The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-10-22
Municipal Ownership in London.


Municipal Ownership In London.
The honest advocate of municipal
ownership cannot look without discour-
agement on the picture of the expert
ment in London exhibited by Mr.. ERNEST
f. WILLIAMS in an article in the North
American Reriec. If the cOlors used by
this critic are not too sombre-in other
words, if his statistics are not faulty
then municipal ownership az practised
by the disciples Of JOHN BURNS is n gross
and humiliating failure,
IL was promised by the pioneers that
wages would be better, hours Of labor
shorter. cost to the public lower and
income so handsome that a balance
would be left, after paying for mainte-
nance, for new parks and old age pen
sions. The event has COMPOUNDED the
prophets, although, OF course, il has
not silenced the promoters. The truth
is that politics and trades unionism have
combined to shatter the dream of the
Missionaries. They did not reckon with
the human equation.
The County Council has probably made
its best showing with the tramways it
took over and those which it has built,
and yet Mr.. WILLIAMS calls the service an
expensive failure" After allowing less
than IL per cent. for depreciation upon
lines capitalized at S13, 049, 500, the profits
for the year ending in March, 1905, were
only $50, 1857. 40. But the financial meth
DDS of the Council are peculiar; in the
light shed by them the surplus disappears,
leaving MOI a trace behind. A third Of
the cost of a tramway is transferred to
one of the Borough Councils, the con-
sideration being the improvement of
the streets through which the tramway
is to run; and another third is charged
up to street improvements. 1t is easy
enough under this arrangement, as Mr..
WILLIAMS says, "to delude the citizens
into the belief that the County Council
is spending its money wisely and we'll,
and making a splendid success of the
municipal trading business"
The municipal steamboat service,
viewed as a financial undertaking, is a
worse failure. Last December the Coun-
Gil was obliged to admit that the service
was conducted at a loss. 1t was esti-
mated that during the winter season S63
was expended for every Sass received;
yet the Council continued to run empty
steamboats, up and down the river.
What is called the Works Department
has become a laughing stock. 1t was
organized to eliminate the contractor.
The city was to boss the job on public
improvements and furnish it's W ma
terials. II has only succeeded in SWELL
ing the taxpayers bill. Brick work
which contractors furnished for Sells
a rod cost the Works Department $135.s
Estimates are frequently far below ulti-
mate cost. The labOrers in the depart
ment loaf and invite their souls: whereas
a bricklayer on a contractors job will
lay 1 900 bricks a day, the County Coun-
ellis layers call 300 a days work. More
over, the bricks made by the department
have sometimes been condemned as
unfit for building purposes. No con-
tractor who knew what he a about
would buy such bricks as the County
Councils department makes.
The Councils scheme for supplying
| electric power to the whole of London
is not received with enthusiasm by users
| OF power. 1t has been denounced as a
mad undertaking in the Council chamber,
and Parliament has put a veto on it for
| the time being. The offer of a private
company to supply London with power
at a moderate price has, of course, been
| rejected; it would be a black eye for
municipal ownership to grant the charter
asked for.
In spite of financial Juggling and fail
ures that are palpable the Council is
always ready to try new experiments in
municipal ownership. Its object, APP
parently, is torbecome the universal EN-
| ployer and establish a system of social
ism for the taxpayer to support. He
groans under the imposition, but he is
outvoted by the sagacious toilers who
lay 800 bricks a day for the Council and
do other kinds Of work on the same prin-
ciple. Municipal ownership in London
seems to be a trades union game for the
Oreatest OoOd of the smallest number.