OCR Text |
Show if V LIVING Warren Fosters SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 17. 1897 VOL. 3. FRUITS OF GOOD GOVERNMENT. What British Cities Have Done An Amazing and Instructive Contrast ' Fran Tha New York World. Greater New York is about to organize a vast new municipal government. In this as in other matters experience is the best teacher comparison and contrast are the best object lessons. Therefore the people of Greater New York are interested in the experience and the achievements of the other great municipalities of civilization. The easiest source of this information is Dr. Albert Shaw's two books on the governments of European Cities. His assembly of facts excites the interest, the amazement and the envy of every American reader. The book devoted to British cities is especially interesting to us because the British people have met and are meeting the same problems that now disturb us, and have solved and are solving them in ways that are open to us. Let us look at a few of the facts about the three chief British municipal organizations Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham. Let us see how their governments respond to Mr. Bryces test of municipal government 41 What does it provide for the people and what does it cost the people? . Glasgow contains about 750,000 people. Manchesters population is 520,000, but its municipal government directly benefits three millions. Birmingham has about 440,000 within its corporate limits. All these cities are newer than any of the great American cities. All have had their real growth in the last . All their plans for good years. government began about the time of the close of our civil war exactly the period when New Yoik and the other American cities fell into the hands of bosses and rings of corruptionists. They are governed by an electorate' that in no essential respect differs from ours. The of the people vote, and have, absolute power over their public servants, the officials. They select, a municipal council that administers the citys affairs by dividing itself into executive committees, one committee at the head of each department of the public service. These councilors serve without pay and, although elections are frequent, changes in the council, from causes other than death are comparatively rare. In their municipal campaigns the questions of national or other than city politics are never discussed. Local affairs only are issues. ofParty lines do not exist. Nominations for fice can be made and are made by a petition signed by ten names a proposer of the candidate, a seconder and eight others. Yet there are few candidates and even few contests. An official who serves the city well is practically never opposed for All this is the result of a single cause the complete divorce of politics from city affairs. There ought to be no more sentiment about running a city than there is about running a Croker in an dry goods store, said Richard interview in The World the other day. In these cities this ought to be is a fact, and h?s been brought about by the driving from municipal campaigns of such distinctions as Conservative and Liberal, the English para-lellf Democrat and Republican, man and tariff reformer. twenty-fiv- e In New York the debt is growing year by year. Now a Tweed adds $40,000,000 to it in two years. Now a Tammany Hall, to and make a good "keep down the tax-rat- e it showing, jumps up $10,000,000 or so in n four or five years. Even a reform administration has added several millions to the city's debt. And the interest charge falls heavily upon the people, already burdened by the current expenses of the government, which are raised almost entirely by direct taxes that swell rents and reduce multi-partisa- wages. In Glasgow the street railways are now owned and run by the city at a large profit. Yet the average fare is about two cents, and there are workingmens trains morning and evening on which the charge is only one cent. Until two years ago the railways, which were built by the city, were leased to a private company which paid its stockholders 10 per cent dividends after paying the city annually: (1) The total interest charge on the .itys investment; (2) enough to accumulate into a sinking fund big enough to pay off the total first cpst of the roads at the end of the lease; (3) enongh to reimburse the city for all repairs and renewals, and (4) an annual rental of $750 a mile. And they were allowed to charge on the average about two and a half cents as a fare! Manchester built its street railways and leased them to a company which pays the city interest on the cost and a net dividend of 10 per cent, per annum. Yet this company may charge only about three cents, and must run two-ceworkingmens trains mornand evening. ing In Birmingham the private company which has leased the street car lines built by the city pays all the interest charges, is paying off the first cost of the roads, pays the city in full for keeping the lines in perfect repair, and charges about the- - same fares as those in. Manchester. At the expiration of the lease Birmingham, like Manchester, will own the lines outright, free from all encumbrances and in perfect condition. y franchises In New York the have been either sold for a song or given1 away outright. The street railways charge five-cefares, pay the smallest possible heed to public convenience and comfort, and altogether bring into the city treasury about $352,000 a year. And $200,000 of this sum comes from the Broadway road which, under the system