The times dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1903-1914, 1907-01-07
CURSE or. GLASGOW Is
sf MUNICIPAL SOCIALISM
Twenty-One Year Franchise Law Stopped
Progress of Scotch City.
Socaistc Experiments Have Brought Fearful Taxes Upon
Glasgow and Left 1t Far Behind in the Race
One Of the Most Backward of All Municipal
tiles and on Verge of Graf. :sca,4ias.
eY 8. EREp HoeuE.

GLASGOW SCOTLAND, September 90
Il have visited Frederick Howe's best
city In the world" and AM sick of It.
AS an awful example OF municipal so
cial!sm run mad. Glasgow stands without
n peer.
During my two weeks stay here l
have seen more drunkenness in the
streets, more evidences Of pinching,
death-dealtng poverty in the congested
SUM districts, more deformed handy
legged children among the families of
the working classes. and more instances
OF penny-wise- pound foolish, municipal
policy than in any other city in Europe
or America.
Rose tinted articles in some of our
American magazines had led me to ex-
pect city that had solved some OF the
social and economic problems of NUM-
cipai government that are vcxing us ut
home have found n city that has
failed to comprehend even the rudiment-
airy principles OF government a mi-
hiciraHty that Is as primitive in many
OF It's methods as was Los Angeles before
the "gringo'' came
have found a city where the street
cars have no tenders, where municipal
telephone pay stations are located in mems
water closets, whore policemen trundle
''ei'hS ''hHS " lUt SldllOU III wheel
barrows, where women and children arc
starving in one-room tenemcnts by rea-
son of discriminating street car fares.
and where the tax-ratc is double that OF
Los Angeles.
| had prepared myself to believe that
the proverbial Scotch honesty and Scotch
thrift had combined to produce a city
In which there would be no politics ana
no graft And the day arrived in Glas-
cow a councillor on tho floor OF the City
Council Chamber, demanded the resigna-
ton of Lord Provost Chisholm for making
a profit out OF coke sold by the gas de-
partment. The evidence Is apparently
conclusive. Tho Lord Provost is senior
partner of baking firm that secures
us fuel from the city at very favorable
price-to the, baking firm
IlliS IS but one of number of sensa-
tional accusations made in the Council
Chamber on the eventful Thursday after
noon OF my arrival here.
Angcred by n resolution Of conspra
passed by the Council week before
during his absence. Councillor Gibson .stib-
mitted typewriter list of charges
against the management of certain of
the municipal departments, demanding I'm
DER the rules an investigation OF each of
them.
For half an hour those in the Council
Chamber secured brief panoramic view
of the stage setting behind the scenes
in municipal Socialism.
NEWSPAPERS MUzzLED.
Then came al melee on the floor in the
midst OF the session, during which a haif
dozen councillors advanced o.. Gibson
tore the typewriter list from his hands
and threw it into the fire The rules
OF the Council forbade the preferment of
verbal charges even by a member of the
Council. and the Scotch libel law is SO
severe that not newspaper in Scotland
dared to publish the charges which were
not read.
Apparently this is the Scotch method of
stirling an investigation. The scene is
one that would not--could not-occur in
any but Scotch city.
Councillor Gibson sought among other
things for an official report explaining
why the Glasgow gas and electrician de-
partments are paying fifty per cent. more
for coal from the Glasgow coal fields than
the same coal is selling for 1000 miles
from Glasgow.
1t was one of the rare occasions when
a strong willed man had torn aside the
curtain of Scotch hypocrisy and revealed
q Socialist-labor union municipal govern
ment in its true light.
Conservative business men here have
assured me that Glasgow is treading close
on the heels OF a series OF municipal
scandals, nearly all of them connected
with one or another of the city's NUM-
cipal trading schemes.
This question of the purchase of coal
involves more than 100000 year, but
1t is only one of q number of hitherto
details of Glasgows municipal
trading administration.
Taken in the concrete they furnish an
exclamation for Glasgow's abnormally
high tax rate The taxes this year on
business property for the municipality
alone are eight shillinGs two and one-half
pence on the pound. thirty per cent.
higher than those of the neighboring city
of Edinburc, where the municipality does
not reach so far into the realms of pri-
waite enterprise.
Glasgow's rates are based on income,
not on capital values. This years rate on
business property is equivalent to 50 on
each 50 of income At home this rate
would amount to a tax of s3.2o on each
Sl0O OF capital value of the property, as
stunning that the property rents on an
an eight per cent. gross basis.
This $3.50 rate is for municipal purposes
only. There are additional taxes for the
State and imperial government that
amount to about the same as our State
and county tax rate
When one stops to consider that Glas-
gov gives its citizens nothing free that
is not received by the citizens of Los
Angeles and that the city's scale of
wages is from one-tnird TO two-thirds
lower than that OF American cities. then
one begins to have fair realization of
what municipal socialism has done for