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 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF DEMOCRACY
 
 9 
 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 FREDERIC C. HOWE, PH.D. 
 
 AUTHOE OF " THE CITY : THE HOPE OF DEMOCRACY," 
 u " THE CONFESSIONS OF A MONOPOLIST," ETC. 
 
 NEW YOEK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 1907
 
 JS 
 
 COPYEIQHT, 1907, BY 
 
 CHARLES SCEIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published June, 1907
 
 To 
 TOM L. JOHNSON 
 
 Who Found in the Philosophy of Equal 
 
 Opportunity for All and Special Privilege 
 
 for None, the Inspiration of His 
 
 Political Life; 
 
 Who Halted in the Conquest of Material 
 
 Things to Take Up the Burdens of the 
 
 Warfare Against Monopoly; 
 
 Whose Cure for the Failures of Democracy is 
 More Democracy, 
 
 This Book is Affectionately Dedicated.
 
 IN a previous volume, devoted to a study of the 
 American city, I stated that: "Instead of the city 
 being controlled by the charter, the suffrage or by 
 purely political institutions, I have become con- 
 vinced that it is the economic environment that 
 creates and controls man's activities as well as his 
 attitude of mind. This arouses his civic or his self 
 interest; this underlies the poverty and the social 
 problems with which the city is confronted**. The 
 worst of the distressing poverty as well as the irre- 
 sponsible wealth is traceable to economic institu- 
 tions, to franchise privileges and unwise taxation ; 
 to laws which are open to correction as they 
 were to creation***. It is the economic motive that 
 makes municipal reform a class struggle; on the 
 one hand are the few who enjoy privileges which 
 they are seeking to retain; on the other hand are 
 millions awakening to the conviction of indus- 
 trial democracy 1 ." 
 
 We are beginning to see that this is true. At the 
 very heart of our institutional life, whether of the 
 city, the State or the nation, some interest is to be 
 found struggling to control the machinery of gov- 
 
 ir The City: The Hope of Democracy. Preface, 
 vii
 
 viii PREFACE 
 
 eminent for its own advantage. Back of the boss 
 and the party organisation are hidden powers 
 which inspire their activities. The caucus, the con- 
 vention, the party platform have become the tools 
 of privilege for the shaping of its ends. Kunning 
 through what seems to be the personal or partisan 
 controversies of the President with Congress, the 
 struggles over the organisation of Committees of 
 the House, the tyrannous control of the Speaker 
 and the Rules Committee, the skirmishing of the 
 Senate, its reactionary procedure and Senatorial 
 courtesy, are the economic business motives of the 
 interests which really rule at Washington. 
 
 In the commonwealths the same is true. Into the 
 party organisation of every ward or township run 
 the ramifications of the railways, the franchise in- 
 terests and other privileges, woven into a system- 
 atic unity through the party and the spoils of 
 office. By means of this organisation legislation is 
 made responsive to the will of the business inter- 
 ests which control the state rather than to the will 
 of the people themselves. In the cities the struggle 
 is for franchise rights, the control of the courts of 
 justice and the taxing machinery for the further- 
 ance of their designs. The warp and woof of our 
 politics is close woven with the desire for privilege, 
 which has taken possession of the agencies of 
 democracy for the promotion of its interests. The 
 great constitutional questions which are before
 
 PKEFACE ix 
 
 the courts, the legislation that is pressing for 
 action in Congress and the State Assemblies, all 
 bear the stamp of the economic struggle between 
 democracy and privilege that is now uppermost 
 in America. 
 
 This issue overshadows all others. It obtrudes 
 from every page of the press. It is present in every 
 party conference. Monopoly, or the desire for 
 monopoly, the creation of franchises, grants or 
 subsidies, the exemption of property from taxation 
 or regulation these are the motives which run 
 throughout our politics to the exclusion of almost 
 every other consideration. Democracy is like a 
 majestic organ from which a splendid symphony is 
 awaited. It has been attuned to the ideals of 
 builders, who dreamt of the concord of harmony 
 that it would produce. But the organist knows 
 little and cares less for the dreams of the makers. 
 It is he and not the organ that makes the melody. 
 And he has degraded the instrument to the produc- 
 tion of dance hall music. So, back of the many 
 political agencies, that have been laboriously 
 created for the expression of the popular will, are 
 to be found the interests which have compelled 
 democracy to respond to the creation of privi- 
 leges that must be paid for by the labour of the 
 people. 
 
 The struggle for government by the people, or 
 government by organised wealth, is the struggle of
 
 X PEEFACE 
 
 the immediate future. It will express itself first 
 in the city. Here the issue is most clearly present- 
 ed, Here the popular will is most responsive. 
 Here the burdens of privilege are most op- 
 pressive. Municipal democracy is finding expres- 
 sion in the demand for the ownership or the con- 
 trol of the franchise corporations, in the revision 
 of taxation, in the many humane movements for 
 the amelioration of the condition of the poor. We 
 are coming to see that the city can only relieve 
 itself from the burdens under which it labours when 
 its physical foundations are under the control of 
 the community rather than in private hands. 
 
 The British city confirms this conviction. For 
 the British city is free from corruption. Its organ- 
 isation is simple, direct, democratic. The members 
 of the Town Councils are responsible and respon- 
 sive to public opinion. The suffrage is limited to 
 the tax paying class. There is no boss, no machine, 
 no spoils system. Great Britain has achieved what 
 we in America have long prayed for. Her local 
 politics are in the hands of her business men. 
 
 Yet poverty is at its worst in the British city. 
 Millions of people are herded in tenements unfit 
 for the stabling of horses. An equal number are 
 ever hovering on the border line of pauperism. So 
 far as human welfare is concerned "good govern- 
 ment" is not enough. Mere honesty is not enough. 
 The calling of business men to the Town Councils
 
 PEEFACE xi 
 
 has not relieved the terrible costs of the modern 
 city. The life of the people, their standard of exist- 
 ence, the condition of their homes, their health, 
 education and happiness is a matter of something 
 more than honesty and efficiency. 
 
 In the British, as in the American city, Democ- 
 racy is chained, Prometheus like, by economic fet- 
 ters. The people enjoy political freedom. But 
 .political freedom has achieved as little as honesty. 
 The British city , is under the servitude of an 
 economic master. It is ruled by the members of 
 Parliament, and especially by the House of Lords, 
 which has no sympathy with the ideals of democ- 
 racy. For democracy is seeking to destroy the 
 privileges which the members of Parliament enjoy. 
 All of the physical foundations of the city are in 
 alien hands. And those who own these privileges 
 and are responsible for their abuses are as indiffer- 
 ent to the needs of humanity and as arrogant in 
 their oppression of the people as the boss of any 
 American city. In Great Britain, as in America, 
 conditions are the same. Human welfare is subor- 
 dinate to property. Those who suffer from the 
 abuses of privilege are denied the power to correct 
 them. Despite its unquestioned honesty and effi- 
 ciency, the British city remains the ward of its 
 feudal master, Parliament. 
 
 I am conscious that no one can fully understand 
 the country in which he lives. Much less can he
 
 xii PREFACE 
 
 understand a nation to which he is an alien. It is 
 possible, however, to comprehend certain universal 
 motives of human nature, motives that are con- 
 stant in politics and express themselves in every 
 land and under every form of government. The 
 most universal instinct of man is to avoid effort, 
 to live if possible without labour. This is the motive 
 that underlies the surface phenomena of all his- 
 tory. It is the one note that is common in the con- 
 temporary politics of all countries. Back of the 
 spectacular controversies of parties, the by-plays 
 of Kings and Ministries, of Parliament and Con- 
 gress, is the struggle of the few to get upon the 
 backs of the many. To live without labour means 
 that one must live by the labour of others. This is 
 the motive of privilege. It is the instinct of mon- 
 opoly. It is the meaning of protective tariffs, of 
 railway, franchise and mining grants, of land 
 monopoly, of subsidies, of indirect taxes upon con- 
 sumption, of unjust taxation in any form. It is 
 the lust of something for nothing that makes of 
 the House of Lords and the United States Senate 
 instinctive obstacles to democracy. Both cham- 
 bers are the sanctuaries of privilege. At their 
 doors democracy is beating in the name of 
 humanity. The movement is inspired from below 
 among the common people. Democracy is hav- 
 ing its beginnings in the city. The issue with 
 which we are familiar in Chicago, Cleveland,
 
 PKEFACE xiii 
 
 Detroit, Cincinnati and elsewhere is the same issue 
 that is uppermost in the cities of London, Glasgow, 
 Manchester, Liverpool and Sheffield. 
 
 All that the Imperial government has ever 
 meant to the great mass of the British people has 
 been the privilege of carrying the aristocracy in 
 idleness upon its back. Government by gentlemen 
 is the costliest burden under which the nation 
 staggers. The ideal statesman is a member of the 
 nobility, the country squire, the leisured gentle- 
 man, the generous employer of labour, some digni- 
 tary of the community. And because Great 
 Britain has succeeded in luring this class of men 
 into her politics we have been assured that repre- 
 sentative government was there at its best. It is to 
 this class that many reformers would have Amer- 
 ica entrust her affairs. British and American 
 observers have been deceived by the appearance of 
 things. The members of the gentry are in Parlia- 
 ment, for the same reason that the railway director 
 is in Congress. They are looking after their inter- 
 ests. And nowhere does their energy yield larger 
 returns. It is not merely the personal honesty of 
 those who rule that makes government good or bad. 
 It is the economic interests which they represent. 
 Even the form which the government assumes is a 
 secondary matter. And a study of the British city 
 will demonstrate that its qualities, whether they 
 be good or bad, are reducible to this interpretation.
 
 xiv PEEFACE 
 
 Just as the British city is sacrificed to the greed 
 of its overlords in Parliament, so the Town Coun- 
 cils are cramped in their ideals by 'the rate paying 
 class which elects them. Administration is meas- 
 ured in terms of its cost The ideals of the city are 
 those of thrift, of economy, of the petty business 
 man. Nowhere is democracy a big, generous, per- 
 sonal thing. The fear of an increased tax rate is 
 always uppermost in men's minds. This is not the 
 "literary theory" of the British city, but the "liter- 
 ary theory," as Walter Bagehot has pointed out in 
 reference to the British Constitution, is usually 
 false to the reality. 
 
 The rate payers who control the Town Councils 
 are at war with the great landlords who control 
 Parliament from the House of Lords. It is they 
 who own the land which the local authorities want 
 to tax or acquire for city purposes. They also own 
 the franchise corporations which the Town Coun- 
 cils would purchase or regulate in the interest of 
 the people. Among their number are to be found 
 the slum lords whose neglect is responsible for the 
 condition of the tenements. Parliament hates the 
 democracy of the Town Councils. It endeavours 
 to curb it at every turn. And well it may. For 
 the Town Councils are endeavouring to destroy the 
 privileges which the landed gentry have enjoyed 
 from time immemorial. 
 
 The recent Parliamentary election was the first
 
 PREFACE xv 
 
 definite expression of this struggle. It swept away 
 the Conservative party, stupefied by its long con- 
 tinued reactionary rule. It ushered in a coalition 
 government of Liberals, Socialists and Labourites. 
 In a broad perspective it marks the beginning of a 
 revolution not unlike that which followed the Re- 
 form Acts of the early half of the century. The 
 latter was a commercial, middle class movement. 
 Liberalism scarcely rose above the ideals of the cap- 
 tains of industry, who were content with reform so 
 long as it admitted them to a share of the govern- 
 ment. The masses of the people have enjoyed but 
 little more consideration under the old Liberal 
 party than under the Tory ascendancy. 
 
 Real democracy is but beginning. It is finding 
 its voice in the demand for industrial legislation. 
 It is aiming to make use of the ballot for the cor- 
 rection of the present unequal distribution of 
 wealth. It is inspired by the fearful poverty of the 
 bulk of the nation, by the injustice of the system 
 of taxation, by the tyrannous use of power by the 
 classes long in control of the government. 
 
 The new democracy is issuing from the cities. It 
 has been trained to a confidence in itself in the 
 Town Councils. The Municipal Corporations Act of 
 1835 is the foundation upon which the masses of 
 the British people are to achieve representative 
 government. The rate payers of the towns have 
 learned that administration is not the exclusive
 
 xvi PKEFACE 
 
 privilege of the gentry class. The shop keeper and 
 the wage earner have found a way into politics. 
 They have been trained to a confidence that other- 
 wise they never could have acquired. The rever- 
 ence for authority, so long universal in Great Brit- 
 ian, has been shattered. Keaction is still strong in 
 the rural districts, but the many successful 
 achievements of the towns have awakened a belief 
 in the power of the government still further to alle- 
 viate the condition of the people. All this has 
 modified the traditions as well as the formulas of 
 British politics. It has awakened new ideas that 
 are not confined to the socialist or the labour par- 
 ties. 
 
 Just as the economic motive animates the mem- 
 bers of Parliament, so the same motive inspires the 
 new democracy that has issued from the towns. 
 The difference is not one of motive so much as it is 
 of the size of the class from which it comes. There 
 is, however, this fundamental distinction. Special 
 privilege can only be enjoyed by a few. It must be 
 paid by the labour of the many. Democracy, on 
 the other hand, is inspired by the desire of equal 
 opportunity for all. And this seems to be the ideal 
 of the city, wherever democracy has awakened to its 
 powers. 
 
 FREDERIC C. HOWE. 
 
 Cleveland, Ohio, May 1, 1907.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTEE PAGB 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY 1 
 
 II. THE BEGINNINGS OF DEMOCRACY .... 8 
 
 III. THE TOWN COUNCIL . . 24 
 
 IV. THE CITIZEN AND THE CITY 40 
 
 V. THE IDEALS OF THE BRITISH CITY ... 63 
 
 VI. THE GROWTH AND EXTENT OF MUNICIPAL TRADING 70 
 
 VII. THE CITIES AND THE TRAMWAYS .... 82 
 
 VIII. THE GAS SUPPLY 101 
 
 IX. THE ELECTRICITY SUPPLY Ill 
 
 X. THE GREATEST GAIN OF ALL 119 
 
 XI. THE MUNICH* ALITY AND LABOUR . . . .135 
 
 XII. PARLIAMENT AND THE CITIES: THE TYRANNY OF 
 
 A CLASS 144 
 
 XIII. GLASGOW A CITY OF THRIFT AND CONSCIENCE 161 
 
 XIV. LONDON: A MUNICIPAL DEMOCRACY . . . 203 
 
 XV. THE AMERICAN AND THE BRITISH CITY A COM- 
 PARISON 228 
 
 XVI. THE DEAD HAND OF THE LAND .... 251 
 
 XVII. THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT THE SANCTUARY OF 
 
 PRIVILEGE 272 
 
 XVIII. THE UPPER AND THE NETHER MILLSTONES OF 
 
 PRIVILEGE 303 
 
 XIX. THE NEXT STEP OF INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY . 823 
 
 XX. THE CITY OF TO-MORROW 336 
 
 INDEX . . 365
 
 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTORY 
 
 ACCORDING to the Census returns of 1901, sev- 
 enty-seven per cent, of the population of the Brit- 
 ish Isles lives under urban conditions. Nearly 
 four-fifths of the people dwell in towns. From dec- 
 ade to decade the percentage of city dwellers in- 
 creases, while the number of those who remain on 
 the farms diminishes. Not only is the countryside 
 being wasted of its population, but those who 
 remain are no longer the strong and vigorous yeo- 
 man who sent the English colonial to the ends of 
 the earth as settler, administrator and soldier. 
 Those who abandon the farms and go to the towns 
 are untrained and undernourished. They are not 
 fitted for the industrial struggle which the city in- 
 volves. Neither the education nor the opportunity 
 of the labourer are such as invigorate and keep 
 fresh the city population of Germany and the 
 United States. And it is upon this constant in- 
 fusion of new blood that the industrial life of the 
 nation depends. In Great Britain, as elsewhere, the 
 problem of the city is the problem of civilisation.
 
 2 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 The two cannot be disassociated. The city cannot 
 be treated as an isolated thing. It is the heart of 
 the nation. But it is upon the lungs of the country- 
 side that its vitality depends. For this reason this 
 volume is something more than a study of munic- 
 ipal administration. It is a study of the nation as 
 well. 
 
 As recently as 1904, three quarters of a million 
 skilled workmen were without employment in 
 Great Britain. Including the unskilled labourers 
 and those known to be in absolute poverty, to- 
 gether with those dependent upon them, there were 
 from seven to ten million people in want or in con- 
 stant fear of it. These persons were brought into 
 the world endowed with energy and a willingness 
 to work. But they have no right of access to the 
 resources of the earth. The land, the mines, the 
 mills and the workshops are in alien hands. La- 
 bour can only employ itself on the terms which the 
 owner exacts. And under the system of rack rent- 
 ing, which prevails, the returns to the worker are 
 but little better than the acceptance of public 
 relief. Under the feudal order, which modern in- 
 dustrialism has destroyed, man was identified with 
 the land. He had some rights in the soil. He was 
 protected by law and custom. He enjoyed a status 
 in the social order that insured him a chance to 
 work, an opportunity to make some use of his abil- 
 ities.
 
 INTRODUCTORY 3 
 
 To-day society recognises no such, obligations to 
 its members. Man has now become the ward of 
 many masters. In the past he had at most but one. 
 The worker is scarcely more free than he was in 
 the days of his serfdom. Freedom of contract, of 
 movement from place to place, and a purely cash 
 relationship on a competitive basis, have taken the 
 place of a custom that served as a safeguard 
 against the worst sort of oppression. The coming 
 of the city with its industrial relationships has 
 destroyed many of the communal rights that 
 existed under the earlier order. The rules of the 
 contest are as ruthless as the rules of barbaric war- 
 fare. Man is bound to pay what another wills for 
 the use of the land, upon which he has what passes 
 for a home. He is chained by the means of trans- 
 portation, as well as the necessities of heat, light 
 and water. Upon these his life depends. He is 
 dependent upon the vicissitudes of industry. He 
 cannot control the place where he works, cannot 
 control even the opportunity to work. He is of less 
 concern to his master than the machine to which he 
 is attached, for he involves no capital cost, no bur- 
 den of repair or maintainance. Thousands stand 
 ready to take his place without question as to the 
 hazards involved. Under the boasted freedom of 
 contract mankind has been divorced from any legal 
 claim to the earth or the physical foundations of 
 society upon which all life depends. This is the
 
 4 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 most revolutionary of all of the changes that have 
 come to society. It is a reversal of the laws of 
 nature. It is a reversal of the social order which 
 has existed from time immemorial. For whether it 
 be in ancient India or in early Germany, in feudal 
 Europe or in the newer nations of the earth, the 
 laws and customs of the people or the open re- 
 sources of the soil, have insured to man some op- 
 portunity to the use and enjoyment of the common 
 gifts of God. 
 
 It has become necessary to recast our philos- 
 ophy, to reconstruct our conceptions of the rights 
 of humanity, as opposed to the rights of property. 
 It is necessary to find new rules for determining 
 the proper and necessary functions of the commun- 
 ity. What are its obligations to its members, who 
 enjoy all of the formulas of liberty but little of its 
 substance. The political philosophy of a simple 
 agricultural society, in which each household was 
 sufficient unto itself will not suffice, when all of 
 the conditions of life are subject to the unre- 
 strained ownership and rights of another. 
 
 How will these conditions be met? Does it accord 
 with the ideals or the powers of democracy that mil- 
 lions of workers should be the merest wards of a 
 handful of men who own the land upon which the 
 life of the people depends? For this is the condi- 
 tion of Great Britain. The old feudal aristocracy 
 remains the economic as well as the political mas-
 
 LNTKODUCTOKY 5 
 
 ter of the British people. Forty millions of 
 landless tenants have no other alternative 
 but that which the gentry sees fit to offer them. 
 This is the problem which the British city has to 
 face. For the city, with its increasing poverty and 
 vice, is one of the direct results of this condition. 
 And the cost of it all is becoming more and more 
 apparent to those who are willing to see. They are 
 beginning to ask if this is the best that Democracy 
 can do with its power. 
 
 The well being and the happiness of the people 
 should be the most important question before any 
 government. The existence of poverty, on a wide 
 scale, should banish every other question until its 
 cause is explained. Every consideration of Chris- 
 tianity, of humanity, of long-sighted statesmanship 
 should place this problem first in the programme 
 of any party. Questions of armament, of colonial 
 administration or expansion, of war or of peace 
 should be ignored until some explanation is found 
 and some solution is offered for the existence of 
 poverty in the midst of great plenty, of national 
 decay alongside of unparalleled luxury, of over- 
 flowing prisons and workhouses in a civilisation 
 that has made all nature tribute to the ingenuity 
 of man. 
 
 The cities of Great Britain represent the final 
 result of the existing industrial order. Here pov- 
 erty seems worse than any place in the civilised
 
 6 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 world. Here the problem of non-employment, of 
 the chance to live without resort to charity, is ever 
 uppermost in the minds of millions of persons. 
 Here unearned wealth is most obtruding. Here it 
 is also most powerful. Here the gulf between 
 those who labour without ceasing and those who 
 labour not at all is most apparent. The city has 
 become the most pressing problem which con- 
 fronts Great Britain. It involves her standing as 
 a great nation. It profoundly effects her army. 
 Her industrial supremacy has already suffered by 
 reason of the enervation of the people. The prob- 
 lem of the city and the condition of the city dweller 
 has become a question of national existence. 
 