of the British cities, would be paying upward of $3,000,000! nt street-railwa- nt In Glasgow the gas and electric light plants are owned and operated by the city. It has built new works. It his paid off half the original debt. It has accumulated a large sinking fund. Yet it has reduced the price of gas to 60 cents the thousand feet, and that, too, in the face of the fact that the price of coal has greatly advanced. To prevent the electric lighting from making serious inroads on the use of gas, it has started a system of renting gas stoves. The cost to the taxpayer of street lighting in (Glasgow is less than $100,000, and that sum Like the gas works, is constantly rediring. is u on u business basis t electric the light p! j and will soon be Mji::g for itself, with no cost tb the taxpayer. the city supplies gas at 60 In Manclie-te- r in of scores and In these three cities, cents the thousand feet, and the gas works of chief source the cities, smaller English earn for the city, over and above all exof the taxation direct peorevenue is not by penses, $500,000 a year, $200,000 of which New York and Brooklyn. The in is it as goes to pay interest on the gas debt and ple, are of paid government most of the expenses $300,000 of which is prril into the city treasworks water, ury to reduce general taxes. out of the income from public etc. street railways, Birmingham bought cut the private gas gas, electricity, the municipal departments companies at a huge rate. Yet it at once reThe most of Many of duced gas to 75 cent;-- :i..'.,kivg even on that or quite are almost decrease to that goes basis a profit of $170,000. Gas is row 50 them pay a large profit de- such unprofitable for necessary cents the thousand feet. the taxes and fire, sewage. sanitary New Yoik gins fTi i? 'y.s com partments as police, alare debts large The municipal bonded panics but a ratlnr i vi rpulity of gas. It New those of as in proportion 2 VgVng compamost as large pays them and iL L interest the L-But charge nies about $ 1 , oco.ooo i pubii : light York and Brooklyn. ' the of of out most profits have to pay Yoik the Now citizens of part is paid for ing. And in collected is not and $1.20 the thousand feet and are charged for municipal enterprises, taxes as it is here. leakage under the extortionate system of the are there taxes the growing Gas Trust. Year by year now are there practi In Glasgow smaller. In Manchester and Glasgow has a pM fret supply of absolutely cally no general taxes. so :.'gh that the effsmall. And pure water at a prew-uBirmingham the general rates are is greatly inof the Fire Divai'ina-nthe principal of the debt is constantly de iciency creased. The cost' of the water is about - gas-maki- of high-tarif- ' g. , . r r: creasing. Paper. Successor to THE INTER-MOUNTAI- ADVOCATE. N quarter of a cent a day for each inhabitant At this price the debt of the water works is being rapidly paid. miles for Manchester had to go ninety-fiv- e its water supply, and Birmingham had to go eighty miles, in both cities the water works are more than although the water rents are not much higher than those of Glasgow. New York, which had to go only four miVs further than Glasgow for its water supply, will not pay ofi its water debt for at least forty years. Yet water rents in New York are more than four times as high on the most avorable average as those of Glasgow. And New Yorks system cost far more than even the Manchester system with its ninety-fiv- e miles of aqueduct. To check the evils of overcrowding, Glasgow condemned and bought about one hundred acres of tenements. It opened twenty-nin- e old new. streets, it widened twenty-fiv- e model it tenements that bring streets, erected in $100,000 in rents annually, it laid out a superb park, and altogether so admirably administered the enterprise that it is now pracThe death rate has tically been lowered, the poor people are more comfortably housed and the city has been greatly eautified. Birmingham has imitated Glasgow's example with even better results. The finest street in Birmingham runs through the land bought for the great improvement scheme, in what was a few years ago the heart of the slums. In fifty years Birmingham will have paid for the ninety acres it bought , and will have a clear income from rentals of about $1,000,000, resides the new streets and parks, i The only attempts .New York has made in this? direction have been the opening of small parks. And it took seven years to get title possession of Mulberry Bend. Of course, the New York system all these enter's are paid for by the taxpayer. g. -- Glasgow changed itself from an inland town to a great seaport by undertaking the improvements of the Clyde which have cost the city $100,000,000 and the taxpayers almost nothing. A harbor was dug, splendid docks were constructed and all the facilities of a great seaport were provided. Yet by 1JI JR J H I I I It this NO. 36- - number is ou tbs label eon taiuiu your name, youd better re-new mUhty quick, me that in the number of the nest bene. No paper will be sent Air a longer time than paid for, nor on credit, eacept by apaelal arrangemeut. While reading that the miners of Pennwilling to mine coal for about 65 cents per ton, and that they have been mining it for much less, does your mind sometimes revert to the fact that you pay about $5 per ton for the same coal that the miners dig out for 65 cents? Have you ever thought enough along the lines of reason to ask who it is that gets the other $4.35? If you will take a tour of your local coal dealers