The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-09-26

statement which l made last December
 before the Massachusetts committee,
 which was printed as part of the testl- | mony.
 As an offset to these cities, the atten-
 ton of municipal ownership enthusiasts
 IS respectfully invited to the city of 1 Boston, population about the same as
 that of Glasgow, miles of street rail-
 way, 452; Brooklyn, population about
 the same as Sheffield, miles of street
 railway SO5; Baltimore, population
 about the same as that of Leeds, street
 railway mileage, S91; and lastly, if there
 is any city in the United States of one
 hundred thousand inhabitants not bet
 ter supplied with rapid transit than
 Huddersfleld and Leeds, or a seaside re-
 sort on the Jersey coast that cannot
 beat Blackpool ten to one, I should like
 to have our municipal operation friends
 name it. Here we have a population of
 1,6S7231 supplied with less miles of
 track than Washington, D. C., with a
 population of 250,000. Surely study of
 the accompanying tables is not oalcula-
 ted to attract the business man, anx-
 ious for practical transportation, to- ward municipal operation as a means of | developing rapid transit, And yet we l have here positively all the bedrock | facts that can be given at the present
 time The rest remain imbedded in the | imagination of those who talk so glibly
 of of the strides municipal ownership
 and operation are making 'on the other | side, you know.
 If these facts indicate anything they | clearly point out that the glowing &C.,
 counts we have had of such experi-
 ments by returned American travellers | from the other side are valueless when | submitted to practical American tests. l Not only are the statements of success
 and profits greatly exaggerated, ut mu- l nioipal ownership has not made any
 thing like the headway in the United 1 Kingdom which many would have us | believe. Indeed, there is much misap- l prehension in the United States on this 1 point as have shown to exist, as to l the extent of experiments in operating l street railways. Some accounts would 1 seem to indicate that England has mu- | nicipalized such undertakings as water, | gas, electric lighting and street rail-
 ways to much greater extent than the l facts warrant In reality, if an abso- | lutely accurate comparison could be
 made between the United Kingdom and 1 the United States, it is doubtful which 1 of the two countries would lead in this l respect. l refer of course, to public service, with prof1t-earning possibilities. For example, should we consider the 1 four important branches of service-the 1 supply of water, gas, electric light and l street railways-together, it would be l safe to say that honors in favor of the municipaliZation of these undertakings would be about equally divided in the | two countries.
 To those without practical experience in handling such vast undertakings, and who therefore cannot possibly req l lize the obstacles in the way of turning over such stupendous enterprises as these, requiring, as they do, so much expert knowledge, to officials In no way specially trained, municipalization is no doubt fascinating idea. Hence we find many writers here taking it up with avidity, and as result the litera- 1 ture on the subject during the last de- cade has increased far ore rapidly than the experiments themselves. A few in- stances of municipal ownership have been made to do duty for so many books, essays, lectures and articles that the practical man of affairs is begin ming to inquire for additional particu- lars. Exaggerated and enthusiastically written accounts of the municipal mill lennum of Glasgow and Birmingham no longer arrest his attention; while the sudden change in public sentiment in 1894 in favor of halt in the startling experiments inaugurated by the London county council has erea t1y increased the doubts of those who are not sure that, even if the success in this direc- tion has been as great as intimated in England, similar experiments might not be fraught with great danger this side the Atlantic.
 It is doubtful, when all the important factors of the problem, some of which have imperfectly endeavored to lay be- fore you, are taken into consideration, if the advocates of municipal operation can point to a single instance in which such service is performed better and
 cheaper an on more intelligent princi-
 ples abroad than In the United States.
 If American labor would be contented
 with the foreign scale of wages we
 might be able to give our theoretical
 friends even lower car fares than they now enjoy. This statement is made,
 however, as the lawyers say, without prejudice to the claim which I believe
 can be sustained, namely, that in spit of the great difference in wages such service is performed in the United
 States to-day as well and cheaper than
 similar service in any European city.