 In a measure the Town Councils of Great Britain 
 recognise these things. The necessity of relief, of 
 education, of health, of life itself, have forced the 
 cities to a new outlook upon society. Uncon- 
 sciously the city has become a commanding politi- 
 cal agency. It is constantly enlarging its activi- 
 ties in response to necessity. It has abandoned 
 many of the formulas of an earlier political phil- 
 osophy. 
 
 It is through the machinery of local self-govern- 
 ment that democracy in Great Britain is emerging. 
 Progress is bound to be painfully slow. There will 
 be disheartening reactions, such as have recently 
 happened in the elections of London, but the move- 
 ment will always be onward. The contest for in-
 
 INTKODUCTOKY 7 
 
 dustrial freedom is one of the most Titanic of mod- 
 ern times. For the organised power of those who 
 control the economic foundations of the British 
 nation is not unlike that of the ancient regime in 
 France,
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE BEGINNINGS OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 THE city is the most democratic institution in 
 Great Britain. In many ways, it is the only evi- 
 dence of democracy jn that country. Here alone 
 has government divorced itself from tradition, caste 
 and privilege. Here alone is political vitality, here 
 only initiative and real ideals. And nowhere else, 
 whether in Europe or America, has popular govern- 
 ment more fully justified itself than in British 
 local administration. 
 
 Despite the wide extension of the suffrage, Par- 
 liament remains essentially reactionary. It is an- 
 chored to the past. It is fearful of change, and views 
 democracy as a troublesome cub which it feeds from 
 fear rather than from affection. It trusts the 
 cities only to the extent to which it has become nec- 
 essary to do so. It has enlarged municipal powers 
 because of the utter breakdown of the privileged 
 orders which up to 1835 managed local affairs. 
 Even to-day every grant of power to the Town 
 Councils is jealously watched, and suspiciously su- 
 pervised. The cities have learned to walk alone, 
 in spite of Parliamentary strait-jackets, and
 
 9 
 
 have achieved their present proud distinction in 
 the face of the persistent jealousy of the ruling 
 classes. 
 
 For Parliament remains a landed aristocracy; 
 the abode of privilege in all of its forms. Within 
 recent years, even the liberalism of a generation 
 ago, the liberalism of Cobden, of Bright, and of 
 Russell has passed into an inner cabinet control. 
 The House of Commons has been changed from an 
 assembly of the nation into a recording body ruled 
 by a small landed family aristocracy much as the 
 House of Representatives is ruled by the Speaker. 1 
 
 Such, at least, has been the character of Parlia- 
 ment under the ascendancy of the Conservative 
 party, which, with a short interruption, has been in 
 power since the defeat of Gladstone's Home Rule 
 Bill in 1886. During these years democracy has 
 been at a low ebb. The forces at work in the cities 
 have been the only vital evidences of its existence 
 in the United Kingdom. And the recent Liberal 
 victory is in large measure attributable to the long 
 training in self-government which the people have 
 enjoyed in local affairs. In England as in 
 America, constructive democracy is at work in the 
 cities. And the coming changes in the political 
 
 'This description of the attitude and motives of Parliament is 
 less true of the present Liberal Party than of any of its predeces- 
 sors. But even when that party controls the House of Commons 
 its programme of legislation is subject to the veto of the House 
 of Lords, which is always reactionary.
 
 10 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 institutions of Great Britain are likely to be far 
 more radical than the unexpected Liberal majority 
 in the present Parliament of itself would indicate. 
 
 Unlike Parliament, the city is representative in 
 its instincts, in its personnel, in its ideals. It is 
 responsive to public opinion, and responsible to 
 the people. In this respect, it is the most repre- 
 sentative of British institutions, even though it is 
 still far from radical in its democracy. 
 
 It is possible that the last election foreshadows 
 a revolution in Parliament not unlike that which 
 followed the Keform Bill of 1832, when the politi- 
 cal privileges of the rotten boroughs, upon which 
 the great landed families maintained their ascend- 
 ancy, were abolished. But w r hereas the changes 
 then inaugurated were of a political sort, the re- 
 forms which now seem imminent are industrial and 
 social. They had their origin in the cities, and are 
 essentially democratic in their purposes. 
 
 The recent election marks the political ascend- 
 ancy of the towns and the industrial issues which 
 are there most manifest. With this ascendancy 
 achieved, the social and political aspirations that 
 have been germinating in the local communities for 
 the past ten years are bound to be extended to the 
 nation at large. The present Liberal party is a 
 very different party from that which followed the 
 leadership of Gladstone. New phrases and formu- 
 las have come in w r ith the generation which is now
 
 BEGINNINGS OF DEMOCKACY 11 
 
 upon the stage. The House of Commons is far 
 more representative of the British people than it 
 has ever been before. And its programme is one of 
 much promise to the people as a whole. 
 
 Prior to 1835 the government of the towns was 
 in the hands of the privileged classes. The people 
 had no voice in the administration, less voice, in 
 fact, than the people of Philadelphia, of St. Louis, 
 of Cincinnati had in their own affairs in the days 
 of their completest subjection. Even the forms of 
 popular government were not preserved. The char- 
 ters of the towns were derived from the King. Most 
 of them related back to the seventeenth century, 
 when Charles II, desiring to pack Parliament with 
 members who would support the Crown, issued 
 writs of quo warranto, by means of which the bor- 
 oughs or towns were deprived of their ancient 
 rights. New charters were thereupon granted, un- 
 der which Charles reserved to himself the right to 
 nominate members of the Town Councils. For the 
 members of the Council determined who should 
 be admitted to the borough as freemen, and conse- 
 quently who should vote for members of Parlia- 
 ment. Through these means Parliament was kept 
 in a state of subserviency to the Crown, and to the 
 powerful landed families grouped about the Court. 
 
 Such is the lineage of "ripper" legislation with 
 which we are so familiar in America. Like many 
 another evil institution, it is traceable to the Stu-
 
 12 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 arts. In the enforcement of his will and the carry- 
 ing out of his programme Charles II made use of 
 the infamous Judge Jeffries, who in 1684 went on 
 the Northern Circuit with the boast that "he made 
 all the charters, like the walls of Jericho, fall down 
 before him, and that he returned laden with sur- 
 renders, the spoils of the towns." 
 
 The decay of local government in England dates 
 from this interference by the Crown. In time the 
 councils became self-elective and exclusive. By 
 1834, but twelve of the 211 corporations even pre- 
 served the fiction of election by the freemen. In 
 212 boroughs, with a total population of 1,800,000, 
 there were but 88,509 freemen enjoying the voting 
 franchise. In Ipswich, with a population of 20,000, 
 there were but 1130 freemen, and of these 760 were 
 non-residents. In Marlborough, the number of free- 
 men was fifteen, exactly the number of officers. 
 Ninety-two boroughs had less than fifty freemen 
 each. 
 
 The voters were corrupt as well as ignorant. They 
 were at the command of some powerful family or 
 the purchase of the highest bidder. Their number 
 was frequently increased on the eve of election for 
 the purpose of securing a parliamentary majority. 
 As a matter of fact, the town corporations existed 
 chiefly for parliamentary purposes. As administra- 
 tive agencies for local purposes, they had practi- 
 cally lost all of their functions. "A great number
 
 BEGINNINGS OF DEMOCRACY 13 
 
 of corporations," said the Commissioners of 1835, 
 "have been preserved solely as political engines, and 
 the towns to which they belong derive no benefit but 
 much injury from their existence. To maintain the 
 political ascendancy of a family has been the one 
 end and object for which the powers entrusted to 
 these bodies have been exercised. The object has 
 been systematically pursued in the admission of 
 freemen, resident or non-resident; in the selection 
 of functionaries for the council and the magistracy ; 
 in the appointment of subordinate officers and the 
 local police; in the administration of charities en- 
 trusted to the municipal authorities ; in the expen- 
 diture of corporate revenues; and in the manage- 
 ment of corporate property." 1 
 
 The councils and the mayors were no less corrupt 
 than the electors. Jobbery, corruption and oppres- 
 sion were universal. Aldermen granted contracts 
 and trading privileges to themselves. The magis- 
 trates were distrusted by the people. They were 
 often unable to read and write. The corporate 
 funds, which were largely derived from markets, 
 municipal estates and town dues, were seldom ap- 
 plied to the benefit of the community. They were 
 expended in feasting and in paying the salaries 
 of officials. The funds of the corporation were free- 
 ly spent in the bribery of electors. The council, 
 which was usually chosen for life, and had the 
 
 J Report of the Commissioners on Municipal Corporations, 
 Parliamentary Papers, 1835, p. 34.
 
 14 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 power of electing its own successors, considered 
 that the corporate funds and property were held 
 for the benefit of the members of the corporation, 
 and not for the town itself. In some instances, the 
 funds of the corporation were so used that the 
 towns became, bankrupt. 1 
 
 One of the privileges of the freemen was that they 
 paid no taxes. Taxes were paid by non-freemen. 
 And the dues were very oppressive. Then, as now, 
 the complaint was made that the freemen "wanted 
 the poor to pay everything" to the relief of those 
 who ruled. In many instances there were no watch- 
 men, and no police officials of any kind, excepting 
 the constables who were unpaid. 
 
 All sense of local liberty and self-government was 
 dead. For generations the towns were the football 
 of Parliament. If it became necessary to have 
 something done, a special commission was created 
 to do it, just as our state legislatures, distrustful 
 of city councils, create special boards or commis- 
 sions to carry out some local undertaking. The 
 town corporations could not levy taxes, and could 
 not control sanitation they had none of the large 
 powers of an industrial nature that have since been 
 conferred upon the cities. 
 
 These conditions were far worse than anything 
 
 1 The City of London proper, which comprises the region 
 about the Bank of England, remains to this day a type of the 
 unreformed town of the eighteenth century. Its ancient char- 
 ter was undisturbed by the act of 1835.
 
 BEGINNINGS OF DEMOCEACY 15 
 
 America has since experienced. For corruption 
 and inefficiency were universal. They extended to 
 the electorate as well as to the official class. There 
 was no background of democracy, no ideals of ad- 
 ministration to which one might appeal. The Eng- 
 lish town in the early part of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury was in what must have seemed a hopeless state 
 of political decay. 1 
 
 The foundations of the present local administra- 
 
 ir rhe Report of the Commission to enquire into the condition 
 of the municipalities of England and Wales suggests a paral- 
 lel between English and American conditions. And it is en- 
 couraging to know that Great Britain has passed through a 
 condition of municipal corruption far more hopeless than 
 our own. The Commission of 1835 concluded its report as 
 follows: 
 
 "We report to your Majesty that there prevails amongst the 
 inhabitants of the great majority of the incorporated towns a 
 general, and, in our opinion, a just dissatisfaction with the 
 municipal institutions a distrust of the self-elected munici- 
 pal councils, whose powers are subject to no popular control, 
 and whose acts and proceedings, being secret, are unchecked 
 by the influence of public opinion; a distrust of the municipal 
 magistracy, tainting with suspicion the local administration 
 of justice, and often accompanied with contempt of the per- 
 sons by whom the law is administered; a discontent under 
 the burdens of local taxation, while revenues that ought to 
 be applied for the public advantage are diverted from their 
 legitimate use, and are sometimes wastefully bestowed for 
 the benefit of individuals, sometimes squandered for purposes 
 injurious to the character and morals of the people. 
 
 "We therefore feel it to be our duty to represent to your 
 Majesty that the existing municipal corporations of England 
 and Wales neither possess nor deserve the confidence or re- 
 spect of your Majesty's subjects, and that a thorough reform 
 must be effected before they can become what we humbly 
 submit to your Majesty they ought to be, useful and efficient 
 instruments of local government."
 
 16 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 tion in Great Britain were laid by the Municipal 
 Corporation Act of 1835. This was but part of a 
 larger reform movement that was destined to shake 
 the ascendancy of the landed gentry and give to 
 the commercial classes rising into power through 
 the Industrial Revolution representation in Parlia- 
 ment. This measure swept away the age-long abuses 
 of the towns and ushered in a new era, from which 
 industrial democracy has sprung. It greatly ex- 
 tended the suffrage and lodged the government of 
 the towns in the hands of the tax-payers. It pro- 
 vided for a council and mayor with substantially 
 the same form of administration that prevails to- 
 day. 
 
 The measure met wilh determined opposition in 
 Parliament, for it destroyed the means by which 
 the privileged classes had retained their control of 
 the House of Commons through a control of the 
 machinery of determining who should vote. Further 
 than this, the classes in control of the cities were 
 by this measure deprived of the privileges and fran- 
 chises through which they oppressed the people. 
 But it was not so much the abuses as the utter 
 breakdown of local government and the demands 
 of humanity and business interests that compelled 
 the passage of the bill. The coming of the factory 
 system had called into existence great towns, filled 
 with a multitude of factory workers, for the care 
 of which the towns were totally unprepared. Men
 
 BEGINNINGS OF DEMOCKAGY 17 
 
 and women from the countryside had come to work 
 in the towns at looms and spinning frames, and the 
 misery, poverty, disease and degradation which fol- 
 lowed was so universal that Parliament could not 
 longer ignore the demand for relief. For the an- 
 cient organisations had no authority to undertake 
 the construction of streets and sewers, to police and 
 guard the towns, or to levy taxes for their mainte- 
 nance. And louder even than the demands of hu- 
 manity was the voice of the commercial classes, 
 grown to wealth and power through the expansion 
 of trade. It is upon this measure and the Keforin 
 Bill of 1832 that all of the later democratic achieve- 
 ments of Great Britain have been reared. 
 
 Since the passage of the Municipal Corporations 
 Act of 1835, frequent attempts have been made to 
 co-ordinate local government. The chief of these 
 are the local government acts of 1882 and 1894 and 
 the London Government Acts of 1888 and 1899. 
 The areas now established for purposes of local gov- 
 ernment are the Administrative County, the County 
 Borough, the Municipal Borough, the Urban Dis- 
 trict, the Rural District and the Parish. The Poor 
 Law Union is an area for the relief of the poor. It 
 is formed from a group of parishes. The metropolis 
 of London is governed by special acts. The county 
 areas have a form of organisation not unlike the 
 towns. They have a council, aldermen and chair- 
 men. They borrow money and enjoy many nmnici-
 
 18 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 pal powers. They are designed to permit the rural 
 districts to carry on the vast amount of administra- 
 tive work rendered necessary by the dense popu- 
 lation of Great Britain. In addition to these gen- 
 eral authorities, there are many local and special 
 Boards for the administration of Ports and Docks, 
 of Sewers and Drainage, of Kivers, Asylums and 
 Cemeteries. By the Education Act of 1902 the 
 Councils have been entrusted with the control of 
 education. 
 
 But we are chiefly concerned with the Munici- 
 pal Boroughs proper. They range in size from. 
 Liverpool, with a population of 725,000, to Hedon, 
 with a population of but 1020. Their powers are 
 derived from the Municipal Corporation Act of 
 1882, which repealed the original act of 1835 as 
 well as many subsequent measures. There are 
 about 320 such corporations in England and 
 Wales. 
 
 Thus it was that democracy in Great Britain 
 sprang from local government, just as in the Mid- 
 dle Ages liberty sprang from the towns in the 
 struggle with feudalism. And history nowhere pre- 
 sents a completer vindication of the trustworthi- 
 ness of the people than the history of local govern- 
 ment during the past three-quarters of a century in 
 Great Britain. Where privilege failed, democracy 
 achieved its greatest triumph. Amid ignorance and 
 poverty the most complex problems of government
 
 BEGINNINGS OF DEMOCRACY 19 
 
 existed. The people were for the most part un- 
 trained. They were inexperienced in political ac- 
 tivities. For centuries they had been bought and 
 sold in furtherance of the designs of the privileged 
 classes. 
 
 It is the Briton's boast that he cares nothing 
 for political abstractions, that he is moved by no 
 philosophy of government, and advances from 
 point to point with his hand ever resting on the 
 past, ready to retire in case of error. Any grant 
 of liberty to the towns, any extension of freedom 
 by Parliament, is grudgingly granted, and so in- 
 volved with limitations that its value is largely 
 destroyed. The powers of local governing agencies 
 have not been conferred in a big, generous way. 
 They have been divided among parishes, poor- 
 boards, town and rural councils, in a way that is 
 both confusing and costly. It is almost impossible 
 for anyone, save a trained expert, to know the func- 
 tions and powers of a large city like London or 
 Glasgow. For while there are general acts govern- 
 ing the health and housing, cleaning and lighting, 
 the. police force, and other routine departments, 
 there is also a multitude of special laws, with 
 countless limitations and qualifications, which 
 make it necessary for the city to act with the most 
 scrupulous care in the carrying on of its activities. 
 
 It is in the face of such survivals of ancient insti- 
 tutions and anomalous burdens that local govern-
 
 20 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 ment is carried on. It is partly feudal, partly 
 modern. The influence of the church is interwoven 
 with the modern impulses of democracy. Local 
 government is subjected to constant Parliamentary 
 oversight. Despite this fact, the municipalities are 
 almost the only political agencies in England that 
 do not suggest the seventeenth rather than the 
 twentieth century. Even to-day, the Corporation 
 of London, the ancient city which nestles around 
 the Mansion House and the Bank of England, has a 
 charter which runs back to the time of the trading 
 guilds. It is an historic survival of the ancient 
 commercial organisations, which were elsewhere 
 abolished by the act of 1835. The corporation still 
 remains a privileged body not unlike the unre- 
 formed towns of the seventeenth century. On the 
 creation of the London County Council in 1888 its 
 privileges and abuses were deemed too sacred to 
 be touched. It was left intact as a separate city, 
 with full municipal powers, in the very heart of 
 the metropolis. It is known as the "Mayor and 
 Commonalty and Citizens of the City of London." 
 The Lord Mayor resides in the Mansion House, 
 opposite the Bank of England, where he still retains 
 much of the feudal pomp and splendour of a little 
 king, alongside of one of the most democratic city 
 republics in the modern world. The government 
 still reposes in the seventy-three Livery Com- 
 panies, survivals of the ancient guilds of gold-
 
 BEGINNINGS OF DEMOCRACY 21 
 
 smiths, silversmiths, drapers, furriers, etc., with a 
 membership of about 8,500 persons. These com- 
 panies possess property in excess of a hundred mil- 
 lion dollars. They enjoy an annual income of more 
 than five million dollars. This is a trust fund of a 
 public nature. Of this sum the companies pay over 
 |200,000 a year to themselves in fees, and spend at 
 least $500,000 more in dinners and feasting ; f 750,- 
 000 more goes in salaries to officers and expenses 
 of management, while $2,500,000 is devoted to pub- 
 lic uses of one kind and another. "The whole ad- 
 ministration of this essentially public property," 
 says Sidney Webb, "is performed in secret, by small 
 committees, which nominate themselves, and ac- 
 knowledge no responsibility to anyone. No public 
 superintendence controls their jobbery; no public 
 audit checks their waste." 1 
 
 These companies own great landed estates in 
 England and Ireland. Some of them are among 
 the great London landlords. The twelve great Liv- 
 ery Companies share among them the Ulster estates 
 of the Irish Society; and in addition, nearly all of 
 them possess valuable freehold "Halls," hidden 
 away in back streets in London, and surplus funds 
 invested in consols or lodged on deposit with the 
 Bank of England. 2 
 
 No one really knows the wealth of these great 
 
 'The London Programme, by Sidney Webb, p. 104. 
 *Ibid, p. 105.
 