you will soon discover that it is not they who get it, or any perceptible portion of it. In fact, the margin on whicK coal dealers do business is so small that as a rule they are driven to stealing in the way of short weights or else go out of business. It is the railroad companies that get the great margin between the miner and the consumer. These corporations rob in both ways. They press down the price of mining just as low as it is possible to have it done, while they force up the price of transportation just as high as the traffic will stand. The railroads could give the miners cents for each ton and a dollar and sixty-fiv- e sell then it for a dollar per ton less than they do and still make millions. Why dont they? Well, it is plain enough. The fool people have turned over the public highways of the country into their hands, and they are simply taking advantage of their foolishness that is all. Would others do the same? Most certainly yes. Nobody can blame a business corporation for making all the profits they can. Government ownership of railroads would work a revolution along this line. are sylvania . It is claimed that the world is not ready for Socialism. For an ideal Socialism, this is largely true; but there are a great many features of Socialism for which the world is ready, ard we see no reason why we should not advance along that line as far as possible. Our mail and our school systems are both pure Socialism. No one can deny that they are both practical and are both a great success. The world is certainly ready for them and has been for years. No man who has ever studied the subject doubts that the telegraph ought to be added to the postal system. The world is ready for it. The same is true of the telephones. Nearly everybody is ready to admit that street lighting ought to be a part of the public service. This country is ready for these things and for many more and there is no good reason for delaying this matter. Let the advanced thinkers go to work and make a campaign this fall that will put all the people to thinking. business administration each enterprise was made self sustaining. The citys credit was used, the city was made great and prosperous, and there is a net income over all expenses of about $2,000,000 a year. Manchester, to save itself from Liverpool competition, made a private effort to build a ship canal into a public enterprise and exo pended more than $25,000,000 of the We have never believed that the free it has cost. The success of the canal of has come slowly, but already the results, jus- coinage of silver would result in the claim that for some but it, people good tify the expenditure, and the Manchester taxhave favored it, and do now, for one always payers have not had their rates raised to any good purpose, and that is, that it would great extent. serve notice on other nations that wC are big s lodging-houseenough to take care of our own affairs in the Glasgow has seven great model where the homeless poor are accom- matter of money. That was the only point in modated at trifling rrtes. It has a family the Bryan platform of last year that we cared home where widows or widowers with chil- anything for. The proposed international bidren can live until they can arrange for the metallism destroys that feature of the platcare of their children while they are at work. form; which being the case, we consider, des where all the ap- stroys all of it; so, if we cannot have free It has public pliances for washing clothes are furnished at silver without an international agreement we small cost. Its female visitants teach poor are opposed to having it at all. The facts are families how to economize and yet live com- that the money question will never be settled fortably. Its milk inspectors visit the farms until gold as well as silver is demonetized. whence comes the citys milk supply and The free coinage of silver at best would be compel cleanliness and a high standard o! only a temporary makeshift. milk. Its municipal farms use the fertilizer We would like for some one who knows made from the city sewage and raise crops to sustain the horses needed by the city. It has to tell us what benefits would accrue to the splendid public swimming baths, etc. And all people from taking the administration out of or the hands of the Republicans and turning it these enterprises are either are partially sustained by the surplus from over to the Democrats. Would not the wrongs of giving away valuable franchises be these enterprises that bring in a profit. Manchester and Birmingham, with their just as great if done by the other? It is a public baths, their great ree libraries, their distinction without a difference. The parties numerous public assembly rooms and, above are a unit in their opposition to popular rule, all, their elaborate systems of technical and so long as that is the case there is nothschools to keep their manufacturing indus- ing for Populists or Socialists to choose tries supplied with intelligent artisans, are between. not far behind Glasgow in any respect, and Last week we expressed belief and hope in some respects surpass it. that Clevelands puppet, Eckels, would be permitted to pass through this city without Moses Thatcher attended the Eckels recognition, but we had forgotten the Alta banquet given by the Alta Gub. The dailies Gub. That famous drink resort and gamdo not state whether or not he got counsel bling hell never misses an opportunity. from Pat Lannan. Presumably he did. $ioo,-ooo.oo- one-tent- wash-house- self-sustaining h |