The Bridgeport evening farmer. [volume] (Bridgeport, Conn.) 1866-1917, 1912-03-01
Totals ........ 1893 s7so,6ss,724

as the reasons generally assigned for
FIirst-A desire for better and more
efficient service. 1t was felt that prl-
vate ownership, interested, as it was,
ONLY IN DIVIDENDS, could not be
relied upon to operate enterprises so
as to produce the largest social re-
suits. With this was the belief that
under public ownership rates and
charges could be reduced to the con
sumner, and that the earnings could be
used for the betternient of the service
Or the lowering of the cost.
Second-TheSe enterprises were felt
to be essentially public in their nature,
because Of their monOpoliStic charac-
ter and the lack of the competition
which secures efficiency in other indus
try.
Third-The street railway employees
were generally underpaid and over
worked. Their hours of labor were
from 70 to go per week. and the wages
were low.
Fourth-It was felt that the earn
ings of such industries should go into
the public treasury. Every voter in
England is a taxpayer Or a property
owner, and he feels his taxes because
he pays directly The ratepay-
err and the voter saw In these enter
prises a means of relief from a part
Naturally municipal ownership in
Great Britain, as elsewhere has not
come unopposed. There is organized
hostility, says this government re-
port, from those directly interested
in municipal franchises, chiefly the
electric lighting and traction, the
steam railway, and the other fran
chise companies whose identity with
the financial interests of the nation
CREATES A COMMON CLASS
FEELING" That is to say, ''class
consciousness holds the predatory in
terests together.
In the case of electricity and street
railway enterprises, the report says
they "are largely controlled by a sin
gle company which operates under
takings all over Great Britain and
as these interests are easily organ
lied for the purpose of protection and
are strongly represented in parlia-
ment," naturally they are continually
being heard from, and are raising OBJ
jections all the time to municipal owo-
-rship In 1902 the London Times
published IT articles voicing objec-
lions to municipal ownership, the
principal one being that these public
undertakings were "a burden upon the
people" But the report brushes most
of these aside, and insists that ''the
strictly reproductive undertakings: AS
water, gas, electricity and tramways,
are but rarely a source of burden
to the taxpayers, and where this IS
true it is usually only in the earlier
years of their operation.
One charge made by the opponents
of municipal ownership has been
that the municipal accounts were
cooked" and that the favora bic
showings made are in the bookkeep-
ing rather than in the activities them
selves. The British board of trade
investigated these charges, repudiat-
ed the insinuation and stated that
''the audit of these enterprises, so
far as it extended, was very COM
plete.''
Summing it all up. this government
report shows that, compared with the
privately owned monopolies, the mu-
nicipally-owned public utilities are
BUSINESS ENTERPRISES CON-
QUOTED BY BUSINESS MEN. and
that they have:
1 .Tmnroved service
2. Reduced cost to users.
3. Increased wages and reduced
hours of employees.
4. Continually enlarged the capacity
Of the p ants to take care of the pub
lie business.
5. Set aside portion OF the receipts
to wipe out the Indebtedness.
g. Paid great sums into the public
treasures of the various cities for the
relief iof taxpayers.
z. Kept themselves free from pol1t-
ical influences.
8. Reduced grating to a minimum.
9. Markedly increased the use of
public utilities.
This report also pays it's respects to
the objection to municipal trading as
'socialistic." 1.-THE municipalizaton of
the natural monopolies, while approx
ed by socialists" it says, "has the
active support of millions who were
never identified with nor in sympathy
with socialism. It is more largely
A MOVEMENT OF THE TAX-PAY-
ING CLASSES, inspired by belief in