 22 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 companies, accumulated and increased in value for 
 .centuries. They have been able to thwart any thor- 
 ough discovery by Parliament, and thus far have 
 prevented the abolition of their abuses and the 
 merging of the City Corporation into the metro- 
 politan area of London proper. Here at the very 
 doors of Parliament remains a survival of the Town 
 Corporation of the seventeenth century. It is the 
 financial heart of the United Kingdom. It has a 
 population of less than 30,000 by night, and over 
 300,000 by day. It is reactionary in the extreme. 
 Its misuse of funds of a public nature is fully as 
 scandalous as the corruption of any unreformed 
 American city. True the powers which it exercises 
 are sanctioned by law. There is no violation of the 
 criminal code. The funds which it uses are a heri- 
 tage from the time when the towns were in the 
 hands of the merchant guilds. But ever since the 
 reforms of 1835 the Corporation of London has been 
 so powerful, so respectable, so ancient in its privi- 
 leges, that democracy has never been able to bring 
 about its reform. Democracy halts at its bounda- 
 ries, just as until recently the reigning monarch 
 of the United Kingdom halted at Temple Bar to 
 receive permission from the Lord Mayor of the an- 
 cient city to enter its gates. Side by side are the 
 London County Council, the most democratic of 
 English bodies, and the Corporation of London, 
 whose extravagances and general inefficiency offer
 
 BEGINNINGS OF DEMOCRACY 23 
 
 an eloquent exhibit of government by privilege. 
 Here in the heart of the Empire may be seen at 
 work the two great powers which contend for mas- 
 tery throughout the civilised world, the powers of 
 democracy on the one hand and of privilege on the 
 other.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE TOWN COUNCIL 
 
 ALL of the powers which the British city enjoys 
 are lodged in the Town Council. The division of 
 authority with which we are familiar, between the 
 Council, the Mayor, the executive departments, and 
 commissions, does not exist. That is an American 
 innovation, adapted by us from the Federal Con- 
 stitution to local administration. The British 
 Council not only passes ordinances, it executes 
 them. And in some towns a limited number of al- 
 dermen sit as police court magistrates to punish 
 those who infringe its laws. Within the local area, 
 the Council is the supreme legislative and executive 
 authority. 1 
 
 ir The terms city, town, or borough, are used throughout the 
 text in the American sense, as synonymous with municipal 
 corporation. Most of the English cities are technically bor- 
 oughs. The borough is a municipal corporation which has 
 received its charter of incorporation from the Crown under 
 the act of 1882. Certain boroughs, however, rank as cities. 
 This is either because they are the seat of a Bishop, or be- 
 cause that dignity has been conferred upon them by the Crown. 
 Canterbury, Carlisle, Chester, Chichester, Coventry, Glouces- 
 ter, Hereford, Lincoln, Litchfield, Oxford, and other towns, are 
 cities, while many of the larger industrial towns are boroughs. 
 But there is no real distinction in the powers and functions. 
 The difference is chiefly one of historical significance, and 
 
 24
 
 THE TOWN COUNCIL 25 
 
 In this respect the charters of all cities are alike. 
 There is not that diversity in the form of the char- 
 ter, nor that attempted adaptation to local needs, 
 which exists in America. A knowledge of the gen- 
 eral form of government of one city is a knowledge 
 of the forms of all. 1 
 
 The Mayor, as he is called in England, or Provost, 
 as he is called in Scotland, is usually a councilman 
 exalted to a higher degree. In certain cities he is 
 called the Lord Mayor. In England he is chosen 
 for one year, in Scotland for three. He represents 
 a ward, and is responsible to his constituents, like 
 the rest of the Council. He may, however, be elected 
 from outside of the Council, although this is rarely 
 done. Unlike the American executive, he is chosen 
 by the members of the Council, and not by the peo- 
 ple. The Mayor does not enjoy much legal author- 
 ity. He is democracy's shadowy monarch, without 
 privilege or power. He represents the "spectacu- 
 lar" element in city life. For the Mayor makes no 
 appointments, has no veto power, and does not 
 stand for a policy of administration in the large 
 way that an American mayor does. He is the ser- 
 
 relates to the distinction which the seat of a Bishop conferred, 
 or which has been retained as a privilege conferred at some 
 earlier time by the King. 
 
 'In many towns, special boards or trusts have been created 
 to manage certain undertakings, as Dock Trusts, Water and 
 Gas Boards, when two cities are jointly interested. In London, 
 many such special authorities have been created. But the 
 general form of administration is everywhere the same.
 
 26 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 vant of the Council, the chief among equals. What- 
 ever ascendancy he enjoys is due to his personality. 
 He is, however no roi faineant. He is the busiest 
 and most influential member of the community. In 
 the larger towns his office is the goal of local ambi- 
 tion. The mayoralty is the object of successful busi- 
 ness, the reward of long service to the community. 
 The Mayor presides over the Council, and is an ex- 
 officio member of all committees. He has many offi- 
 cial emblems, is permitted to wear a robe of rich 
 ermine, and the town jewels. He has the use of the 
 coach and pair belonging to the corporation. In 
 the cities of London, Liverpool, Dublin, and else- 
 where, he occupies a stately mansion in the heart of 
 the city. In the larger towns he is usually knighted 
 by the King on the expiration of his term of office. 
 His real distinction is a social rather than an 
 administrative one. He receives the King when- 
 ever the town is honoured by the Koyal presence. 
 He entertains distinguished guests, and presides at 
 all public functions. His life is given over to the 
 titular representation of his city. He addresses 
 meetings, clubs, and labour unions. He opens con- 
 ventions, bazaars, and charitable enterprises. His 
 days are filled with engagements. His evenings are 
 occupied in much the same way. He is frequently 
 called upon to adjust labour disputes. The mayor- 
 alty is the reward of long and sacrificing service to 
 the community. It is the crowning glory of a demo-
 
 THE TOWN COUNCIL 27 
 
 cratic career. For it is open to all, and is generally 
 held by men whose individual exertions have 
 achieved their political and business careers. 
 
 For his services the Mayor receives no compen- 
 sation. No salary of any kind attaches to the office. 
 In the large cities the office is a source of expense. 
 For the Mayor must be generous. He must enter- 
 tain handsomely; he must be prepared to neglect 
 his private business during his term of office. The 
 burden on his purse may amount to thousands of 
 dollars a year. But men are eager and willing to 
 make this sacrifice, even though it involves long 
 years of unreuiunerative service in the Town Coun- 
 cil. Many cities have recognised the impropriety 
 of throwing this financial burden upon the Mayor, 
 and have made appropriations to cover some of the 
 obligations which it involves. But the cost is still 
 a heavy one, even aside from the exclusive demands 
 which it makes upon a man's time. 1 
 
 The actual administrative work of the city is 
 performed by the Town Council. The Council is 
 a large body. It is as large as many of our state 
 assemblies. It acts through committees. Each 
 member of the Council serves upon a half dozen or 
 more. There are from a dozen to thirty such com- 
 
 ir rhis description of the Mayor and his position does not, of 
 course, apply to the smaller communities. The organisation 
 of the Scottish municipalities is essentially the same as here 
 described, although many differences exist as to aldermen, 
 magistrates, powers, etc.
 
 28 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 mittees, the more important of which are still 
 further subdivided into smaller sub-committees. 
 
 The members of the Council are elected for three 
 years, and are chosen by wards. There are also a 
 number of aldermen who sit with the elective mem- 
 bers and enjoy the same powers. They are chosen 
 by the Council immediately after the election in 
 November. One-third of the councillors are elected 
 every year. The aldermen are chosen for six years 
 and one-half of them retire every three years. 
 The latter are usually distinguished men, who 
 have served as members of the Council, or who 
 are eminent in some line of municipal work. The 
 London County Council has 118 elected members, 
 chosen from parliamentary constituencies, and 
 nineteen Aldermen elected by the Council itself. 
 The Council of Glasgow has 75 members. The City 
 of Liverpool has 134, and Manchester has 103. The 
 Councils of the lesser towns are correspondingly 
 smaller. The Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors 
 together form the Town Council, and sit together as 
 a single chamber. 
 
 In America the tendency is away from the large 
 Council. Kecent charters have abandoned the two- 
 chambered assembly, and reform organisations have 
 recommended the reduction of the Council to a 
 small, compact body. A tendency is also manifest 
 to elect at least a portion of the members on a gen- 
 eral ticket from the entire city. It is said that a
 
 THE TOWN COUNCIL 29 
 
 better class of men can be induced to run for the 
 Council if it is a smaller body, with the members 
 elected at large. Having found that election by 
 wards failed to bring forward satisfactory men, we 
 have sought relief through enlarging the constitu- 
 ency and reducing the number of men to be chosen. 
 The English type of the large Council was quite 
 universal in America up to a generation ago, when 
 the failure of local administration led to a very 
 general modification of the machinery, in the belief 
 that our failures were traceable to the size of the 
 Council. In consequence, we limited its powers, 
 and placed our reliance upon a strong executive. 
 We have made of the Mayor a benevolent patriarch, 
 in the belief that we can hold one official to respon- 
 sibility more easily than we can hold fifty. The 
 Council of the American city has become a sort of 
 political vermiform appendix. Through this subor- 
 dination of the Council, at least in the large cities, 
 we are really governed by the Mayor. So far as 
 real power is concerned, it has passed into his 
 hands, and the hands of those associated with him 
 as executive officials. 
 
 There is some reason for this change. City gov- 
 ernment is administration. Ordinances are not un- 
 like the decrees of the Praetors of ancient Rome. 
 They relate to the details of a big business. They 
 concern the health, the protection, the cleanliness, 
 the education, the comfort, the happiness of the
 
 30 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 people. They are legislative only in occasional in- 
 stances, such as granting franchises, determining 
 how revenue shall be raised, how much money shall 
 be appropriated, and deciding matters of a large 
 city policy. And these administrative matters can 
 be determined by a small body as readily and as 
 wisely as by a large one. As a matter of fact, they 
 are usually so determined even where the Mayor's 
 legal powers have not been enlarged. For the Coun- 
 cil has become little more than a registering body 
 guided by the opinions of the departmental heads. 
 
 The organisation of the English city is far differ- 
 ent. The executive work of each department is per- 
 formed by its special committee. That they have 
 achieved success where we have failed does not 
 argue that we should return to the English model, 
 any more than it proves that the theoretical cor- 
 rectness of our system should urge its adoption in 
 Great Britain. Causes other than the form of gov- 
 ernment explain the efficiency and honesty of the 
 English city. 
 
 Each committee appoints the manager and super- 
 intendent of its department, subject to the approval 
 of the Council. Through these heads the work of 
 the city is carried on. The managers are chosen 
 because of their recognised fitness, and are usually 
 trained to a municipal career. Not infrequently, 
 men are called from one city to the other, much as 
 the German Mayor who has distinguished himself
 
 THE TOWN COUNCIL 31 
 
 is promoted. The aim is to find the man for the 
 place, rather than to make a place for a man. Sub- 
 ordinates are employed by the managers. They are 
 chosen by a competitive process not unlike that 
 which a business man employs. For there is no 
 compulsory civil service law in the English city. 
 Merit is enforced by public opinion. The filling of 
 a place through friendship or favour is of occa- 
 sional though rare occurrence. And once appoint- 
 ed, an employee retains his position so long as his 
 service is satisfactory. 
 
 This sense of permanence in city work, as well 
 as the better pay and more generous consideration 
 shown the employee, has given dignity to municipal 
 employment. There has come into existence an 
 esprit de corps and a jealous rivalry for promotion. 
 The city often provides superannuation funds and 
 sick benefits. It offers shorter hours, and usually 
 recognises the trade-union rate of wages. But it is 
 not alone the material advantage of municipal work 
 that makes it preferable to private employment. 
 There is a sense of dignity that comes from work- 
 ing for the city. It is a sense of noblesse oblige 
 which animates the street cleaner as well as the 
 city chamberlain. This is a consideration always 
 overlooked in our low estimate of the city job 
 hunter. But to some extent, even in America, it 
 relieves the alleged inefficiency of the public em- 
 ployee.
 
 32 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 The committees are entrusted with the expendi- 
 ture of the appropriations for their departments, 
 subject to the approval and criticism of the Council. 
 They fix salaries and wages. They determine the 
 details of departmental control and keep in close 
 touch with the work. The labour of an important 
 committee is very arduous. Many men are on a 
 half-dozen committees. Some serve on even more. 
 A Councilman's hours are filled with engagements, 
 which he is usually scrupulous in attending. If he 
 is a magistrate, he has daily engagements at the 
 Police Court, and if he is in the midst of an election, 
 he may not see his home from early morning until 
 late at night. For all this service he receives no 
 pecuniary compensation. A luncheon may be served 
 for his committee at the Town Hall, it is true. But 
 woe to the committee whose luncheon budget seems 
 to indicate too large a wine bill. For the elective 
 auditors and the labour members often find in a 
 few unnecessary sovereigns ground for complaint 
 as impassioned as the report of a grand jury inves- 
 tigating the corruption of an American city. 
 
 To return to the Town Council. The method of 
 election to that body is simple in the extreme. It 
 is also very democratic. It involves little or no cost 
 to the candidate. A man is put forward for the 
 place by a committee of the ward. He is nominated 
 by two electors and endorsed by eight seconders. 
 This is the only formality required to get on the
 
 THE TOWN COUNCIL 33 
 
 ticket. It is usually managed by the party com- 
 mittee. It is nomination by petition. This ex- 
 plains in part the high type of men who enter mu- 
 nicipal life. There are no assessments to be paid 
 to a party machine. There is no boss to be pla- 
 cated. There are no pledges to be made, save those 
 that a man makes to his constituents. There may be 
 but one candidate from a ward, or there may be a 
 dozen. Very often there is no contest. A Council- 
 man whose service has been satisfactory will remain 
 in office a score of years, and never have his seat 
 questioned. For politics do not determine the 
 question of the choice of a man. The question is 
 rather the efficiency of his service. In some of the 
 cities, however, political lines are as sharply drawn 
 as in America. But generally the election is de- 
 termined, as nearly as popular opinion can deter- 
 mine such things, by the merit of the candidates. 
 
 The election is as simple as the nomination. The 
 English elector decides one day whom he wants for 
 Councilman. On some other day he decides whom 
 he wants to serve in Parliament. The parish elec- 
 tions are held annually in April ; the county elec- 
 tions are held triennially in March ; the municipal 
 elections are held annually in November; and the 
 school-board elections are held triennially from 
 the date of the formation of each board. The prin- 
 cipal officials whom the English voter elects are 
 the member of the Council from his ward and the
 
 34 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 member of Parliament from his district. These, 
 with the members of the Parish, School and Poor 
 Law Board, are about the only offices he is 
 called upon to fill. When he goes to the polls 
 he is not confronted with a long list of Presidential 
 electors, Governors, Congressmen, members of the 
 Legislature, Judges, county, township and city offi- 
 cials, all on one ballot, with many of whom he is 
 not even familiar by name. 
 
 There is a great advantage in the English system 
 of holding elections on different days and limiting 
 the number of officers to be chosen directly by the 
 people. It is absurd to expect a man to vote intelli- 
 gently for a score or more offices, from the Presi- 
 dent of the United States to the Police Court Clerk, 
 and with a hundred names to choose from. With 
 great benefit we could limit the number of elective 
 city officials to the Mayor and ward Councilman, 
 as is done in many cities, and have all the other 
 administrative offices filled by the Mayor. There 
 is nothing undemocratic in having the Solicitor, 
 Treasurer, Auditor, and Police Court magistrates 
 so appointed. Under such a scheme there would 
 be unity of administration and complete responsi- 
 bility to the people, with the minimum of confusion 
 to the voter. 
 
 In Britain it is not necessary that the candidate 
 for the Council live in the ward which he repre- 
 sents. He may come from any section of the city.
 
 THE TOWN COUNCIL 35 
 
 He may even resign in one ward and run from 
 another. This gives an added independence of 
 action to a Councilman. It also enables the city 
 
 to secure the services of the best man in the com- 
 
 i 
 
 munity. 
 
 In recent years the character of the Town Coun- 
 cils has been changing. Many men admit this with 
 regret. The "gentlemen" are being crowded out, 
 the working men are coming in. And the average 
 Englishman is tenacious of the idea that politics, 
 the church and the army are places set apart for 
 "gentlemen." Up to the last election he never 
 doubted this fact as to Parliament, and conceded 
 the presence of labour members in the City Council 
 only with grave questionings. The man who w r ould 
 spend lavishly, who was a generous employer of 
 labour, or who headed every movement for charity, 
 has always been the average Englishman's idea of 
 the representative of the ruling class. It is this 
 tradition that has kept the rural districts con- 
 servative and the working classes from obtaining 
 control of the cities. But the tradition has been 
 shattered. First of all, the wage-earner found his 
 way into the Council. In time, other classes came 
 to respect his integrity no less than his ability. All 
 over England the labour members are on the in- 
 crease in the Town Councils. Many of them are 
 socialists in name and in purpose, but their pro- 
 gramme is one of gradual advance all along the
 
 36 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 line of industrial activity. There are twelve such 
 members in the Glasgow Council. In Sheffield, the 
 labour members are even more numerous, while 
 Poplar, Battersea, and West Ham are recognised 
 as workingmen's councils. And it was the experi- 
 ence gained in local government that emboldened 
 the Independent Labour party in the recent Parlia- 
 mentary contest. This explains, in part, the thirty 
 odd labour members in the House of Commons. 
 And it must be admitted that the labour members 
 have been earnest and conscientious. They have 
 never been charged with corruption, rarely with 
 the creation of unnecessary jobs, or unreasonable 
 increase in wages or means of employment. 
 
 In every city there is a generous sprinkling of 
 men of leisure in the Council, men who have retired 
 from active life and who desire to serve their com- 
 munity. In the early days of the London County 
 Council, Lord Rosebery was its Chairman. It also 
 contained in its membership Sir John Lubbock, 
 Frederic Harrison, and a score of professional men. 
 In other cities the same sort of man is found. But 
 the prevailing type is the small business man who 
 has risen, and who desires to round out his life by 
 some kind of public service. 
 
 The Town Clerk is the most dignified salaried 
 official of the Council. He is much more than 
 Clerk. He is the legal adviser of the corporation. 
 He knows everything, does everything, and is held
 
 THE TOWN COUNCIL 37 
 
 responsible for everything. He is highly salaried, 
 the remuneration in some instances running up to 
 f 15,000 per annum. He is an expert in municipal 
 administration, much like the German Mayor, and 
 usually holds his office for life, irrespective of the 
 political colour of the Council. Councils often go 
 to another city in their choice of a clerk. Glasgow 
 recently advertised for candidates from all Great 
 Britain. She desired to find the best man in the 
 Kingdom for this office. The clerkship is the clear- 
 ing house of the Council. The clerk is the secre- 
 tary of all committees. He is their adviser on all 
 legal matters, and has charge of the archives of the 
 city. The office not only carries with it consider- 
 able local dignity, it also requires a trained, highly 
 skilled official. 
 
 This is the skeleton of local administration in 
 Great Britain. The activities of the Town Council 
 are limited to city administration proper. The 
 form of organisation is the same in all. But the 
 powers of the Councils are not as adequate as their 
 efficiency would seem to warrant. In the matter 
 of police, fire, health, street, and other routine ad- 
 ministration, they have a free rein. But there is 
 little home rule in the sense that is demanded in 
 America. The supervision of Parliament in mat- 
 ters of finance and taxation, in the undertaking and 
 management of new industries, in the regulations 
 of the franchise corporations and the tenements, in
 
 38 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 the condemnation and purchase of land, is con- 
 stant. While the English city has gone in for many 
 enterprises of a remunerative character, this has 
 not been done as a matter of legal right. It has 
 only been permitted after a searching enquiry by 
 Parliament. In this respect the English city is 
 more limited in its general powers than is the 
 American city. 
 
 In addition to the Town Council there are many 
 isolated boards and commissions. The care of the 
 poor is in the hands of the Board of Guardians. 
 The docks are usually under separate management. 
 The gas and water undertakings of Edinburgh are 
 under a joint body of several towns. In London, 
 the water supply is under the control of a separate 
 board, as are the docks on the Thames. The police 
 of the metropolis are governed by Parliament di- 
 rectly through the Home Office. 
 
 The members of the Town Councils, as well as 
 other local authorities, are highly respected. While 
 a majority of them do not come from the leisure 
 class, they are men who command the confidence 
 of the community. Earnestness is the prevailing 
 note in municipal politics. The problems of the 
 city are met with a seriousness that promises their 
 ultimate solution. Council meetings are well at- 
 tended, and the discussions are warm and animated. 
 The line of cleavage among the members is on eco- 
 nomic or class lines. And it is daily becoming
 
 THE TOWN COUNCIL 39 
 
 more pronounced. On the one hand are the labour 
 members and the radicals. On the other are the 
 leisure classes, the business men, and the heavy 
 rate-payers. These divided interests are in constant 
 conflict over municipal ownership, trading, the 
 housing question, and the direct employment of 
 labour. The one class is seeking the enlargement of 
 the city's activities, the abolition of the contractor, 
 and the improvement of the condition of the people. 
 The other is jealous of its own advantage and solic- 
 itous of the burden of local taxation. The oncoming 
 political conflict of Great Britain may be discerned 
 in this division of classes. It is a perfectly natural 
 line of division ; and it is inevitable. The unprivi- 
 leged classes are struggling for the control of gov- 
 ernment for the benefit of all of the people, just 
 as the land owners, the franchise corporations, and 
 the privileged interests have heretofore controlled 
 it for the advantage of a few.
 
 CHAPTEK IV 
 
 THE CITIZEN AND THE CITY 
 
 To WHAT is the success of the British city due? 
 Why is it so efficient, and the members of the Town 
 Councils so uniformly honest and diligent? Why 
 has the spoils system no place in a country where 
 the struggle for existence is far more relentless 
 than it is with us, and the opportunities for ma- 
 chine politics so greatly increased through the ex- 
 tension of municipal trading? Why is there no 
 jobbery, no boss, no "system" of private interests 
 back of the administration? Why have the cities 
 of England so signally succeeded where we have 
 so generally failed? These are questions which 
 the American people are seriously asking them- 
 selves. 
 
 Most critics have ascribed the personal honesty 
 and efficiency of British local administration to the 
 character of the men who compose the Town Coun- 
 cils. In Great Britain, politics is treated as a gen- 
 tleman's profession. The leisure classes are said 
 to have given dignity to local administration and 
 lifted it above reproach. Honesty and efficiency 
 are attributed to personal causes, to the traditions 
 and character of the British people. 
 
