The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-06-08
TEST SOgIlL sTHE0RIES
8nrTfsH CITIES RETIREMENT. INC WITH NEw SCIENCE. <
Ownership of Public Utilities Finds Many Strong Advocates Success
 Has Attended Scheme in Sev. eral Municipalities.
,Nashlngton Letter.

Washington Letter.
 Among advance sheets of consular re %pprts issued by the State Department IS cns from James Boyle; Consul ah in A1Ner Enr- ! 1and,r which contains much of interest to those who have taken an interest in experiments along that line. The report opment in Great Britain of that phase < of socialism known as municipal trad ing." or the ownership and operation or public utilities. In 1875. he says, the cap 5 ital invested in municipal undertakings z In Great Britain was A65.OO0,OO. ana Tn < 190 1t was N .500, 900, ,0Q0-s He adds. ..
 There are now In Great Britain n "ssl mu- ifs.- nicipalities owning waterworks. g owning < the street railroads. 240 owning the gas z works and fS1 supplying electricity. Most of these are in England. Munici- Y pslities were not allowed to work the tramways until 1896. It is estimated that $ half of the gas users in England use municipal gas. In number of places g Liverpool among them-the municipanties teuppiy electricity for lighting ana power. while the gas supply is still in the hands of private corporations In the case of Liverpool, the gas companysis Is quite wil- F ling to sell to the municipality, but the latter will not buy; first, because under Ahe charter of the gas company the mu- Snicipaiity would be compelled to pay. a perpetual dividend of 10 per cent. to the stockholders. and secondly, because 1t Is believed that in the near future electric ' 3lluminant.
 Successful Tests Made.
 The municipalities of bennington and Harroga.e own Turkish ba-hs. two or the z best at present existing inGreat Brfain. i and Harrogate also gives hreworks fdis-' plays at municipal cost. Glasgow, like trans and provides municipal lectures. Glasgow has recently reduced the fares on the tram cars so that they are now not only half-penny q cent fares. put tefa of txrrn nd be travelled for cents. Universal penny e cent fares will probably shortly be introduced in Liverpool. The transfer system, as prevailing in America. is not used in Liverpool, nor in any other Brit ish municipality. so far as know. Glas- gow was the first. city to establish
 municipal palace Manchester owns shares in it's ship canal. Out of it's mu- nicipal tramway profits Sheffield has ap- 5 propriated $75,000 for the erection of shops and business premises which it will rent. Quite recently the northern townships outside of London bought the well-known Alexander palace. where the municipal authorities maintain an auditorium and give organ recitals and theatrical. mili- all sorts, and industrial exhibitions. Tor quay owns a rabbit warren; Colchester possesses an oyster fishery; St, Helen'si Ca chemical center in the consular districU supplies sterilized milk; Hull owns a ere x matorium: Doncaster and Chester own race courses (the former actually man. aging the raceSl. BOurnemOuth owns one of the finest golf courses III Great Britain; West Ham, a borough of rLondon. owns stone-fag factory. and Bradford owns hotel--as does also Liverpool (on It's waterworks property in Wales.) Bristol has municipalized it's docks and harbor at a cost of s1o,00o 600 and $15,00O.00O.
 Liverpool Taking the Lead.
 The docks of Liverpool are municipal ized in a modified way. The system Is peculiar to Liverpool This vast estate, valued at several hundreds of millions oi dollars, is administered by a public trust nearly all the members of which are the profits, after deducting expenses and the payment of interest on capital ac- count. go to improvement and not to the benefit of a private corporation. The proba bility is that the London docks will before many years be managed under either the Bristol or the Liverpool plan Nottingham, in addition to owning parks markets, artisan dwellings, baths and { hospital has bought .a castle and for est and has a natural-history museum and school of art and was the firs municipality in Great Britain to have university college. The last item gives occasion for the statement that severa English cities have within the last year or so taken up the question or local uni versailles. Birmingham has established one and Liverpool will shortly follow suit.
 Liverpool is one of the foremost cities in municipal socialism. It owns the wa ferworks tone of the best systems in the world); it operates the street cars, 1t SUD- plies the electric light and power, 1t has one of the largest and best public bah systems anywhere and proposes to erect the finest Turkish bath in Europe: 1t provides laundries for the poor districts; it furnishes flowers and plants for the windows in the slums; it sells sterilized humanized milk for the children of the poor at cost price; 1t has a ssalarfed or ganist to play its famous municipal or gan; 1t gives municipal lecturcs-and all 4Kaf ktnx, fA hn nrfn nlr ings of municipalities, 3uch as parks with concerts, technical schools etc. But the greatest socialistic undertaking by the Liverpool municipality is that of provid- ing dwellings for the very poorS the dis possessed tenants of demolished unSani- tary dwellings of the slums.
 Housing a Serious Problem.
 The one great predominating question in connection with municipal socialism is the housing question''-that is, the de- molition of ''slums' and unsanitary dwell- angs and the erection by the municipal !. fty of suitable dwellings in place thereof. Americans who have never been here can have but little conception of the ter . rible conditions existing in many of the large cities of Great Britain as to the housing of the very poor. This condition < is a heritage of former social and eco homie conditions. as well as of feudal s land laws and of the past indifference both of the municipalities and of Parlia- Q ment as well as of the public generally even, it may be said, of philanthropists But heroic efforts are now being made 1T many of the large cities, and Iiverpoo is in the front rank in the efforts to rem .- edy this deplorable condition of affairs Many difficulties have been confronted and overcome which at first were thought to be insurmountable-and these in addi tion to the perpleXing moral and socia
 questions involved.
 The Liverpool municipal dwellings arc mostly in the form of blocks of tenement houses or 'hats.' three or four stories high. The local government board Ga bureau directly under the control of Par 1iamenO insists upon certain provisions to meet the necessity of dspossessed ten. ants before sanctioning demolition opera. tions. Until 1895 there had been a con. Spicuous failure to meet this obligation s but since then the wants of dispossesseG persons have been carefully foreseen anu met. The present policy Is to have blocks of dwellings ready within convenient dist
 ance into which dispossessed tenants car go immediately they remove from the Condemned property.
 Cheap Tenements for the Poor. Most of these tenants are dock laborer, or a like class. It is claimed that I.iv
 erpool alone among the municipalities O
 England and Scotland has been success
 full in supplying type of buildings within the financial means of the poorest of tn
 poor. A single room can be had for a
 low as 45 cents a week. The rent of tw
 rooms ranges from 60 to so cents; tha
 of three rooms, from $l to $.10; that a
 four rooms (the largest suites provided
 from $1 25 to Sl. 50. The fixtures are sim
 Dle, but superior to those supplied in lik
 dwellings by private landlords. In
 few dwellings hot water is supplied. Otll