its citizens for
about thirty years and gas for a still longer time. The price of gas
has been reduced from time to time until it is now about 50 cents
per thousand for private citizens, and even at this low rate the gas
plant pays into the city treasury a net profit of about $120,000 a
year. It is only about five years since the city entered upon the
work of furnishing electricity, but the profit from that source is
now nearly $45,000 annually. The city has recently taken over the
tramways, and notwithstanding that it has raised the wages of the
employes, shortened their hours of labor, improved the service,
extended the lines and reduced the fares, it has now derived about
$90,000 profit from the earnings of the tramways. This has been
the rule wherever private services have been undertaken by the
municipalities. Nottingham has a population of about 250,000.
I have taken these cities as an illustration, they being the ones
concerning which I have investigated most carefully.
Birmingham furnishes water and light to its people, and has just
decided to take charge of the tramway service. It already owns the
tracks, but has been allowing private corporations to run the cars.
The people have decided to operate the lines in the future.
In Belfast I found that the city had decided to take charge of the
tramway tracks, the only disputed question being whether the city
would pledge itself to the permanent operation of the lines, or
reserve the right to permit private corporations to use the tracks.
Nothing has impressed me more in my visit to the British Isles
than the interest which the leading citizens of the various
municipalities are taking in problems of government and sociology.
It must be remembered that here the members of the city councils
receive no pay. The work they do is entirely gratuitous, and I have
found that the councils are composed of representatives of all
classes of society.
Many of the successful business men, professional men and educators
are to be found devoting a portion of their time, sometimes a very
considerable portion, to the work of the city. They attend meetings,
serve on committees and carry on investigations, and find their
recompense not in a salary, but in the honor which attaches to the
position and in the consciousness that they are giving something of
value to their fellows.
The fact that English cities are doing the work that in American
cities is largely let out to private corporations, may explain the
relative absence of corruption as compared with some of our American
cities, but there is no doubt that among the people generally,
service in the city government is more highly regarded than it is in
most of the large cities of the United States.
I observed with interest the enthusiasm manifested by the officials
in the work being done by the respective cities. At Birmingham, Mr.
Roland H. Barkley, a member of the city council, by request of the
lord mayor called upon me, and not only showed great familiarity
with the work of the city government, but manifested an intense
desire to secure for his city the methods that had been shown by
experience to be the best.
Mr. Black, recently mayor of Nottingham, is a very successful lace
manufacturer, and yet he seemed as much concerned about the affairs
of the city as about the details of his own business. Lord Mayor
Harrington of Dublin, Lord Mayor Dixon of Belfast and Lord Provost
Primrose of Glasgow were all alive to the importance of their work,
and seemed to make the discharge of their duties their chief concern.
In this connection, I desire to record my appreciation of the public
service of one of the most interesting and agreeable men whom I
have met in the Old World, Mr. John Burns. He began his industrial
life at the age of ten as a maker of candles. He was afterward
apprenticed as a machinist, and after acquiring proficiency in his
trade followed that line of employment until his associates made him
their representative in the city government. He was soon afterwards
sent to parliament, and has for some fifteen years represented his
district in both bodies. He is only 45, but his hair and beard are
so streaked with gray that one would think him ten years older. He
is a little below medium height, strongly built and very active
and energetic. A diligent student, quick-witted and effective in
speech, it is not surprising that he stands today among the world's
foremost representatives of the wage-earners. He is opposed to both
drinking and gambling. He receives no salary, either as a member of
the county council or as a member of parliament, but is supported
by his association, which pays him what is equivalent to a thousand
dollars a year. With this very meager income he devotes his life to
public work, and I have not met a more conscientious or unselfish
public servant, and yet what Mr. Burns is doing on a large scale
many others are doing in a lesser degree.
I wish that all the citizens of my country could come into contact
with the public men whom I have met, and catch something of the
earnestness with which they are applying themselves to the solution
of the municipal problems that press upon the present generation.
It would certainly increase the velocity of American reforms, and
arouse that latent patriotism which only needs arousing to cope
successfully with all difficulties.
While it may seem that the leaders of municipal government in Europe
are somewhat altruistic in their labors, there is a broader sense in
which they are quite selfish, but it is that laudable selfishness
which manifests itself in one's desire to lift himself up, not by
dragging down others or doing injustice to others but by lifting up
the level upon which all stand. Those who add to the comfort and
happiness of their community are making their own lives and property
more secure. Those who are endeavoring to infuse hope and ambition
into the hearts of the hopeless and their children are working more
wisely than those who are so short-sighted as to believe that the
accumulation of money is the only object of life.
Let us hope that the time is near at hand when the successful
business men in the United States, instead of continuing their
accumulations to the very end of life, will be satisfied with
a competency and, when this is secured, give to the country
the benefit of their experience, their intelligence and their
conscience, as many of the business men of England, Scotland and
Ireland are now doing.