 40
 
 THE CITIZEN AND THE CITY 41 
 
 It is doubtful if this is the true explanation. 
 Certainly it is inadequate. The real cause lies 
 deeper down. It is to be found in an economic, 
 not in a personal or ethical cause. To understand 
 the spirit of the English city, it is necessary to un- 
 derstand the citizen ; and to understand the citizen 
 it is necessary to understand the method of levying 
 local taxes and the meaning of the city to the peo- 
 ple who compose it. 
 
 The English voter and his closest political agent, 
 the Town Councillor, are, before all else, rate- 
 payers. They approach every municipal problem 
 with the question : "How will it affect the rates?" 1 
 This is the most universal solicitude of local poli- 
 tics. It crops out in every discussion. It is con- 
 stantly heard in the Council chamber. It obtrudes 
 in all campaign literature. When the voter goes 
 to the polls, when the alderman passes upon an 
 undertaking, he does so with the spectre of the 
 local rates constantly before him. 
 
 It may seem to be going far afield to find an 
 explanation of city administration in so sordid a 
 thing as the method of levying taxes. But it is 
 nevertheless true that a government is profoundly 
 affected by the means adopted for the payment of 
 the common bills of the people. Some of the cor- 
 
 'Taxes for the support of local government are called "rates" 
 in Great Britain; those of the Imperial Government are called 
 taxes.
 
 42 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 ruption, and most of the extravagances, of Congress 
 are traceable to our system of indirect taxation. 
 The people are unconscious of the taxes which the 
 Federal Government collects. They do not feel the 
 burden of the customs and excise system. The cost 
 of the War and Navy Departments, of internal im- 
 provements, of pensions, of colonial administration, 
 are paid for out of consumption taxes. They are 
 not felt by the voter. A billion-dollar Congress ex- 
 cites little comment. It would destroy a party if 
 its expenditures had to be raised from an income 
 duty or from taxes imposed directly upon wealth. 
 Local taxes, too, are levied upon property in Amer- 
 ica. And as only a limited number of people own 
 their homes, or a sufficient amount of personalty to 
 be visited by the assessor, they are unconscious of 
 their local burdens. Land is assessed at w r hat it 
 will sell for, not on the amount received by the 
 owner in rent. Buildings, machinery, stocks and 
 bonds are valued at their capital value. Upon this 
 sum a certain percentage is levied for local pur- 
 poses. And the right to vote has no connection 
 with whether a man is on the assessment roll or 
 not. The suffrage is a personal right. 
 
 In the British city this is not so. In order to 
 vote, it is necessary to be a rate- or tax-payer. And 
 as local rates are assessed upon the occupier or 
 tenant, rather than upon the owner, the voter pays 
 directly, and he knows the cost of the city to him
 
 THE CITIZEN AND THE CITY 43 
 
 to a penny. Local rates are fixed by the rental and 
 not by the capital value of the premises. It is 
 assumed that the amount of rent a person pays is 
 a proper measure of his ability to pay taxes. If he 
 pays $500 a year rental for his house, his office, or 
 his place of business, he must pay (if the local rate 
 is six shillings in the pound) $150 more each 
 year in taxes. The landlord who owns the prem- 
 ises pays nothing, or practically nothing. It is 
 not land, and houses, and machinery, and stocks, 
 and bonds that bear the burdens of local govern- 
 ment. It is the enterprise of the man who makes 
 use of the property. This is true of the imposing 
 office building. It is true of the smallest rated tene- 
 ment. It is true of the mine owner and the railway 
 operator, as it is of the tenant farmer. All local 
 taxes are assessed against the occupier, and are 
 fixed by the rental value of the premises. 
 
 At the same time, men do not vote because they 
 are citizens. They vote because they own land or 
 pay a certain rental, which must amount to fifty 
 dollars, or ten pounds, a year. An unmarried 
 woman may vote if she has the other qualifications. 1 
 
 Practically all Englishmen are tenants, and as 
 the taxes are assessed against the occupier, the right 
 
 'The right to vote at municipal elections is limited to male 
 persons over twenty-one years of age, who reside in the bor- 
 ough, or within seven miles of it, who are rated for the relief 
 of the poor, and are not in arrears for taxes, and have not 
 received poor relief during the preceding twelve months. The 
 voter must also have been in occupation of his premises on the
 
 44 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 to vote is a rate-payer's privilege. It is not a right, 
 which is enjoyed by any man of proper age, as it is 
 with us. It is a privilege that attaches to the own- 
 ership or occupancy of property. 
 
 In consequence of this fact, rates, rather than 
 people, are represented in the Town Councils. Only 
 he who pays rates is presumed to be interested in 
 the government. By reason of this fact, the Town 
 
 15th of July, and for one year preceding, and fall within one 
 of the following classes: 
 
 (1) The occupation of any dwelling house. 
 
 (2) The occupation of any land or tenements, shop, office, 
 or chamber of (10) fifty dollars annual rental. 
 
 (3) A lodger occupying apartments of the annual rental 
 of (10) fifty dollars, unfurnished. 
 
 (4) A person separately inhabiting a dwelling house by 
 virtue of any office service or employment, whether he pays 
 local taxes or not. Unmarried women occupiers may also vote. 
 A man may vote in several county districts if he has property 
 in each to place him on the Parliamentary rolls. 
 
 The right to vote is denied to Peers of the Realm, and the 
 hired agents of candidates, because of the fact that they would 
 be expected to exercise undue influence. Minors, lunatics, pau- 
 pers, felons, and women (except as above indicated), and 
 members of the police force, are also disqualified. 
 
 Suffrage is not the same in England and Scotland, nor for 
 Parliamentary and local elections. It has been gradually ex- 
 tended from the early half of the century. Prior to the Reform 
 Act of 1832 there were about 500,000 men on the register. An 
 equal number was added by the act of that year. The act 
 of 1867 still further liberalised the suffrage, and added about 
 one million electors. Not until 1884 was the electorate again 
 broadened, when about three million more voters were taken 
 into the nation's confidence, bringing the total up to nearly 
 five millions in England and Wales. The suffrage is still 
 far from universal. It does not include the very poor and the 
 millions whose transitory residence and lack of property qual- 
 ifications exclude them from the right to vote. And it is 
 essentially a property right.
 
 THE CITIZEN AND THE CITY 45 
 
 Council is a rate-payer's body. The voter grumbles 
 when his taxes are raised, and punishes his Coun- 
 cilman for it. All this makes for responsible gov- 
 ernment. For the citizen watches the Council meet- 
 ings and its expenditures. His vote directly affects 
 his purse. And he is very watchful of any new 
 departure, of any new loan or enterprise, of any 
 big, generous policy upon which the Council might 
 venture to embark. 
 
 A typical instance which indicates this rate- 
 payers scrutiny is afforded by the city of Glasgow. 
 Sir Samuel Chisholm had been in the Council for 
 nearly a score of years. He was a commanding 
 figure in the community. He had been identified 
 with the great business enterprises which have 
 given that city such a commanding distinction in 
 the trading world. His career was rounded off by 
 an election to the office of Lord Provost, as the 
 position of Mayor is called in Scotland. During 
 his incumbency as Provost he identified himself 
 with a proposal for cleaning out some of the worst 
 slums in the city. It was an improvement badly 
 needed, for Glasgow is one of the worst housed 
 cities in the world. On the expiration of his mayor- 
 alty he determined to again run for the Council. 
 This was a rather unprecedented thing, for a man 
 is expected to retire from active politics after he 
 has reached the highest position in the community. 
 But his programme for municipal slum clearance
 
 46 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 and housing involved a heavy expenditure, with 
 some addition to the tax rate. It aroused great 
 opposition, and despite his position and unques- 
 tioned services to the community he was defeated 
 for re-election. Other influences contributed to his 
 defeat. For he was an earnest temperance advo- 
 cate, and the public-house keepers are said to have 
 combined with the large rate-payers against him. 
 
 Another instance is the recent London elections, 
 held in March, 1907. The Progressive party, which 
 had been in control of the County Council for years, 
 had developed the activities of London and in- 
 curred heavy indebtedness for many needed im- 
 provements. It had greatly increased the rates for 
 educational purposes. Badly needed parks, bath 
 houses, and street improvements, had been opened. 
 But the Progressive party was defeated and the 
 Moderates or Conservatives placed in power by a 
 large majority. 
 
 It is this interest in the rates that has stimulated 
 the growth of municipal ownership. Other influ- 
 ences have contributed to it, but at bottom the 
 rate-payers are united in the conviction that it is 
 good business for the city to own the big franchise 
 corporations that make use of the streets. For in 
 England, though not in Scotland, the public enter- 
 prises have been widely used for the relief of taxa- 
 tion, and as the local rates are very heavy, the rate- 
 payers have seen in these enterprises an opportu-
 
 THE CITIZEN AXD THE CITY 47 
 
 nity for relief. In addition to this, unimproved 
 property is largely exempt from taxation, so that 
 the burdens on the other classes are often excessive. 
 
 The same pecuniary interest that has led to 
 municipal ownership keeps the rate-payer alert af- 
 ter an enterprise has been acquired. For any im- 
 providence on the part of the Council may readily 
 become a burden on the tax-payer. Every new 
 venture is carefully studied before it is entered 
 upon, and the Council committees are constantly 
 striving to make the best possible showing for their 
 departments. This is one of the explanations of 
 Britain's success in the things her cities have 
 turned their hands to. 
 
 This tyranny of the rate-paying classes explains 
 some of the excellencies of the English city. It 
 also explains its worst shortcomings. The unseen 
 effects of throwing the burden of taxation on to 
 the occupier alone are almost all bad. It leads to 
 a cheese-paring policy which cramps and confines 
 the city. This is one of the chief burdens on dem- 
 ocracy in Great Britain. For the Council hardly 
 dares to be responsive to any big humane proposal 
 for the betterment of the condition of the people 
 if it involves an increase in taxation. Beauty, art, 
 education, better housing conditions, and slum 
 clearance are sacrificed to the sordid ideal of the 
 rate-payer. 
 
 In this respect the average American city is
 
 48 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 much more hopeful than are the cities of Great 
 Britain, even though it is now devoid of the 
 inspiring examples which that country offers. For 
 the average American voter is not conscious of his 
 local taxes. Only an insignificant number of voters 
 are the owners of taxable property. In New York 
 City only about 4| per cent, of the total number 
 of houses are owned by their occupiers free of mort- 
 gage. But one person out of every one hundred 
 and forty appears upon the tax duplicate as the 
 owner of personal property. Even in the Western 
 cities the home owner is the exception. And as 
 all local taxes in America are assessed against the 
 property, the tenant is unconscious of the cost of 
 city government. 
 
 For this reason democracy in America is 
 rather indifferent to the cost of its experiments. 
 And any reform movement based upon economy, 
 retrenchment, or a tax-payer's programme, meets 
 with little sympathy. The British voter, however, 
 is always alert to the question of cost. He is in- 
 spired by a material rather than a civic enthusi- 
 asm. This explains the solicitude of the Council 
 and managers over the financial showing of any 
 enterprise. It is this that accounts for the policy 
 of rapid debt repayment, the accumulation of re- 
 serve funds, and the subordination of immediate 
 reductions in fares and charges to a cautious finan- 
 cial policy. If any criticism is to be made upon
 
 THE CITIZEN AND THE CITY 49 
 
 the trading enterprises, it is that they have gone 
 far beyond the necessities of conservative financing 
 in their fear of a possible burden on the rates. In 
 many instances they have called upon the present 
 generation to hand over properties to its successor 
 that will soon be free from indebtedness, or have 
 delayed extending the service in order that the 
 earnings may be used for the relief of taxation. 
 
 This method of levying rates and of limiting the 
 suffrage to the tax-paying class explains in part 
 the honesty and efficiency of the Town Councils. 
 For there is always a material incentive to watch- 
 fulness and the nomination of good men for office. 
 It is not an exalted motive, perhaps, but it is a 
 universal one. The economic instinct of the rate- 
 payer, who has little from which to pay, is as poten- 
 tial a force as is the economic motive of the fran- 
 chise seeker, who in America has much to gain. 1 
 
 Still another influence awakens the affection of 
 the people for the city. It also explains the dignity 
 
 *It is true there is a large class in every industrial city who 
 are not conscious of their taxes. There are thousands of vot- 
 ing lodgers or boarders who are not assessed directly. Their 
 taxes are paid by the landlord, who shifts them on to the 
 lodger by the addition of a sixpence or a shilling to his weekly 
 rent. It would be interesting to follow the effect of this indi- 
 rect payment of taxes on the political outlook of these classes. 
 In such constituencies as Poplar, one of the boroughs of Lon- 
 don, a large part of the voters are such lodgers. And this is 
 a strong socialistic centre. The same is true of West Ham 
 and Battersea, which are radical boroughs. Whether the ab- 
 sence of direct taxes explains .the radicalism of such com- 
 munities is only conjectural.
 
 50 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 of the office of alderman and the honesty and effi- 
 ciency of the Council. It is the magnitude of city 
 work. The renaissance of municipal administra- 
 tion followed the big undertakings which the cities 
 have taken over during the past fifteen years. Mu- 
 nicipal trading has attached all classes to the com- 
 munity. It has endeared the city to the people. It 
 has created a topic of absorbing interest. The sense 
 of thrift aroused by the desire of relief from the 
 burdens of taxation has been followed by a sense 
 of intimacy, of attachment to the city. The citizen 
 loves the city that manifests some love for him. 
 The more the city does, the more it receives in 
 return. Moreover, big men like to be doing big 
 things. They wish to be part of a city that is the 
 centre of everybody's attention and the topic of 
 all conversation. The ambition which lures men 
 to the directorate of railways, banks, and industrial 
 companies in America lures them in England to 
 the directorate of the city, when the city is big 
 enough to command their services. There are many 
 men who would give their time to a city tram line 
 who would not be attracted by the petty details of 
 routine administration. The very bigness of the 
 English city invites to its administration those most 
 fitted to carry it on. 
 
 It is, of course, said that such men could not be 
 elected in America; that they are excluded from 
 political life by its badness. As a matter of fact,
 
 THE CITIZEN AXD THE CITY 51 
 
 the thing that keeps honest men out of politics in 
 America is not the people, not our undeveloped 
 ideals; it is the franchise corporations who com- 
 plain of their absence. Analyse the politics of any of 
 our large cities, or even of our States, for that mat- 
 ter, and this fact becomes manifest. In New York, 
 Philadelphia, Pittsburg, Cincinnati, St. Louis, 
 conditions are the same. Everywhere the boss, the 
 party, the machine, are identified with the big busi- 
 ness interests centering about the street railway, 
 gas, and electric lighting companies. The cor- 
 rupt bosses are the brokers of franchise corpora- 
 tions. The trail of corruption leads not to the 
 people, but to the office of the banker and the 
 broker. It is these who nominate the "safe and 
 sane" councilmen, tax assessors, and mayors. They 
 do not choose the honest and efficient to rule. Their 
 business is not consistent with honest government. 
 Franchises are not obtained in the open they are 
 bought and sold in the office of the brokers of privi- 
 lege, who make use of the party organisation as a 
 means of delivering the goods. 
 
 Moreover, the class of men who are found in the 
 English city, in America cannot, and dare not, en- 
 ter local politics. They are identified with interests 
 adverse to the city. They are kept out of politics 
 by fear, by business and social pressure, by that 
 intimate class instinct that distrusts democracy be- 
 cause democracv believes in the destruction of the
 
 52 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 privileges which they enjoy. The American city is 
 thus bereft of its best talent. The banker, the 
 broker, the business man, the lawyer, are all di- 
 vorced from the city. Their pecuniary interest is 
 elsewhere. We have tried the impossible in Amer- 
 ica. We have placed franchises worth millions on 
 the gaming table of politics to be awarded to those 
 who will take them through political manipulation. 
 We have done this, and wondered why the talent 
 of the community did not enter the City Council. 
 
 Had the British cities such prizes to offer, they 
 would probably be as corrupt as are our own. But 
 Parliament grants all franchises itself. It does it 
 by special acts. The cities have no control over the 
 terms. They can interpose a veto on tramway grants 
 and secure powers to operate tramways, electric 
 light, and gas enterprises themselves. But here 
 their powers end. The city cannot fix the terms 
 of the grant or regulate the service or the charges 
 of the company. The corruption which we, in 
 America, find in the Council chamber appears in 
 Great Britain in Parliament. Not in the vulgar 
 forms with which we are familiar, but in a way that 
 is equally costly so far as the people are concerned. 
 Inasmuch as the cities have never had any control 
 over franchises, they have never been subject to 
 the great temptations incident to their disposal. 
 And now, where the cities own these utilities, we 
 find the class of men who are identified with fran-
 
 THE CITIZEN AND THE CITY 53 
 
 chise manipulation in America identified with, the 
 city in the administration of the same industries. 
 
 Municipal ownership thus identifies all classes 
 with the city rather than against it. The economic, 
 no less than the civic interest, of all the people 
 demands honest administration. As there are no 
 franchises to be struggled for, the talent of the com- 
 munity seeks expression through those channels 
 which are open to it. As the biggest corporation in 
 the community is the community itself, men seek 
 to serve on the Board of Directors of the city. 
 
 In addition to this, the Town Councils have quite 
 generally abolished the private contractor. They 
 are doing their work by the direct employment of 
 labour. All classes who might be interested in 
 privilege are exiled from the Council chamber. They 
 are free to serve the city without at the same time 
 sacrificing their personal welfare. This is a great 
 gain. It frees the press. It relieves the business 
 and professional interests always identified with 
 privilege. 
 
 Herein is the explanation of the British city and 
 the British citizen. The success of the one and 
 the honesty and efficiency of the other are traceable 
 to the economic rather than the ethical or personal 
 motive. The system of local taxation on the one 
 hand and the absence of special privilege on the 
 other are the controlling influences in municipal 
 administration. The one compels an interest in the
 
 54 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 city through fear. The other attracts all classes 
 through the opportunity of service. To both of 
 these influences human nature responds. The love 
 of service, no less than the fear of want, or the love 
 of wealth, is a compelling motive of human action. 
 And the British city has united them all in the 
 service of democracy. 
 
 It is not the traditional ideals of public life, not 
 the sense of noblesse oblige, not the higher personal 
 honesty of the British people, that has made the 
 city what it is. These influences have helped ; but 
 the foundation is an economic one, so adjusted, how- 
 ever, that it appeals to the interest of all classes 
 rather than to the interest of a privileged few.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE IDEALS OF THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN, like America, is being democra- 
 tised through the city. It is also being socialised. 
 While Parliament is distant from the people, and 
 essentially reactionary, the Town Councils are re- 
 sponsive to public opinion, and have attained a 
 political consciousness nowhere else manifest in 
 Great Britain. Just as the American city is becom- 
 ing democratic in its thought, through economic 
 issues which are taking the place of party names 
 and traditions, so the British city is laying the 
 foundations upon which will be erected a socialised 
 community, with ideals that are little short of revo- 
 lutionary. 
 
 Popular government is being vitalised in the cit- 
 ies. The British people are making use of the tools 
 that were placed in their hands by the Reform Acts 
 of the early part of the century, and all of the ten- 
 dencies point to the use of these powers for increas- 
 ing the functions of the municipality. Democracy 
 is becoming industrial. It is seeking an explana- 
 tion of poverty in economic rather than in personal 
 causes. It is striving to relieve the cost of the 
 
 55
 
 56 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 industrial system by substituting the city for war- 
 ring private interests. The economic motive is up- 
 permost. In Ireland, in England, in Parliament, in 
 the cities, the struggle is one of classes, of the un- 
 privileged many against the privileged few. The 
 changes which are taking place are inspired by the 
 common people. For this reason they are bound to 
 be permanent. The cities are seeking the better- 
 ment of social conditions through the direct positive 
 action of the community itself. The permanency 
 of this movement is further assured by its univer- 
 sality. In Germany, France, Italy, Switzerland, 
 Belgium, and Eussia, the issues are the same. It 
 is a class movement struggling upward from below. 
 It is a class movement, too, because those who make 
 the programme a possibility come from among the 
 workers. The struggle involved is one .of economic 
 opportunity. It is a struggle for the chance to 
 work and participate in the wonderful industrial 
 progress of the past century. And everywhere the 
 city is the centre of this new political activity. 
 Everywhere the tendency of democracy is toward 
 decentralisation, to the use of the powers resident in 
 the municipality for the relief of the poverty and 
 despair which has settled down upon the submerged 
 classes. 
 
 There is nothing surprising in this movement. 
 It represents a shifting of power from the few to 
 the many. From the beginnings of organised so-
 
 IDEALS OF THE BRITISH CITY 57 
 
 ciety, government has always represented a class. 
 The class may have been only the king. More fre- 
 quently, it has been the king and the aristocratic 
 orders identified with the land. In more recent 
 years the land-owning classes have opened the doors 
 and permitted the commercial classes, whom the 
 industrial revolution has raised to wealth, to share 
 their pow r ers. But whatever the class, it has always 
 controlled the government. It has made use of 
 its powers for the creation of privileges and their 
 subsequent preservation. It has devised tax laws 
 of its own liking and shifted the burdens of gov- 
 ernment on to the poor. For commercial purposes 
 it has plunged great nations into war. It has made 
 use of the machinery of government for the creation 
 of railway, franchise, mining, and other privileges 
 for which the mass of the people must of necessity 
 pay. And in no country has privilege as firmly 
 identified itself with government as in Great 
 Britain. Nowhere has it enjoyed such undisturbed 
 control of administration. And democracy is now 
 seeking to make use of the same political tools to 
 readjust the burdens of life and to abolish the law- 
 made advantages that the class which rules has 
 so long enjoyed. 
 
 The programme of municipal democracy in Great 
 Britain is both conscious and unconscious. It is 
 conscious on the part of the Fabians and other 
 socialists, with whom are allied the advanced Lib-
 
 58 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 erals and the working classes. It was the Fabians 
 who first gave literary expression to the movement. 
 They formulated a programme of municipalisation, 
 of evolutionary socialism, and the decentralisation 
 of government. They have produced a literature 
 which has profoundly influenced public opinion, 
 and formulated a conscious ideal of municipal pos- 
 sibilities that is the inspiration of a multitude of 
 workers. They have entered politics first the Town 
 Councils, and then Parliament. In a general way 
 the present Liberal ministry is committed to Fabian 
 tendencies. The most profound influence, however, 
 has been upon local administration. In the cities 
 the Fabians, together with the labour representa- 
 tives, form a progressive element which has become 
 a portentous menace to the age-long abuses of the 
 aristocracy. It is not improbable that a consider- 
 able number of the great industrial towns will fall 
 under the control of these classes within a compara- 
 tively few years. With that achieved, and with 
 Parliament responsive to the wishes of the towns, 
 the British city will offer a fully equipped and 
 highly perfected experiment station of municipal 
 socialism. 
 
 The movement toward municipalisation has been 
 unconscious on the part of the trading classes and 
 small business men. They are the controlling classes 
 in local government. The burdens of local taxation, 
 and the necessities of sanitation, health, and edu-
 
 IDEALS OF THE BEITISH CITY 59 
 
 cation, have allied them with the more radical mem- 
 bers of the community. Up to the present time 
 these classes have been in control of the Town 
 Councils. And they have applied their business 
 experience to the successful administration of the 
 enterprises upon which the cities have entered. 
 
 The average British Councilman has no abstrac- 
 tions about government. He is not concerned with 
 any philosophic ideas of the proper functions of 
 the State, of what it should do and what it should 
 not do. He moves from one undertaking to another 
 as the necessities of sanitation, transit, decent hous- 
 ing conditions, education, or the immediate emer- 
 gency demands. He gives no thought to whither 
 the movement is tending; to whether its ultimate 
 goal is socialism, or the reverse. But he is always 
 solicitous of the tax-rate. The most radical recog- 
 nises that municipal enterprise must ultimately 
 pass the scrutiny of those who pay the bills. For 
 this reason, public undertakings are as jealously 
 watched as are the expenditures of private business. 
 And it is the very general financial success of mu- 
 nicipal ownership that has endeared the movement 
 to the rate-payers. For the earnings of these enter- 
 prises have been widely used in England for the 
 relief of taxation. This identifies with every exten- 
 sion of the movement not only the propertyless class 
 and the wage-earners, but all those who see in trad- 
 ing a means for the further reduction in their rates.
 
 GO THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 Up to the present time thrift has probably been 
 the determining motive in the movement. The suc- 
 cess of one town aroused the rate-payers of another, 
 always alert to this side of municipal administra- 
 tion. 
 
 Municipal trading is likely to grow as its suc- 
 cess is assured. There is no reason to believe that 
 the towns will be content with the natural monopo- 
 lies which have been already taken over. Public 
 opinion will move from one activity to another as 
 local necessities suggest. In the last ten years 
 thousands of men have been identified with city 
 work. They are in the employ of the street rail- 
 way, electricity, or gas departments, or the work- 
 shops of the Council. If influenced at all by mu- 
 nicipal employment, it will be in favour of still 
 further extensions of the public activity. The com- 
 munity, too, has responded to the broadening of 
 the public service. The uniform courtesy of the 
 managers, Council committees, and city employees ; 
 the improvement and cheapening of service ; the re- 
 sponsiveness of public enterprise to public opinion, 
 have created a feeling of intimacy and control on 
 the part of the people which did not exist under 
 private ownership. A sense of unity has come into 
 city administration. With this has come a sense 
 of fraternal helpfulness. Public trading has aroused 
 a reflex action upon the people. The best governed 
 cities in Great Britain are those which have enter-
 
 IDEALS OF THE BEITISH CITY 61 
 
 ed trading most extensively. In such towns one 
 finds a keen, vibrant sense of the city; of its life 
 and meaning. 
 
 There is something psychological about all this. 
 A city that keeps its hands off, that does nothing 
 but police and clean the streets, means but little 
 to the people. But when it adds to the traditional 
 functions, the manifold services of transit, gas, 
 water, electric light, libraries, parks, baths and lec- 
 tures, it awakens the love and interest of the com- 
 munity in itself. In the trading towns people talk 
 city. One hears it in the clubs, the restaurants, on 
 the street cars, everywhere. The fact that a man 
 is a joint owner in the tram line makes him critical 
 and appreciative of the tram line. He is interested 
 in its earnings he follows its balance sheets from 
 year to year. He talks about extensions, rates of 
 fare, and the innovations suggested by the Council. 
 He follows the doings in the Town Hall, and knows 
 in an intimate way the life and traditions of his 
 Councilman. The debates of the Council are far 
 more absorbing to him than the doings of Parlia- 
 ment. All these things are but the reflex action of 
 the city upon its people. It becomes the most im- 
 portant thing in their lives. It touches them at so 
 many points and serves them in so many ways. The 
 citizen looks upon the city as his city; not as a 
 thing distant and apart from him, but as something 
 in which he has a vital interest. And nowhere is
 
 62 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 there any movement away from municipal owner- 
 ship. The cities rarely abandon any enterprise to 
 which they have put their hands. The best test 
 of the movement is the fact that all classes, save 
 those which have suffered by the change, are a unit 
 for its preservation, if not for its extension. 
 
 A further influence toward trading is the fearful 
 poverty of the bulk of the nation. Words cannot 
 exaggerate the degradation which seems to oppress 
 the mass of the inhabitants of the English city. It 
 is seen in their wretched tenements, but most of 
 all in their appearance. No country of western 
 Europe presents a scene of such universal despair 
 as do the cities of Great Britain. The scale of wages, 
 the extent of non-employment, the statistics of pov- 
 erty, the loss of physical stamina all confirm the 
 evidences of the eye. The country villages are but 
 little better. And Parliament, which represents the 
 privileges primarily responsible for these condi- 
 tions, refuses to grant any relief that threatens to 
 interfere with the ancient abuses of its members. 
 
 All of these influences are arousing England to a 
 new conception of politics and of the purpose of 
 organised society. There is a renaissance of belief 
 in public activity as opposed to private charity. 
 And the very general success of the things that have 
 been undertaken has led to a confidence in the city 
 that does not exist as to Parliament 
 
 In a general way, the ideals of the English city
 
 IDEALS OF THE BRITISH CITY 63 
 
 are expressing themselves along two lines. The one 
 is avowedly socialistic. It makes no distinction be- 
 tween enterprises which are natural monopolies, 
 and exist by franchise grants from Parliament, and 
 industries that are subject to the regulating power 
 of competition. It is not content with what has 
 been done, but would socialise all enterprise. It 
 would take over all of the means of production for 
 the common weal. Militant state socialism, such as 
 prevails in Germany, has not obtained the substan- 
 tial following in Great Britain that it has on the 
 Continent, but the evolutionary socialism of the 
 Fabian type has saturated almost all classes. 
 
 On the other hand are the land reformers. They 
 would socialise the natural monopolies and take 
 over all land values by means of taxation. They 
 are followers of Henry George. The latter pro- 
 gramme is particularly aggressive in Scotland and 
 in the cities. It has a strong following in the pres- 
 ent Liberal ministry. A league of municipalities 
 comprising most of the local authorities in Great 
 Britain has been organised for the promotion of 
 land value taxation. The present Liberal ministry 
 is committed to some measure of this sort, which 
 will permit of the partial appropriation by the city 
 of the unearned increment which has followed its 
 growth. Through this means the monopoly of the 
 landlord will be broken, for he will no longer be 
 able to hold his land for speculation. The tenement
 
 64 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 problem will be open to correction, for then men 
 will have to make use of the land which they now 
 hold free from taxes in order to meet the demands 
 which the community imposes upon them. Vacant 
 land lying about the city will be opened up 
 to occupancy, while the millions of unemployed will 
 be lured back to the countryside, from which they 
 have been dispossessed by the rack-renting of the 
 English landlords. 1 The line of division between 
 these two programmes, while perfectly clear to the 
 leaders, is not observed in politics. The Fabians, 
 progressives, and labour leaders are committed to 
 the socialization of land values. They are also to be 
 found on the side of every movement for increas- 
 ing the powers of the municipality. 
 
 While these are the ultimate ideals of the more 
 advanced reformers, it must not be supposed that 
 they are in a fair way of immediate realisation. The 
 cities are so limited by Parliament that every for- 
 ward step has to pass the scrutiny of powerful 
 vested interests who are jealous of the growing ac- 
 tivities of the towns and in constant fear for the 
 preservation of their privileges. They form the 
 most sympathetic aristocracy in western Europe, 
 and are probably the most powerful. They are the 
 House of Lords. They exercise great influence in 
 the House of Commons. Every advance of democ- 
 
 'Rack-renting is a. term of common use in Great Britain. It 
 is the exaction of excessive rentals frpm agricultural lands 
 by reason of the demand for it on the part of tenants.
 
 IDEALS OF THE BEITISH CITY 65 
 
 racy has to make its way against organised opposi- 
 tion. And the rate-payers have to pay handsomely 
 for every vested wrong that the Council destroys. 
 It is for this reason that the impression thus far 
 made upon the poverty of the British city is very 
 slight. And the realisation of the programme 
 of municipal socialism, or the taxation of laud 
 values, is a thing of the far distant future. 
 But the programme has become a working one, 
 and democracy has identified itself with its achieve- 
 ment. 
 
 Thus far the movement for trading has centred 
 about the ownership of the street railways, electric 
 lighting, gas, and water enterprises. These have 
 been very generally taken over by the cities. Some- 
 thing has been done to improve the housing condi- 
 tions, but not much. In addition, public education 
 has been greatly promoted. The municipalities 
 have erected public bath houses and laundries. 
 Libraries are being established, as are polytechnics. 
 The cities, too, have greatly improved the well-being 
 of their own employees. They have established fair 
 wages and opened works departments for the exe- 
 cution of municipal contracts by the direct employ- 
 ment of labour. 
 
 The immediate programme of the cities is a de- 
 mand for permission to buy land in advance of the 
 city's growth by compulsory purchase, and the tax- 
 ation of land values. They are also seeking powers
 
 66 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 to open employment agencies and municipal pawn- 
 shops, slaughter houses and bakeries, to supply 
 milk and free lunches to school-children. An agi- 
 tation has gained some headway for municipal fire 
 insurance and municipal brokerage establishments. 
 Parks are being opened and public concerts are 
 given, while many other activities of a helpful sort 
 are being promoted. This is far from a socialised 
 city. But the direction of the movement is indus- 
 trial, and that is the principal thing. 
 
 Such a programme of an enlarged city life in- 
 volves honest administration, and the Town Coun- 
 cils are filled with men whose honesty is on a par 
 with their disinterested service. The British city 
 is free from corruption, not only the vulgar cor- 
 ruption with which we are familiar, but the more 
 subtle and sinister corruption which comes from 
 a community of interest between big business enter- 
 prises and the government. Occasional instances 
 have come to light of embezzlement or other mal- 
 feasance; but such instances are so rare that they 
 do not qualify the universal honesty of the English 
 city. Its business is carried on with economy, con- 
 tracts are awarded to the lowest bidder, and bribery 
 is practically unknown. 
 
 During the controversy which raged some years 
 ago over the subject of municipal trading, the 
 charge was made in the press that municipal own- 
 ership promoted corruption. These charges led to
 
 IDEALS OF THE BKITISH CITY 67 
 
 a very general investigation by the Town Councils. 
 The results of these enquiries were reviewed by 
 Mr. Kobert Donald, the editor of the Municipal 
 Journal, in the Contemporary Review for May, 
 1903. The following are among the most flagrant 
 disclosures: It appeared that a Councilman in 
 Darwen had an interest amounting to five pounds 
 in a corporation doing business with the city. The 
 Councilman resigned. In Blackpool it was found 
 that three members of the Council were directors of 
 companies having dealings with the city, and that 
 their combined holdings in the companies amounted 
 to thirty-two pounds. It was also found that two 
 members of the Council had sub-contracts on the 
 building of the Town Hall. A number of instances 
 were found of members who supplied goods to the 
 city as sub-contractors. All these goods, however, 
 were supplied at competitive bidding, and presum- 
 ably the Council lost nothing in accepting the low- 
 est tender. The most widely quoted case was that 
 of an Alderman in Manchester. He was a candi- 
 date for the Lord Mayoralty, and would probably 
 have been elected. It was found that he was a mem- 
 ber of an electrical engineering firm which had 
 made tenders to do some work as a sub-contractor 
 for the city. The contracts were all let to the low- 
 est bidder, and the total amount involved was about 
 $21,000. There was no suggestion in the report 
 that the city had lost anything by reason of the
 
 68 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 contract, or that the bid was not the lowest and 
 the best. But the Alderman involved was on the 
 Electricity Committee, and the Council found that 
 such a relationship was not consistent with the 
 disinterested devotion that should be expected from 
 an official. In consequence of the report the Alder- 
 man resigned. 
 
 Municipal trading, far from promoting jobbery, 
 has insured its absence. For the Councils have no 
 franchises to grant. To a considerable extent they 
 have become their own contractors. There is thus 
 no powerful interest desiring corrupt administra- 
 tion, no identity of interest between the financial 
 classes in the community and the Council. In addi- 
 tion to this, the work of the Council is of such 
 commanding interest that big men are eager to 
 serve the community. These are the great gains 
 from municipal ownership. It identifies the big 
 business connections with the city rather than 
 against it. This fact unites all classes in an insist- 
 ent desire for good government. The only active 
 business interests in local affairs are the public- 
 house keepers. The brewing and distilling business 
 has been largely monopolised, and is under the con- 
 trol of powerful syndicates. The stock is widely 
 held by members of Parliament, and the method of 
 granting local licenses makes the temperance ques- 
 tion more or less active in city affairs. But what- 
 ever influence the public-house keepers may exert
 
 IDEALS OF THE BKITISII CITY 69 
 
 does not tend to the corruption or bribery of Couu- 
 cilmen or the election of bad men. 
 
 Taken as a whole, it is doubtful if contemporary 
 politics in any portion of the world presents a more 
 disinterested, honest, and efficient body of public 
 officials than are to be found in the Town Councils 
 of Great Britain.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE GKOWTH AND EXTENT OF MUNICIPAL 
 TKADING 
 
 THE increase in local indebtedness is not a fair 
 barometer of the growth of municipal trading, al- 
 though it is one of the main arguments against it. 
 In the twenty- three years from 1875 to 1898 the 
 local debt of Great Britain increased from $451,- 
 708,530 to 11,275,105,7s!. 1 Of this sum, however, 
 only $426,212,937 was incurred for what are called 
 trading enterprises. The balance was for educa- 
 tion, for improved sanitation, or was imposed upon 
 the local authorities by acts of Parliament. By 
 1903 the indebtedness of the British cities had in- 
 creased to $2,153,286,219, 2 involving a per capita 
 local debt of approximately fifty dollars. It has 
 increased very rapidly since that date and will un- 
 doubtedly continue to grow. At the present time 
 the local obligations chargeable to those enter- 
 prises which are termed reproductive amount to 
 $1,197,951,000. A considerable portion of this sum, 
 however, is for clearance and housing schemes, for 
 
 ^ee address of Sir H. H. Fowler, President of the Royal Sta- 
 tistical Society, Vol. 63, p. 383. 
 'Municipal Journal, Nov. 10, 1905. 
 
 70
 
 MUNICIPAL TRADING 71 
 
 bath houses, docks and markets which are under- 
 taken for other than commercial reasons. 
 
 The bulk of the indebtedness for trading enter- 
 prises is for street railway, gas, electricity, and 
 water undertakings, most of the tramways and elec- 
 tricity supplies haying been acquired within the last 
 ten years. The extent to which municipal trading 
 has supplanted private ownership in these indus- 
 tries is eyidenced by the following table. The sta- 
 tistics are for the year 1903. 
 
 Public Undertakings. Private Undertakings. 
 Kind of Enterprise. No. Total Cap'l. No. Total Cap'l. 
 
 Water 
 
 1 045 $330,914,491 
 
 251 $197,850,964 
 
 Gas 
 
 256 173 919 089 
 
 454 375 348 459 
 
 Electricity 
 
 334 155,728,000 
 
 174 133,838,750 
 
 Street railways 
 
 142 199,061,278 
 
 154 83,660,551 
 
 1,777 $779,622,858 1,033 $790,688,724 
 
 The capital inyested by the public authorities was 
 about the same as that of the private companies, 
 although the public plants considerably outnumber 
 the private ones. Nearly all the large cities now 
 own their own tramway lines, the most successful 
 of which are in Glasgow, Liverpool, and Manches- 
 ter. The water supply has been widely municipal- 
 ised, as have the electricity undertakings. Only 
 about one-third of the gas plants are public, al- 
 though nearly all of the larger cities have their 
 own supply. The metropolis of London is the most 
 backward city in Great Britain in this respect, 
 although it is one of the most advanced in its
 
 72 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 democracy. The water supply was but recently 
 acquired, but the gas is still in the hands of eight 
 private companies. A number of the London bor- 
 oughs have erected electric lighting plants, and a 
 contest is now being waged in Parliament over the 
 granting of a franchise to an electric power com- 
 pany having authority to supply the entire metro- 
 politan area. The County Council contends that 
 the privilege should be entrusted to it, but the pow- 
 erful financial interests in Parliament have thus 
 far proven able to block its plans. The County 
 Council owns two street railway systems, operating 
 on the north and south sides of the Thames, but has 
 not been able to link them into a comprehensive 
 system. The underground subway, known as the 
 "Tube," is in the hands of a private company, oper- 
 ating under a parliamentary grant, as are the horse 
 and motor 'buses. The Council is also the owner 
 of a steamboat service on the Thames. This service 
 has been the subject of much adverse criticism. It 
 has never proven profitable from a financial point 
 of view, and the conservative press have found in it 
 an opportunity for criticism of the entire progres- 
 sive movement. 
 
 Opposition to the public ownership of the tram- 
 way, gas, and electricity undertakings is still 
 very aggressive. Parliament, which is closely identi- 
 fied with the ownership of these industries, has con- 
 ceded that they are naturally public ones, and in
 
 ilCXICIPAL TRADING 73 
 
 case of controversy the award is usually in favour 
 of the local authority. There is still much opposi- 
 tion to trading, but it is almost wholly limited to 
 the big financial interests which are seeking fran- 
 chises. To the man in the street, the case for 
 municipal ownership has been made. It is no longer 
 a question of propriety. It is one of expediency, 
 of the amount of money which must be paid for 
 the undertaking, and the ability of the communit} T 
 to make it pay. The gas industry is still largely 
 in the hands of private capital, and Parliament, is 
 loath to permit its acquisition by the towns where 
 the service rendered is satisfactory. 
 
 At the present time nearly all of the large towns 
 have municipalised the tramway, gas, electricity 
 and water undertakings. A half dozen of the 
 greater cities have private tramways and an equal 
 number have private gas undertakings. The num- 
 ber of private companies is constantly diminishing, 
 and it is of rare occurrence for a community to 
 abandon its plant to a company, although a few 
 electricity plants have changed hands in this way. 
 
 The Parliamentary Committee on Municipal 
 Trading, appointed in 1900, did not limit its inves- 
 tigation to the franchise corporations proper. It 
 included in its report the markets, baths and wash- 
 houses, burial grounds, slaughter houses, working 
 men's dwellings, harbours, docks and quays, as 
 well as some other enterprises which had been un-
 
 74 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 dertaken by reason of some local necessity. These 
 were all classed as trading enterprises and are in- 
 cluded in the annual returns of the Board of 
 Trade. The critics of municipal ownership have 
 insisted that all these enterprises should be classed 
 together in any financial showing. The reports 
 which are made and those which reach America 
 attempt to discredit the movement by pointing to 
 the deficits which some of these undertakings show. 
 
 But these enterprises were never expected to 
 make a profit. In most instances they are not ex- 
 pected to pay their way. They have been under- 
 taken for the same reasons that the cities have 
 opened schools and libraries, parks and play- 
 grounds. The docks are for the promotion of trade 
 and commerce. The baths and wash houses are for 
 sanitary improvement. The model dwellings are 
 for the relief of the tenement dweller. They have 
 not been undertaken with any expectation of mak- 
 ing dividends. But the opponents of trading have 
 made use of their deficits, just as they have made 
 use of the increased rates which have been imposed 
 for education, to bring discredit to the whole move- 
 ment. 
 
 The magnitude of the trading enterprises of the 
 cities is still further seen in the revenues and dis- 
 bursements of the undertakings. The total income 
 of the towns from these sources amounted in 1904 
 to nearly $145,000,000. This was equivalent to
 
 MUNICIPAL TEADING 75 
 
 23 1-4 per cent, of the total revenues collected from 
 all sources in England and Wales and to 39 per 
 cent, of the total revenues of Scotland. The net 
 earnings from these enterprises, even with those 
 undertakings included which should not properly 
 be classed as trading, are a vindication of the 
 policy of the towns. In 1904, the net earnings over 
 and above operating expenses, in England and 
 Wales, amounted to f 2,258,685, while the deficit in 
 Scotland was, but $68,292. 1 
 
 This, however, is municipal trading at its worst. 
 For the baths, the washhouses, the workingmen's 
 dwellings, the cemeteries, and in many instances 
 the docks are not designed to make a profit. More- 
 over, in computing the expenditures of these enter- 
 prises, sinking fund allowances, taxes, and in 
 many instances depreciation and reserves are en- 
 tered as part of the costs of operation. For Par- 
 liament is very careful that the cities should not 
 create a permanent debt. They are compelled to 
 set aside a certain percentage of the capital value 
 of the loan every year in order to retire the indebt- 
 edness at the end of approximately thirty years. 
 
 The financial success of the trading enterprises 
 proper is unquestioned. The tramway, gas, elec- 
 tric lighting and water plants owned by the cities 
 yield large returns. Only in rare instances have 
 they failed to meet all of the charges against them, 
 
 'Municipal Year Book, 1907, page 636.
 
 76 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 and this has been in small towns or in the early 
 years of an undertaking. According to Sir Henry 
 Fowler's Return of Reproductive Undertakings, 
 made under order of Parliament and brought 
 down to March, 1002, the franchise undertakings 
 proper had repaid indebtedness out of their earn- 
 ings in the sum of f 59,924,903. The amount in the 
 sinking funds for the same purpose amounted to 
 $18,396,981 more. This was in addition to all of 
 the operating and fixed charges of the plant and 
 the payment of local taxes the same as a private 
 company. 
 
 Far from the increase in the local indebtedness 
 being a peril to the municipalities, the trading en- 
 terprises have created a splendid surplus in excess 
 of the debts against the plants. 
 
 Nor are these enterprises a burden to the tax 
 payer as is frequently asserted. The reverse is 
 true. They contribute substantial sums each year 
 to the treasuries of the cities. From the return 
 referred to above it appears that the average gross 
 profits, covering a period of four years and involv- 
 ing 437 undertakings, amounted to $21,202,334 a 
 year. From this sum interest, depreciation and 
 sinking fund allowances had to be made, amount- 
 ing to $18,415,951. A balance remained, amount- 
 ing to $2,786,383 a year. It was usually applied 
 to the relief of taxation. 1 
 
 The above data is taken from a report by the author to the
 
 MUNICIPAL TKADING 77 
 
 The largest contributions are made by the tram- 
 way and the gas enterprises. According to the 
 Board of Trade Beturns, for the year 1905-6, the 
 total net profits of the gas enterprises amounted to 
 13,883,000, of which sum $2,152,980 was contrib- 
 uted to the relief of the rates. For the same year 
 the net profits of the tramway undertakings used 
 for the same purpose amounted to |1,200,000, if 
 the contribution of the city of Glasgow to the Com- 
 mon Good Fund be included. 
 
 Referring to this matter the Municipal Year 
 Book says : "Taking the really remunerative enter- 
 prises, such as gas Avorks, markets and tramways, 
 it will be found that they earn in England and 
 Wales a clear nett profit of over 1,367,000 ($6,- 
 643,620), and in Scotland of nearly 62,600 ($304,- 
 236), equal to a return on capital of 2 per cent, in 
 the former case and of 1 per cent, in the latter. 
 Tested by the commercial or company standard, 
 the gross profit shown in England and Wales is 
 14,459,497 ($70,273,155), and in Scotland approx- 
 imately 1,658,000 ($8,057,880), or about 7 and 4| 
 per cent, respectively on the outstanding capital." 1 
 
 Bureau of Labour, Washington, on Municipal Ownership in 
 Great Britain and published in the Bulletin of the Depart- 
 ment for January, 1906. 
 
 'Municipal Year Book, 1907, page 636. On pages 652-3 of the 
 same publication is a table showing 81 towns whose rates were 
 reduced in 1906-7 from a few pence to nearly two shillings on 
 the pound from the earnings of the leading enterprises owned 
 by the municipalities.
 
 78 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 For the year 1905-6, it appears that there were 
 four public tramways that showed a deficit aver- 
 aging the sum of $2,500 each, while the number of 
 gas and electric lighting enterprises that fail to do 
 so is constantly decreasing. The complaint most 
 commonly heard in Great Britain is not that these 
 enterprises are a burden to the taxpayers, it is that 
 they are being used for the relief of taxation rather 
 than for the reduction of rates and charges to the 
 consumers. 
 
 There is a large class which would limit the ac- 
 tivities of the city to the so-called natural monopo- 
 lies, to industries which make use of the streets, and 
 are closely identified with the well-being of the com- 
 munity and the administration of the city. Many 
 of these men have been identified with the move- 
 ment which has brought about the present exten- 
 sion of municipal ownership. They see a principle 
 which justifies the city in operating such enter- 
 prises as are monopolies which is absent from in- 
 dustries of a competitive character. And they re- 
 sent the socialistic tendency which has followed 
 upon the heels of the ownership of franchise cor- 
 porations, and now join in opposition with those 
 who are opposed to any public ownership whatever. 
 
 But democracy is likely to be as indifferent to 
 the philosophic distinctions which this class now 
 makes as its predecessors were indifferent to the 
 bankers and brokers who opposed the early move-
 
 MUNICIPAL TRADING 79 
 
 inent. And a city is like the courts. It constantly 
 tends to amplify its powers. Moreover, the Labour 
 party is avowedly socialistic in its ideals. It de- 
 clines to make any distinction in capitalistic indus- 
 try. It struggles to increase the activity of the 
 city, partly because it enlarges the number of mu- 
 nicipal employees, but largely because it looks 
 to a changed social order to be achieved through 
 municipal socialism. 
 
 It is this spirit that is behind the agitation for 
 municipal milk supplies and free lunches to school- 
 children; for municipal bureaus of public employ- 
 ment, as well as many other enterprises which 
 promise relief from the poverty and disease with 
 which the English city is afflicted. 
 
 Municipal trading has thus become a very much 
 wider issue than the ownership of street railways, 
 gas, electric lighting, and water services. It has 
 always included markets, baths, and sewage farms. 
 The fearful condition of the tenements has forced 
 many of the larger cities to become landlords, and 
 to erect model tenements. Local conditions, too, 
 have produced certain local enterprises. The city 
 of Brighton owns a race-course from which it de- 
 rives a considerable revenue. Two cities have 
 opened municipal theatres. The city of Glasgow 
 has acquired a number of town halls, where con- 
 certs, lectures, and entertainments of a high order 
 are given at a nominal cost. Many of the cities sell
 
 80 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 gas stoves and fittings; while others have opened 
 electricity supply stores, which are run in connec- 
 tion with their lighting plants. Ice is sold by Wol- 
 verhampton, and West Ham manufactures its own 
 paving-stones. 
 
 Many other proposals are in the stage of agita- 
 tion and discussion. Some of the towns are pro- 
 moting the idea of municipal coal mines from which 
 to supply fuel to their enterprises, and the public 
 as well. Municipal insurance schemes are discussed 
 with favour, as are savings banks and broker- 
 age establishments for the sale of public securities. 
 The municipalisation of the milk supply is being 
 waged, as well as the production of ice. The city 
 of Manchester has enlarged its tramway service so 
 as to include the delivery of packages and merchan- 
 dise both within and without the city. The purpose 
 is to subordinate, if not relieve the private business 
 houses of making deliveries to their customers. 
 Docks are widely owned by the seacoast towns, al- 
 though they are usually administered by a separate 
 body from the Council. Municipal slaughter houses 
 have been suggested, as well as the utilisation of 
 sewage farms for the supply of food and grain for 
 the city's departments. 
 
 Municipal trading is very elastic. It admits of 
 the play of local initiative and adapts itself to local 
 needs. It does not follow any definite laws, and 
 promises very great extension as the years go on.
 
 MUNICIPAL TKADING 81 
 
 Much of it is rendered necessary by the close asso- 
 ciation which city life entails. It is demanded by 
 the inadequacy of private agencies. Further than 
 this, the members of the Councils are eager to en- 
 large their authority and try their hand at new 
 ventures. There is a constant pressure from the 
 labouring classes, inspired by some local abuse or 
 the ideals of a socialised city. Moreover, the dis- 
 ease, poverty, and distress of the English city are 
 so universal that any proposal which offers relief 
 meets with some response. 
 
 All this indicates that the movement toward mu- 
 nicipal trading is but beginning. It knows no 
 bounds but those imposed by failure. For the rate- 
 payers will be quick to command a halt if the move- 
 ment becomes a burden. But thus far the trading 
 enterprises have been pretty uniformly successful. 
 The towns can borrow at low rates of interest. 
 They have confined themselves to necessities of uni- 
 versal use; and they supply an immense market. 
 As long as the English cities confine themselves 
 to such enterprises there is little danger of failure, 
 and inasmuch as the big industries which the cities 
 have taken over have yielded such unquestioned re- 
 turns, it is a difficult matter to check its extension 
 by appealing to any abstract reasons for preferring 
 private to public authority.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE CITIES AND THE TKAMWAYS 
 
 THE monetary test of municipal ownership is not 
 the true test, although the rate-paying classes of 
 Great Britain are inclined to judge it on this basis; 
 while hostile American critics confine themselves to 
 earnings, lack of proper depreciation, the burdens 
 of taxation, and the purely commercial side of the 
 balance sheet They would make of the city a thing 
 that pays, for these are the terms they measure life 
 in. But such are not the motives of government, 
 and those who condemn municipal ownership on 
 this score do not adopt this measure in any other 
 activity. They do not test the schools, the parks, 
 the health, police, and fire departments by this 
 standard. These are not called upon to pay their 
 way. They are supported for other reasons be- 
 cause of the convenience, the comfort, and the hap- 
 piness which they bring. And this is the real test 
 of public ownership. The discussion should be 
 shifted on to higher ground. It is not profits, not 
 in the last analysis the rates of fare or charges 
 it is the well-being of the people that tests the 
 change from private to public control. 
 
 82
 
 CITIES AND THE TEAMWAYS 83 
 
 Of no enterprise is this so true as it is of transit. 
 The tramways are the circulatory system of the 
 community, and a conscious city programme is de- 
 pendent upon the ownership of the city's arteries. 
 The means of transportation fix the city's bounda- 
 ries. They control the opportunity to work. They 
 cramp or enlarge the means of education and recre- 
 ation. The homes men live in are bound up in this 
 question. It is for such needs as these that govern- 
 ment is maintained; and it is only when a city 
 controls these agencies for its own good that a big, 
 comprehensive policy of city building is possible. 
 
 Further than this, the control of the streets by 
 two competing agencies results in constant fric- 
 tion, controversy, and warring of interests. It can- 
 not be otherwise. A city cannot build as it will un- 
 less it controls all the structural work which lies 
 under or upon its highways. 
 
 The British cities entered upon the policy of own- 
 ership only after the alternative of private owner- 
 ship under state regulation had been fully tried. 
 Great Britain had the most carefully adjusted sys- 
 tem of regulation that could be devised ; but regu- 
 lation failed, as it must inevitably fail. The con- 
 flict of interest is too great for it to be otherwise. 
 There were two masters the stockholders of the 
 company, and the people of the community; and 
 the interests of the one were constantly at war with 
 the other. Parliament surrounded the franchises
 
 84 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 with many restrictions, but it rarely imposed the 
 penalty, for the class in control of Parliament was 
 largely interested in the franchise monopolies. 
 That, too, was inevitable. Whenever a government 
 creates a privilege, that privilege is lured into the 
 government; and if it is big enough to do so, it be- 
 comes the government. That is the experience of 
 Great Britain just as it is of America. 
 
 The Tramway Act of 1870 is the basis of all street 
 railway legislation and construction in Great Brit- 
 ain. It provided that the cities could lay the tracks, 
 but could not operate the roads. The operation was 
 to be turned over to a private company. The lease 
 was limited to twenty-one years. The act also pro- 
 vided that the cities could take over the property 
 at the expiration of the grant by paying for its 
 structural value. 
 
 Glasgow was the first city to take advantage of 
 the act. A horse system was installed by a private 
 company after the city had laid the tracks. The 
 grant to the company expired in 1894. The com- 
 pany desired a renewal of the lease. Negotiations 
 to that end were pending for a number of years. 
 But the employees were overworked and underpaid. 
 The community sympathised with the men. The 
 company would not admit that the condition of the 
 employees was any business of the city, and de- 
 clined to permit the question of wages or hours of 
 labour to enter into the negotiations. This stimu-
 
 CITIES AND THE TRAMWAYS 85 
 
 lated a growing sentiment for municipal owner- 
 ship. 1 
 
 The question was agitated for several years. The 
 matter was not decided by a referendum vote of 
 the people, as is common in America, but was the 
 absorbing issue in a number of Council elections. 
 In 1894 the Council decided to take over the lines. 
 The company refused to sell its equipment, and 
 the Council had to purchase its horses and cars 
 elsewhere. The result was a total loss to the pri- 
 vate company. The success of the city was imme- 
 diate. It reduced fares thirty-three per cent, and 
 increased the length of the hauls. It improved the 
 condition of the employees and otherwise sought 
 to serve the public. The experience of Glasgow 
 stimulated other cities to take over the enterprise. 
 The rate-payers were loath to see a private company 
 appropriating earnings which might be used for 
 their relief. In ten years' time 162 public tramways 
 had been opened, and to-day all the leading cities 
 of the Kingdom, with the exception of Edinburgh, 
 Dublin, Bristol, Carlisle, Cork, and Coventry, own 
 and operate their own tramway lines. 2 
 
 Friction over wages and hours of labour was one 
 
 'The town of Huddersfield had operated its own system since 
 1883. No private company would undertake the working, and 
 the Town Council both built and operated the system. 
 
 2 Of the 162 public plants, only 101 are reported as both own- 
 ed and operated by the towns. The remaining 61 are still leased 
 to private companies, under the terms of the original act. Sub- 
 sequent statistics are for those operated as well as owned. The 
 number of private companies was 146 in 1904 and 137 in 1905.
 
 86 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 of the most universal causes of discontent with pri- 
 vate ownership, but other causes contributed. The 
 private tramways were being operated as horse 
 lines. This aroused dissatisfaction with the ser- 
 vice. The companies felt that they could not afford 
 to electro-equip their systems when their franchises 
 w r ere expiring, and they would only do so on con- 
 dition of their renewal. At the same time the cities 
 were generally taking over the electricity supply. 
 They saw that the tramways and electric lighting 
 plants could be united with great economy. These 
 influences co-operated with the thrifty desire of the 
 rate-payers, w r ho saw in the tramway enterprises a 
 means of relieving their taxes. 
 
 But the Councils could only enter the tramway 
 business by buying out the existing companies. For 
 Parliament did not permit competition. It forced 
 the Councils to purchase the existing equipment of 
 the horse-car lines, even though it had become 
 worthless. Thus many cities were heavily handi- 
 capped through the initial cost of the horse and elec- 
 tricity equipment. In many towns, too, the Council 
 had to pay for unexpired franchises. Liverpool 
 paid a private company three million dollars to 
 acquire its franchise, and another million for its 
 worthless horse equipment. The city of Manchester 
 paid $1,600,000 for horse cars and barns which 
 were of little use, while other towns were similarly 
 burdened in the inauguration of the system. The
 
 CITIES AND THE TEAMWAYS 87 
 
 companies, however, were not content with. this. 
 They insisted that they should be paid the capital- 
 ised value of their earnings even when the grants 
 had expired. In a case which went to the courts 
 from London the companies demanded $2,939,000 ; 
 but the courts decided that they were only entitled 
 to compensation for the physical value of the plant, 
 and reduced the sum to $439,400. 
 
 The following comparison shows the number of 
 undertakings owned and actually worked by the 
 local authorities and the private companies, the 
 data for the public plants being for the year ending 
 March, 1904; and that for the private companies 
 for the year ending December 21, 1903 i 1 
 
 
 Municipal 
 
 Private 
 
 
 Undertakings. 
 
 Companies. 
 
 Undertakings worked 
 
 101 
 
 113 
 
 Capital outlay of undertakings 
 
 
 
 worked 
 
 $117,440,724 
 
 $104,986,367 
 
 Miles of line operated 
 
 993 
 
 839 
 
 Gross receipts 
 
 $26,069,680 
 
 $15,805,988 
 
 Operating expenses 
 
 $16,706,184 
 
 $10,997,701 
 
 Per cent, of operating expenses 
 
 
 
 of gross receipts 
 
 64.08 
 
 69.58 
 
 Net revenue (gross receipts less 
 
 
 
 operating expenses) 
 
 $9,363,496 
 
 $4,808,287 
 
 Per cent, of net revenue of capi- 
 
 
 
 tal outlay 
 
 7.97 
 
 4.58 
 
 Car miles run 
 
 126,289,037 
 
 68,612,290 
 
 Net revenue per car mile 
 
 $0.074 
 
 $0.070 
 
 Net revenue per mile of line oper- 
 
 
 
 ated 
 
 $9,430 
 
 $5,731 
 
 Passengers carried 
 
 1,194,782,762 
 
 604,559,911 
 
 From this it appears that the gross receipts of the 
 
 ^Municipal Journal, March 10, 1905. Summary of the Board 
 of Trade Return of the Street and Road Tramways and Light 
 Railways for 1903-04. The Board of Trade Returns are official 
 and are published each year from reports of the Councils and 
 the companies.
 
 88 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 public plants were $10,263,692 more than the re- 
 ceipts of the private companies. Their operating 
 expenses were but 64.08 per cent, of the gross re- 
 ceipts, as against an operating expense of 69.58 per 
 cent, on the part of the companies. In the matter 
 of net earnings the showing was equally favourable. 
 The Town Councils earned 7.97 per cent, on their 
 capital investment, as against 4.58 per cent, by the 
 companies. And this is in the face of the fact that 
 the Councils pay much better wages and allow 
 shorter hours of labour to their employees, while 
 the rates of fares are generally lower. A portion 
 of this advantage is to be accounted for by the fact 
 that almost all of the larger towns have municipal- 
 ised their systems, while many of the private com- 
 panies operate in less populous areas. For the 
 Council tramways carried nearly twice as many 
 passengers as did the private companies with only 
 about twelve per cent, greater trackage. 1 
 
 Tramway ownership is now accepted as a nat- 
 ural municipal function. By 1906 the total capital 
 outlay of the towns amounted to $180,580,590, as 
 against an investment of $102,162,060 by the one 
 
 hundred and thirty -seven private companies. 2 
 
 J For a further and more detailed statement of the subject 
 of municipal ownership, reference is made to a Bulletin of 
 the Bureau of Labour, Washington, January, 1906, prepared 
 by the author. 
 
 *The Board of Trade Tramways and Light Railways Return 
 for 1905-1906 shows a continuing increase in the number, mile- 
 age and earning of the public enterprises. According to this 
 report, 175 undertakings were then owned by the local author-
 
 CITIES AND THE TRAMWAYS 89 
 
 TBAMWAY CONSTRUCTION 
 
 English street railways are constructed with 
 much more permanence than are those of the Amer- 
 ican companies. This is true of private as well as 
 public undertakings. Parliament has carefully pre- 
 scribed the methods which must be followed by the 
 builders. But little latitude is left to the commu- 
 nity, and the construction is very costly. The girder 
 groove rail is universally used. The overhead work 
 is very substantial. Many of the towns have erected 
 splendid shops for the repair and construction of 
 cars. In consequence the capital outlay has been 
 very heavy. In Glasgow it amounts to $93,305 per 
 mile of single track, in Liverpool to f 90,536. The 
 London County Council reports a cost of $106,033 
 
 ities, and of these 123 were worked by the councils. Their 
 capital outlay had been increased by $13,000,000 during the 
 year, while the receipts had increased by $3,700,000. The net 
 revenue of the public tramways, over and above operating ex- 
 penses, amounted to nearly $12,000,000, and was equivalent 
 to eight per cent, on the capital account, and the average fare 
 per passenger, of which there were 1,529,596,438, upon all of 
 the undertakings was 2.1 cents. 
 
 For the same period there were 137 private companies. 
 They carried about half as many passengers as the public 
 undertakings, and earned but 4% per cent, on their capital. 
 The average fare per passenger was 2.4 cents During the 
 year the public undertakings relieved the rates to the extent 
 of $1,200,000, if we include the contribution of Glasgow to 
 the Common Good Fund. This was in addition to the debt 
 repayment charges, the reserve funds and depreciation. Only 
 four public undertakings and five companies reported any 
 loss, the average of the former being but $2,500, and $4,600 
 in the latter. All of these were in small towns.
 
 90 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 per mile. It is difficult to get at the exact figures 
 of cost per mile because of the lack of any uniform 
 system of cost distribution; but on the whole, the 
 average cost seems very much in excess of that in 
 the United States. 
 
 The Town Councils have full control of the rates 
 of fare, the distribution of earnings, and the details 
 of administration ; but Parliament prescribes many 
 of the conditions, such as the speed at which the 
 cars may run, the time of debt repayment, the exten- 
 sion of trackage into surrounding territory. A city 
 may not carry parcels at its own volition. It must 
 first secure authority at Westminster. It cannot 
 change the motive power, or otherwise depart from 
 the rules of the Board of Trade. 
 
 One is impressed at every turn with the constant 
 thoughtfulness of the comfort of the people. Acci- 
 dents are of rare occurrence. In Liverpool there 
 was but one fatal accident in eighteen months from 
 persons getting underneath the trucks, and that was 
 due to suicidal attempt or gross carelessness. In 
 1904 there were but six fatal accidents in that city. 
 The same policy is manifest in the cleanliness and 
 attractiveness of the cars. In Glasgow, all adver- 
 tisements are excluded. In all cities one usually 
 obtains a seat for a fare. The double-decker type of 
 car is all but universal, and is so constructed that 
 it may be opened or closed at the will of the passen- 
 ger. Employees are universally courteous, and are
 
 CITIES AND THE TRAMWAYS 91 
 
 very jealous of their jobs. They are compelled to 
 be considerate of the public because every rider has 
 a sense of proprietorship in the enterprise. This 
 makes the employee as well as the Council respon- 
 sive to public sentiment, and constantly on the alert 
 to better conditions and adopt new devices. The 
 attitude of the public is in marked contrast to that 
 of the average American toward a private company 
 in which he has no interest and over which he can 
 have no control. 
 
 The zone system is universal in Great Britain. 
 Fares are graded according to the distance trav- 
 elled. This idea was introduced by the private com- 
 panies, and the Councils have not seen fit to 
 abandon it. Routes are divided into stages, upon 
 each of which a fare of from one to two cents is 
 collected. The total fare for a long haul may be 
 as much as six or eight cents, but the average rate 
 of fare is very much less. And it is the average fare 
 paid that determines the cost to the travelling pub- 
 lic. Transfers are rarely given. The average fare 
 per rider, irrespective of distance travelled, ranges 
 from 1.30 cents in East Ham to 3.17 cents in Black- 
 pool. The average fare in Glasgow is 1.89 cents; 
 in Bradford, 2.38 cents; in Manchester, 2.44 cents; 
 and in Liverpool, 2.25 cents. In the seven leading 
 cities of the Kingdom the average distance that 
 may be travelled for two cents ranges from one and 
 one-half miles in Newcastle to two and one-half
 
 92 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 miles in Sheffield. Taking the reports of forty- 
 nine cities, it appears that the average distance 
 travelled for two cents varies from nine-tenths 
 of a mile to two and twenty-five hundredths of 
 a mile. 
 
 Some of the cities have adopted a one cent fare 
 stage. In Glasgow, 29.9 of the passengers paid but 
 one cent in 1905. The percentage of one cent fares 
 on the London County Council's line was 35.97, and 
 in Sheffield 19.34. American critics of municipal 
 ownership invariably point to the great distance 
 which may be travelled for a uniform fare in Amer- 
 ica. But the test is not the possible distance ; it is 
 the average distance travelled. And while the aver- 
 age haul in America is certainly longer than it is 
 in England, it is also true that the dispersion of 
 our population necessitates a very much more uni- 
 versal use of transit than do the conditions of the 
 English cities. The increased operating expenses 
 in America are pretty nearly overcome by the inter- 
 mediate hauls which this makes necessary. Despite 
 these conditions it is undoubtedly true that the 
 cost to the riding public is very much less in Great 
 Britain than it is in America. The average fare 
 paid on all of the public tramways was but 2.1 
 cents in 1906. If we assume that the average fare in 
 America is five cents, this is equivalent to a saving 
 to the public of Great Britain over what a similar 
 number of riders would have paid in this country of
 
 CITIES AND THE TRAMWAYS 93 
 
 $45,695,333. However, the rate on the private 
 British companies was but 2.4 cents. 
 
 The British city has demonstrated that low fares 
 pay. Many managers insist that this is the explan- 
 ation of the success of the public undertakings. A 
 great increase in traffic followed the reduction in 
 fares. It became cheaper to ride than to walk. 
 Frequent car schedules are maintained, and seats 
 are almost always provided for the passengers. The 
 number permitted to stand is limited to from four 
 to six, and this in itself insures greater comfort to 
 the riding public. 
 
 Whatever the cause of the financial success of the 
 municipal tramways, the earnings greatly increased 
 subsequent to municipalisation and the reduction of 
 fares. The people use the cars freely because they 
 feel that they own the cars. All earnings come 
 back to them in some form or other. In Glasgow, 
 the number of passengers carried increased nearly 
 300 per cent in eight years' time, from 1897 to 1904. 
 In Manchester, the number carried increased from 
 67,000,000 in 1903 to 127,000,000 in 1905. In Lon- 
 don, the growth was from 120,000,000 in 1902 to 
 165,000,000 in 1905. This increase in traffic was 
 coincident with the introduction of electricity and 
 the extension of the system; but no small part of 
 the growth was due to the policy of low fares, and 
 the stimulus to use which followed from a sense of 
 ownership.
 
 94 ,THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 Earnings, too, responded to the increase in traf- 
 fic. The number of short-haul passengers more 
 than compensated for the reduction in charge. This 
 seems to have been the universal experience of the 
 English cities, whether in tramway, gas, or electric- 
 ity supplies. In America, monopoly seeks the high- 
 est immediate returns, and dares not experiment 
 with reduced fares or charges. It fears a reduction 
 of its dividends or a disturbance of its stock quo- 
 tations. Under public ownership, however, the 
 cities can do as they will. They can improve the 
 service rendered or reduce its cost to the commu- 
 nity. Through these means the community can 
 determine the point of maximum returns to itself, 
 a thing that is impossible when the service is in 
 private hands. 
 
 Parliament requires all enterprises operated by 
 the cities to pay taxes, the same as private com- 
 panies, and on the same basis. They must also pro- 
 vide a sinking fund for the ultimate retirement of 
 the debt. The time of repayment ranges from fif- 
 teen to sixty years, according to the life of the 
 investment. The period of debt repayment averages 
 about thirty years, and involves an annual sinking 
 fund charge of about three per cent. In addition 
 to these burdens, which are usually ignored by 
 American critics, the city maintains the plant at 
 its original efficiency out of earnings. When the 
 debt is repaid the enterprise will be owned by the
 
 CITIES AND THE TEAMWAYS 95 
 
 community free from obligation. Many cities have 
 done much better than this. They have improved 
 the property out of earnings, or provided a reserve 
 fund which will retire the obligations in a much 
 shorter period than that provided by Parliament. 
 
 The financing of municipal industries is very 
 conservative, too conservative to be fair to the pres- 
 ent generation. This is due to the terror which 
 the average Councilman feels of the rate-paying 
 classes, and the fear that some new invention may 
 render obsolete the undertaking itself. For in- 
 stance, in the year 1905 the Glasgow tramways 
 earned $1,852,854 over operating costs. Of this 
 sum, |1,550,025 was used for debt repayment, de- 
 preciation, renewals, reserve, and the Common 
 Good. 1 All of this sum went into the property in 
 some form or other. 
 
 The average fare in that year was but 1.89 cents. 
 Yet the earnings on this basis were so heavy that 
 the Council could have reduced all fares, irrespect- 
 ive of distance, to the insignificant charge of one 
 cent and still have met all operating expenses, de- 
 preciation, and taxation. 2 
 
 'The Common Good fund is a special fund, existing only in 
 the Scottish cities. It is a reservoir upon which the Council 
 may draw for emergencies, and into which earnings are placed 
 which may not be used for other purposes. For the Scottish 
 cities do not use excess earnings from their industries for the 
 relief of taxation. 
 
 'Reports which come to America of the failure of trading 
 in Great Britain, of increased taxation, of inadequate allow- 
 ance for depreciation, should all be taken with large allowance.
 
 96 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 In 1905 the assets of the Glasgow tramways were 
 valued at $14,965,305. The indebtedness against 
 the plant was but $8,835,939. In eleven years' time 
 the debt has been decreased by $6,129,366, while 
 $826,873 more had been paid into the Common 
 Good, and $767,136 had been paid in taxes. But 
 this is not all. For the travelling public has been 
 saved $940,000 a year through the reduction of 
 fares, while half a million a year has been added to 
 operating costs in improving the condition of the 
 wage-earners through shorter hours and higher pay. 
 Taking all these things into consideration, the tram- 
 way system of Glasgow has already more than paid 
 for itself out of earnings and savings to the people 
 in eleven years' time. 
 
 The financial success of other towns is scarcely 
 less remarkable. The city of Liverpool reduced 
 fares 75 per cent, when it took over the tramways, 
 and saved the travelling public two million dollars 
 a year by this means. Its employees receive $194,- 
 
 Many of them are wholly false. All of them attempt a com- 
 parison of words, but not of facts. English standards and 
 Parliamentary requirements are so different from our own 
 that the strictures on the English cities carry a wholly false 
 impression. At the same time, some of the cities have refused 
 to adopt the Glasgow standard of debt repayment and depre- 
 ciation. They have followed a policy of reducing the cost to 
 the present generation rather than of paying for the plant out 
 of immediate earnings. And when it is considered that even 
 these cities take care of all operating charges, make due allow- 
 ance for maintenance and repairs, and, in addition, provide 
 for the retirement of the debt out of earnings, it is manifest 
 that the least conservative cities do much more than Ameri- 
 can standards demand of private management.
 
 CITIES AND THE TKAMWAYS 97 
 
 600 a year more than they would have been paid at 
 the rate of wages prevailing under the private com- 
 pany. Yet in the face of these charges the system 
 will be free from indebtedness in about twelve 
 years' time at the present rate of debt repayment. 
 In seven years' time $2,849,993 has been set aside 
 for this purpose, only five of which years were of 
 electric operation. 
 
 Measured by the returns on capital invested, the 
 tramways are equally successful. In 1905 the net 
 revenue of the Glasgow system amounted to 13.78 
 per cent, of the total capital employed, and 21.35 
 per cent, on the outstanding indebtedness. The 
 same year Manchester earned 13.88 per cent, on its 
 capital, Liverpool earned 9.86, and Leeds 11.98. 
 
 THE RELIEF OF TAXATION 
 
 In England, but not in Scotland, the tramways 
 are used to relieve the burdens of taxation. Accord- 
 ing to the Board of Trade Returns, contributions to 
 the rates from this source amounted to f 1,007,789 
 in 1904. In many of the larger towns, as appears 
 in the following table, the relief afforded was very 
 substantial. The statistics are for the fiscal year 
 
 1903-04: Miles of Contributions 
 
 Year opened single of tramways 
 
 as municipal track in relief of 
 
 City. Popul'n. undertakings, open. taxation. 
 
 Leeds 450,142 1894 81.56 $253,058 
 
 Manchester.... 625,324 1901 137.91 243,325 
 
 Liverpool 710,337 1897 103.00 156,122 
 
 Nottingham... 239,753 1901 30.12 63,265 
 
 Salford 228,983 1901 53.54 58,398 
 
 Hull 240,702 1899 27.10 55,965
 
 98 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 THE REAL GAINS FROM MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP 
 
 From a purely commercial side, municipal tram- 
 ways have succeeded beyond the point of dispute. 
 Only in rare instances have their financial achieve- 
 ments been questioned. They have saved the trav- 
 elling public millions of dollars a year in lower 
 fares. They have elevated the standard of living 
 of thousands of employees, whose positions have 
 become more secure and far more dignified. In be- 
 coming servants of the public they have been re- 
 moved from the fear of arbitrary dismissal. Millions 
 of dollars have been used to relieve the overbur- 
 dened rate-payers, while the people have acquired 
 properties whose value, by reason of debt repay- 
 ment, now far exceeds the indebtedness of the un- 
 dertakings. All of this is important, especially im- 
 portant in a country where the system of local taxa- 
 tion is so adjusted that it falls most heavily upon 
 the poor. 
 
 But the real gains through municipal ownership 
 are of another and a higher sort. They do not ap- 
 pear in the reports of tramway managers or in the 
 Annual Budget of the Town Councils. Neither are 
 they referred to in the Blue Books of Parliament. 
 But they are far more substantial than the financial 
 gains or the improvement in the well-being of the 
 people. They are of an ethical sort. The public 
 now receives the consideration which formerly went
 
 CITIES AND THE TRAMWAYS 99 
 
 to the stockholders. For the people are the owners, 
 and are able to register their opinions or their pro- 
 tests at the polls. In consequence, the best of ser- 
 vice is rendered. The employees are courteous. 
 The members of the Council and the managers are 
 constrained to increase the efficiency of the plant. 
 They are open to counsel or criticism. They are 
 ready to adopt improved devices. The safety of 
 the public is safeguarded in every conceivable way, 
 and deaths and accidents are of comparatively rare 
 occurrence. The number of persons injured is in- 
 significant in comparison with the death-rolls of 
 the private companies in America. 
 
 But this is not all. The tramways are the most 
 spectacular possession of the cities. They touch 
 the citizen in countless ways. They are constantly 
 under inspection. Each day they bring a sense of 
 the city to the people. Through this means their 
 affection is awakened, their interest is kept alert. 
 The tramways are a topic of constant discussion. 
 The achievements of other towns are followed. The 
 earnings, rates of fares, and disposal of the surplus 
 form a matter of discussion in the Council and on 
 the part of the people. When a new tramway is 
 opened it is a gala day with the community. Busi- 
 ness is suspended, and the people turn out as to a 
 fete. It is a day of general rejoicing. 
 
 The renaissance of local government in Great 
 Britain is coincident with the period of trading,
 
 100 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 which covers the past ten years. And critics agree 
 that the enthusiasm and interest of the people is in 
 no small measure attributable to the increase in 
 public undertakings. 
 
 Of no industry is this so true as of the tramways. 
 Management is open to scrutiny and observation. 
 It is this fact that makes the public ownership of 
 the tramways a simpler and a far safer undertak- 
 ing than that of those industries whose operation 
 can be hidden from the people and conducted be- 
 hind closed doors.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE GAS SUPPLY 
 
 THE gas supply is still largely in private hands. 
 It is not so universally municipalised as are the 
 water, electric lighting, and tramway undertakings. 
 This is due to several causes. The industry was 
 firmly established by private enterprises long be- 
 fore the movement for municipal trading had gained 
 much headway. The franchises were in perpetuity, 
 and of great value. Parliament does not permit 
 of competition by the municipality, and has estab- 
 lished a rule which discountenances compulsory 
 purchase if the service of the private companies is 
 satisfactory. The acquisition of the plants by the 
 towns involves a heavy financial burden even when 
 Parliament permits them to be taken over. For 
 the franchises have to be paid for. In addition to 
 this, the cities have had their hands full with the 
 electric lighting and tramway enterprises. The lat- 
 ter industries are of comparatively recent develop- 
 ment. The Councils, threatened with private fran- 
 chises which could only be taken over at great cost 
 to the community, anticipated the private com- 
 panies and secured the power of working the indus- 
 tries themselves. But in order to retain the privi- 
 
 101
 
 102 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 lege it had to be developed. In consequence, the 
 cities have promoted electric lighting and tram- 
 way undertakings very much more universally than 
 they have the gas enterprises. 
 
 Further than this, the supervision by Parliament 
 of the private gas companies is rather more efficient 
 than in any other industry. Charges are kept at 
 a moderate limit, and the watering of stock is pro- 
 hibited. Capital is limited in its dividends, and all 
 new capital is required to be sold at public sale. 
 Even the surplus realised from the sale of stock is 
 required to be used in the plant itself. For every 
 two cents increase in the charge for gas dividends 
 are reduced by one-fourth of one per cent, and for 
 every reduction of two cents a like increase in divi- 
 dends may be declared. 
 
 Despite these limitations there were 260 public 
 gas supplies, as against 459 private plants, in the 
 United Kingdom in 1904. The public plants in- 
 cluded nearly all of the large cities, with the excep- 
 tions of London, Liverpool, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and 
 Sheffield. This in part accounts for the fact that 
 the public plants had nearly as many consumers 
 as did the private ones, although they operated in 
 a very much smaller number of cities. Some indi- 
 cation of the relative standing of the public and 
 private undertakings appears from the following 
 table, taken from the Board of Trade Returns for 
 the year 1904:
 
 THE GAS SUPPLY 
 
 103 
 
 'STATISTICS OF PUBLIC AND PRIVATE GAS UNDERTAK- 
 INGS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. 
 
 Public 
 enterprises, 
 year ending 
 Items. March 25, 1904. 
 
 Number of undertakings. 260 
 
 Capital outlay (not deducting 
 
 amount repaid) $180,563,107 
 
 Gross receipts $47,787,497 
 
 Operating expenses $34,951,242 
 
 Per cent, of operating expenses of 
 gross receipts 
 
 Net receipts (gross receipts less 
 operating expenses) 
 
 Per cent, of net receipts of capi- 
 tal outlay 
 
 Gas sold, in 1,000 cubic feet 
 
 Length of mains, in miles 
 
 Number of consumers 
 
 Number of public lamps lighted 
 
 Approximate average charge per 
 1,000 cubic feet 
 
 73.14 
 $12,836,255 
 
 7.11 
 
 57,754,404 
 11,952 
 
 2,045,777 
 301,308 
 
 Private 
 companies, 
 year ending 
 Dec. 31, 1903. 
 459 
 
 $393,594,860 
 $86,412,620 
 $64,307,498 
 
 74.42 
 $22,105,122 
 
 5.62 
 
 93,923,290 
 18,074 
 2,385,348 
 335,363 
 
 $0.65 
 
 $0.71 
 
 From this table it appears that the average 
 charge per 1,000 cuhic feet by the public companies 
 was six cents less than the average price of the pri- 
 vate ones, while the net earnings on the capital in- 
 vested by the public plants is considerably higher, 
 being 7.11 per cent, in one case and 5.C2 per cent, 
 in the other. The candle-power does not differ ma- 
 terially, and is always fixed by Parliament. In 
 many cities the average price charged is very much 
 below sixty-five cents, as appears from the follow- 
 ing table, taken from the same source a.s the above: 
 
 'The statistics here given are taken from a Report published 
 by the Department of Labour (Washington) Bulletin, January, 
 1906.
 
 104 
 
 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 iOO cu. ft. 
 
 of gas. 
 
 *$0.55 
 
 17.46 
 
 .42-.5S 
 
 16.28 
 
 .57 
 
 19.00 
 
 t.55 
 
 17.25 
 
 .53 
 
 19.02 
 
 .55 
 
 20.00 
 
 .49 
 
 16.50 
 
 .57 
 
 21.00 
 
 .55 
 
 19.00 
 
 .52 
 
 18.38 
 
 .44 
 
 16.88 
 
 .53-.65 
 
 16.50 
 
 .2S-.32 
 
 18.16 
 
 PRICE PER 1,000 CUBIC FEET CHARGED CONSUMERS, 
 AND CANDLE-POWER OF GAS IN CERTAIN PUB- 
 LIC PLANTS, 1903-04. 
 
 Candle- 
 Population Price per power 
 City. (1901). 
 
 Belfast 348,965 
 
 Birmingham 522,204 
 
 Blackpool 47,346 
 
 Bradford 279,767 
 
 Bury 58,029 
 
 Carlisle 45,478 
 
 Darlington 44,496 
 
 Glasgow 735,906 
 
 Lancaster 40,329 
 
 Leeds 428,968 
 
 Lincoln 48,784 
 
 Nottingham 239,743 
 
 Widnes 28,580 
 
 In some instances the present rate is still lower. 
 In Belfast it is 51 cents, in Glasgow 51 cents, and 
 in Lancaster 49 cents. 
 
 The above tables do not confirm the argument 
 that the public is of necessity a bad manager ; that 
 its costs are higher; its service of an inferior sort, 
 or that it is unwilling or too ignorant to introduce 
 improvements. For not only do the Town Councils 
 average a higher per cent, in earnings, but the oper- 
 ating costs of the municipalities are somewhat 
 lower than those of the private companies. All this 
 is in addition to the fact that they pay their em- 
 ployees better, and in many instances supply free 
 
 *Less discount of 2^ to 20 per cent, according to consump- 
 tion. 
 
 fLess discount of 5 to 12^ per cent., according to consump- 
 tion.
 
 ,THE GAS SUPPLY, 105 
 
 gas to the community. There have been no sub- 
 stantial changes in these figures during the inter- 
 vening years. The Board of Trade Returns, issued 
 in January, 1907, for the year 1905-6, shows that 
 there are now 270 gas undertakings in municipal 
 hands in the United Kingdom, and 482 private 
 companies. According to the Municipal Journal 1 
 the return "reinforces more vigorously than ever 
 the arguments of those who favor the application 
 of the municipal trading principle to indispensible 
 public services of this character. * * * The record 
 of the companies is still greatly inferior to that of 
 local authorities, which continue to operate more 
 economically, charge consumers less and earn a 
 better return on capital than their private com- 
 petitors. * * * The difference between the private 
 and the public charge is now 5 cents per 1,000 ft. 
 in favor of the latter, and if the local authorities 
 charged as much as the companies they could add 
 693,908, (or $3,372,292) to their net revenue and 
 raise the return on their capital from 6 to 8| per 
 cent." According to the returns the average price 
 of gas by the local authorities was 59 cents and 
 of the companies 65 cents. The total net profit of 
 the public undertakings for the year was $3,883,- 
 000, of which sum $2,152,980 was used for the re- 
 lief of local taxation. 
 
 /From a financial point of view, the gas enter- 
 February 8, 1907.
 
 106 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 prises have proved an unquestioned success. Like 
 the tramways, they are compelled to provide for 
 debt repayment and taxation out of earnings. Many 
 cities have already materially reduced their capital 
 outlay and at the same time greatly increased the 
 value of their plants. In England, the gas industry 
 is widely used to relieve the rates. The contribu- 
 tions range from a few hundred pounds to hundreds 
 of thousands of dollars per annum. In 1905 the 
 city of Birmingham contributed to the relief of 
 taxation the sum of $265,351; while Manchester 
 contributed $291,990, and Leicester $228,764. And 
 all of these towns sold gas for less than 60 cents 
 a thousand cubic feet. Taking the 260 plants 
 owned by the towns in 1904, it appears that they 
 have retired their capital cost out of earnings to the 
 extent of $45,873,984. In 1904 their net earnings 
 in excess of operating expenses amounted to $12,- 
 836,255, while 212 of them paid in that year the 
 sum of $4,706,850 into the city treasuries for the 
 relief of taxation, or otherwise. 
 
 Only six of the enterprises making returns to 
 the Board of Trade failed to meet all the charges 
 imposed upon them, and their average deficits were 
 but $7,314. No one contends that the gas under- 
 takings have not proven a financial success. Criti- 
 cism has now shifted to other grounds. The objec- 
 tions now raised to municipal trading are that it is 
 an unfair appropriation of fields that should be
 
 THE GAS SUPPLY 
 
 107 
 
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 02 
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 3
 
 108 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 left to private profit, the fear of political activity 
 by city employees, or the general incompetence of 
 City Councils to deal with purely business enter- 
 prises. 
 
 How very successful the large cities have been 
 appears from the table of comparison on page 107 
 between municipal and private plants. All of the 
 plants have been in operation for many years, and 
 the cities are of comparable sizes. 
 
 From this table it appears that the candle-power 
 is about the same in each city, as is also the per- 
 centage of consumers to the population; but here 
 the similarity ends. For the three public com- 
 panies have added the sum of $12,342,164 to the 
 common property of the community. The private 
 companies contributed nothing. During the year 
 1903 the public undertakings reduced their indebt- 
 edness in the sum of $614,663, in addition to con- 
 tributing $557,341 to the relief of the local rates. 
 The private companies made no such payment to 
 the cities. The price of gas to consumers is approxi- 
 mately the same in the public and the private com- 
 panies, although the private company operating in 
 the city of Sheffield sold gas at from 36 to 45 cents 
 a thousand cubic feet, which, with the exception of 
 one town, is the cheapest in the United Kingdom. 
 
 While the same social advantages cannot be 
 shown to have followed the public ownership of the 
 gas supply that were incident to the municipal
 
 THE GAS SUPPLY 109 
 
 tramway undertakings, still the Town Councils 
 have done many things to increase the usefulness 
 of the service. In many cities free fixtures are in- 
 stalled. Then they are kept in order. Gas stoves 
 are widely introduced on a small rental, or free 
 of charge. Prepayment penny-in-the-slot meters 
 are furnished the very poor in the tenement dis- 
 tricts, where the people are unable to save suffi- 
 cient money to meet the quarterly or annual pay- 
 ments. 
 
 The experience of the towns in reducing the price 
 of gas is very instructive. It has almost always 
 resulted in such an increase in use as to leave the 
 earnings of the enterprise unimpaired. Since 1886 
 Glasgow has reduced the price from 79 cents a thou- 
 sand to 61 cents. Later the price was cut to 51 
 cents. While some diminution of receipts followed 
 upon the reduction, the increase in use was so sub- 
 stantial that any loss in earnings was soon over- 
 come. 
 
 Taken as a whole, the municipalisation of the gas 
 supply has resulted in very substantial reduction 
 in the price of gas to consumers, who have been 
 saved millions of dollars each year over the prices 
 charged by the private companies; it has proved 
 very profitable to the communities, both in the re- 
 lief of taxation, as well as in the earnings applied 
 to the retirement of the indebtedness. It is not 
 improbable that the achievements of the public
 
 110 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 plants have served as a restraining influence upon 
 the private undertakings, and led them to serve the 
 people with much more consideration than they 
 would have done had they not been confronted with 
 the menace of public ownership. Further than this, 
 the use of gas by all classes has been stimulated, 
 and the percentage of consumers to the population 
 has been materially increased. In some towns the 
 undertaking has been made use of to light the 
 streets and courts without cost to the community, 
 and to the great improvement of the morals of the 
 city. Through ownership, too, the administrative 
 work of the Town Council has been co-ordinated 
 and simplified, and the constant controversy with 
 private interests brought to an end.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 IT was not until late in the nineties, long after 
 the very general introduction of electric light and 
 power in America and Germany, that its use became 
 common in Great Britain. Critics of municipal 
 ownership have found in the backwardness of the 
 industry a conclusive reason for condemning state 
 interference. 1 It is undoubtedly true that the atti- 
 tude of Parliament, as well as the jealous fear of 
 the local authorities, operated as a check on the 
 rapid development of the electricity business in the 
 United Kingdom. For Parliament was very cau- 
 tious in the grant of powers to the franchise corpo- 
 rations, while the Town Councils interposed a veto 
 wherever they anticipated taking up the undertak- 
 ing themselves. 
 
 In electricity, as in all other franchise undertak- 
 ings, the grants are made by Parliament rather 
 than by the towns themselves. Application for per- 
 mission to operate in a local territory is first made 
 to the Local Government Board. Before any grant 
 is made, the Councils are permitted to be heard, 
 
 'See Municipal Ownership in Great Britain, Hugo Meyer, 
 pp. 241-266. 
 
 Ill
 
 112 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 and if they interpose no veto, the application is re- 
 ferred to Parliament, and a franchise is usually 
 granted. But the Board of Trade rarely overrides 
 the provisional veto of the Councils. And the local 
 authorities have been generally unwilling to give 
 their assent to the making of any grant to the pri- 
 vate companies. 
 
 Those who measure a nation solely by the mag- 
 nitude of its export trade, and see in government 
 only an agency for the creation of special privi- 
 leges, find in the slow development of the electricity 
 business of Great Britain only a loss. But there 
 is another side to the question. While capital has 
 suffered some loss, the people have enjoyed very 
 substantial gains. They have been saved the ex- 
 perimental costs of the early days of the industry, 
 a cost which the American people are still carrying 
 in some form or other. In addition to this, by the 
 time the industry had reached a stage of perfection 
 the towns were ready to enter upon it themselves. 
 They were able to do this with the experience of 
 Germany and America before them. And in most 
 instances they erected their plants in anticipation 
 of the future growth of the industry. 
 
 In the early days, Parliament limited the life of 
 the franchises for electricity undertakings to twen- 
 ty-two years. At the end of that time the Town 
 Councils were empowered to purchase them on the 
 value of the physical property. Later, the duration.
 
 THE ELECTKICITY SUPPLY 113 
 
 of the franchises was extended to forty-two years. 
 In the meantime the private companies were subject 
 to supervision by the Board of Trade, or, upon au- 
 thority being secured from Parliament, the cities 
 could purchase them. In this event the valuation 
 included the value of the unexpired grants, meas- 
 ured by the net earnings of the company. In those 
 cases where cities purchased they paid hand- 
 somely for the franchise value of the properties. In 
 1898 the city of Leeds bought out a private company 
 for $1,803,428 whose physical property was esti- 
 mated to be worth but f 1,058,074. Sheffield paid 
 more than twice the physical value of the plant pur- 
 chased by it. Birmingham paid $2,043,930 for a 
 property worth but $1,065,764. But the Borough 
 of St. Marylebone was the worst sufferer from the 
 method of appraisal fixed by Parliament. The 
 Council was dissatisfied with the private company, 
 and paid $6,250,000, in addition to five hundred 
 thousand dollars more in arbitration charges, for a 
 plant whose value was considerably less than one- 
 half that sum. 
 
 It was the fear of private franchises, and the ne- 
 cessity of buying back at excessive prices something 
 which had been given away for nothing, that stimu- 
 lated municipal ownership in this field. For the 
 Town Councils had burdened themselves with heavy 
 costs in the gas and water undertakings, and at 
 that time were issuing bonds far in excess of the
 
 114 THE BEITISH CITY : 
 
 value of the street railway undertakings that they 
 were taking over. In order to prevent the private 
 companies from securing electricity powers from 
 the Board of Trade they asked for power to operate 
 plants themselves. But in order to hold the privi- 
 lege it was necessary to build in from two to three 
 years, otherwise the franchise would be given to 
 private promoters. In addition to this, the towns 
 were entering upon the purchase of the tramway 
 systems, and saw in the lighting industry a means 
 of making a very great saving in the original cost 
 of the plants as well as in the operating expenses. 
 For the load upon the tramway department is a 
 day load, while that of the lighting department is 
 a night load. By the union of the two undertakings 
 very great economy could be effected in the cost, 
 for the great majority of the towns operate the two 
 enterprises together. All of these causes co-operated 
 to stimulate municipal ownership in this field. 
 
 Thus, while the development of electric light and 
 power was delayed in Great Britain, the public has 
 been the gainer by reason of the fact. Not only 
 has the country been saved the costly experimenta- 
 tion that America and Germany are even now pay- 
 ing for, but by the time the industry was an ac- 
 cepted success the cities were convinced that it was 
 an undertaking that should not be left in private 
 hands. 
 
 Since 1895 the industry has developed very rap-
 
 THE ELECTRICITY SUPPLY 115 
 
 idly, and the plants of the municipalities compare 
 in magnitude, as well as in the perfection of their 
 development, with any in the world. For the Town 
 Councils sent expert commissions to other countries 
 to make investigations as to the most approved 
 plans, and employed the highest sort of skill in 
 making their installations. 
 
 During the decade following 1895 the develop- 
 ment of municipal ownership was very rapid. By 
 1905 the number of public plants was 334, with a 
 capital investment of $155,728,000. At the same 
 time, the number of private plants was 174, with 
 a total capital of $133,828,750. In the metropolis 
 of London there are fourteen public plants and an 
 equal number of private ones. The public under- 
 takings in London are in the hands of the Borough 
 Councils, and do not compete with the private en- 
 terprises. For Parliament looks upon this industry 
 as a natural monopoly, and rarel}" permits of com- 
 petition. The public and the private undertakings 
 supply different areas. 1 
 
 The only protection enjoyed by the cities from 
 the private companies is that afforded by the Board 
 of Trade, which has power to investigate local con- 
 ditions and compel a private company to improve 
 its service or to reduce its rates. That this security 
 
 'How rapidly the municipalities are appropriating this field 
 is seen by the fact that the number of provisional orders 
 granted the local authorities is now 483, against 324 to com- 
 panies.
 
 116 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 is not deemed sufficient by the local authorities is 
 evidenced by the fact that the public plants have 
 almost superseded the private ones in the cities of 
 any size. 
 
 A very large percentage of the municipal plants 
 have been opened during the past five years. And 
 the very great activity of the towns in this field has 
 focussed the opposition to municipal trading upon 
 the electricity undertakings. The criticisms are 
 mostly of a financial sort, going to show that the 
 towns have not made a business success of the ven- 
 tures. A much better appearing case can be made 
 against the Town Councils in this field than in any 
 other. For the towns have made their investment 
 in anticipation of future needs. They have, in 
 many instances, erected large generating stations, 
 in order to be relieved of the necessity of throwing 
 away their investment in a few years' time. More- 
 over, the use of electricity is of slow development. 
 It takes years to introduce it into common use, 
 either for light or power, especially against the com- 
 petition of such cheap gas as the British cities en- 
 joy. The opponents of municipal ownership have 
 made no allowance for this fact, but have pointed to 
 the fact that the cities have not been able to meet 
 all of the operating expenses, together with the 
 proper depreciation allowance and the sinking fund 
 charges imposed by Parliament upon the undertak- 
 ings. An examination of the Electrical Times for
 
 THE ELECTRICITY SUPPLY 
 
 May, 1905, shows that at that time the number of 
 municipal undertakings making a profit was 115, 
 the surplus for the year being $2,121,794. At the 
 same time there were 67 public plants that showed 
 a loss which amounted in the aggregate to but $338,- 
 124, or an average of but f 5046 per plant. But of 
 those showing a loss forty-two had only completed 
 the third year of their working. Year by year the 
 number of plants showing a deficit diminishes, and 
 when it is considered that a number of towns have 
 entered upon municipalisation for the sake of the 
 service rendered, and are willing to pay for the cost 
 of it all because of the advantages which they enjoy, 
 the showing of returns is a rather remarkable one. 
 From now on the public plants may be expected 
 to show increasing efficiency and a great increase 
 in earning power. Cities like Glasgow, Manchester, 
 and Liverpool, which have installed large gener- 
 ating stations, and which have been busy bringing 
 the service to the people, are already earning large 
 sums, which are being used for depreciation, debt 
 repayment, or the reduction of charges to the con- 
 sumers. The rates charged by the public plants 
 differ widely. Taking the United Kingdom as a 
 whole, they average about eight cents per kilowatt 
 hour for private lighting, and from two and a half 
 to four cents for power. Very many of the plants 
 are identified with the tramway enterprises. It has 
 been found to be economical to install a single sta-
 
 118 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 tion of ample capacity, and operate both the light- 
 ing and the street railways from the same plant. 
 
 The Glasgow plant is one of the largest and most 
 successful in the Kingdom. It has over 12,000 con- 
 sumers and a value of over six million dollars. Of 
 a total income of f 906,997 in 1905, the gross profits 
 in excess of operating costs were $543,952. This 
 was devoted to depreciation, to the payment of in- 
 terest on the debt of the plant, to the retirement of 
 the indebtedness, and the creation of a reserve fund 
 as a protection against any unusual emergency. The 
 average charge for private lighting was six cents 
 kilowatt hour and 2.55 cents for power.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 THE GREATEST GAIN OF ALL 
 
 IN the final analysis one's attitude toward munic- 
 ipal ownership is but a reflection of one's attitude 
 toward government. What are the proper func- 
 tions of the city? What should it do and where 
 should its activities end? What ideals should ani- 
 mate society in relation to itself? Over these ques- 
 tions there is room for honest difference of opin- 
 ion. The ablest of the recent protests against mu- 
 nicipal ownership lays down the proposition as fun- 
 damental that: "The primary duty of a local gov- 
 ernment is to govern and not to trade, and to this 
 proposition there should be no exception what- 
 ever." 1 
 
 This is the attitude of the British franchise in- 
 terests, which are organised for the purpose of op- 
 posing municipal trading upon the ground that it 
 interferes with the free play of individual initia- 
 tive. The indictment against the policy of the 
 Town Councils is that trading "must of necessity 
 lead to stupenduous financial liabilities, add to the 
 burden of the rates, weaken municipal credit, bring 
 
 ir rhe Dangers of Municipal Ownership, by Robert P. Porter, 
 page 49. 
 
 119
 
 120 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 about inequality of taxation, interfere with the 
 natural laws of trade, check industrial and scien- 
 tific progress, stop invention, discourage individ- 
 ual effort, destroy foreign trade, establish an army 
 of officials, breed corruption, create an aristocracy 
 of labour, demoralise the voter, and ultimately 
 make socialistic communities of towns and cities." 1 
 As yet there are no signs that any of these cal- 
 amities are imminent, unless the increased indebt- 
 edness of the towns is of itself a calamity. But 
 the indebtedness for trading is more than offset by 
 the assets, which the cities have acquired, for the 
 trading enterprises have already repaid nearly one 
 hundred million dollars on their undertakings. 
 The taxpayers have not been burdened. Quite the 
 reverse. The reports of the Board of Trade, which 
 up to 1906 were in the hands of the Conservative 
 party, not to speak of those of the Parliamentary 
 committees themselves, show conclusively that the 
 reproductive undertakings aid the rates to the ex- 
 tent of millions of dollars a year. At the same 
 time the rates of fare upon the tramways and the 
 charges for gas are less than one-half the average 
 charges in this country. The towns seem as efficient 
 and as willing to adopt new devices and to recog- 
 nise talent as the private companies themselves. 
 There has come, it is true, an army of officials, but 
 so far as they are concerned, they would have to 
 t ldem, page 27.
 
 GKEATEST GAIN OF ALL 121 
 
 be employed by someone, and when the opportunity 
 offers they seem to prefer the city to the private 
 corporation. As for corruption, it seems to be 
 absent from the British city. This can hardly be 
 said of the political activities of the franchise cor- 
 porations of America, into whose hands the friends 
 of individual enterprise would have us commit 
 ourselves. As to an aristocracy of labor, this is 
 hardly a menacing thing to a nation in which one 
 million of its people are said to be employed by the 
 cities. An aristocracy which involves an improved 
 standard of living for one-eighth of the population 
 is rather more to be desired than an aristocracy 
 reared upon franchise grants, which in America 
 is limited to the merest handful of persons. 
 
 Is the end of government a large foreign trade, 
 industrial progress and invention, even a low tax 
 rate and the fullest opportunity for the free play 
 of initiative? For these are the ideals of business. 
 Is it not just such ideals as these that explain the 
 condition of modern society, a condition of which 
 Thomas II. Huxley has said : "I do not hesitate to 
 express the opinion, that, if there is no hope of a 
 large improvement of the condition of the greater 
 part of the human family ; if it is true that the in- 
 crease of knowledge, the winning of a greater do- 
 minion over nature which is its consequence and 
 the wealth which follows on that dominion, are to 
 make no difference in the extent and the intensity
 
 122 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 of want, with, its concomitant physical and moral 
 degradation, among the masses of the people, I 
 should hail the advent of some kindly comet, which 
 would sweep the whole affair away, as a desirable 
 consummation. What profits it to the human 
 Prometheus that he has stolen the fire of heaven to 
 be his servant, and that the spirits of the earth, and 
 of the air obey him, if the vulture of pauperism is 
 eternally to tear his very vitals and keep him on 
 the brink of destruction?" 1 
 
 A community which is content to merely "gov- 
 ern," which subordinates all other considerations 
 to those of property and the free play of individual 
 initiative, is not greatly concerned over any such, 
 lament. But is there not another ideal, an ideal 
 that is susceptible of expression as well as execu- 
 tion, that draws the line between individualism 
 and socialism? The question, "What are the func- 
 tions of government?" says Huxley, is translated 
 into another namely, "What ought we men, in 
 our corporate capacity, to do, not only in the way 
 of restraining that free individuality which is in- 
 consistent with the existence of society, but in en- 
 couraging that free individuality which is essential 
 to the evolution of the social organisation? The 
 formula which truly defines the function of govern- 
 ment must contain the solution of both the prob- 
 
 'Essay on Government, In Methods and Results. Essays, 
 page 423.
 
 GKEATEST GAIN OF ALL 123 
 
 lems involved, and not merely one of them." Locke 
 has furnished us with such a formula, in the no- 
 blest, and at the same time briefest, statement of 
 the purpose of government known to me : "The end 
 of government is the good of mankind.''' 1 It is by 
 this formula that municipal ownership should be 
 measured. 
 
 Municipal ownership is a moral, not a financial 
 question. Its essential morality springs from the 
 importance of certain services to the life of the com- 
 munity. To justify municipal ownership through 
 its effect upon the purse is like justifying human 
 life itself through a demonstration that it costs less 
 money to rear a child than it afterward produces 
 as a man. Further than this, the great franchise 
 corporations which occupy the streets are, of neces- 
 sity, monopolies. They can only maintain the privi- 
 leges which they enjoy through constant interfer- 
 ence with the political life of the community; and 
 a people can only escape from this merger of mon- 
 opoly and politics through municipal ownership. 
 Regulation, far from diminishing, only increases 
 the necessity of it. Great Britain demonstrated 
 that fact, as our own cities have done in their water 
 and electric lighting enterprises. For when a city 
 owns an undertaking, all classes can unite in secur- 
 ing good administration. But when it is in private 
 
 'Essay on Administrative Nihilism, In Methods and Results. 
 r~r.ays, page 277.
 
 124 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 hands there is a constant conflict between those who 
 own it and those who do not, over terms, rates, ser- 
 vice, and everything connected with its administra- 
 tion. 
 
 This is the ceaseless struggle that is going on in 
 every large American community. A city cannot 
 be half privileged and half free, any more than a 
 nation can be half slave and half free. Either the 
 one interest or the other must rule. A city can 
 only rule itself for the good of all through the 
 ownership of the things that lie at the very heart 
 of the community's well-being. 
 
 We can see this conflict of interest in almost 
 every large American city. The unorganised com- 
 mon people are occupied in fighting back the ag- 
 gressions of the bankers and brokers, the bench 
 and the bar, the business men and the press, all 
 united in an attempt to control the city and secure 
 for themselves and their friends franchises of great 
 value. 
 
 The cities of Great Britain have united all 
 classes with the city. They are now working for the 
 city, not making war upon it. They are interested 
 in good government, not plotting for corrupt gov- 
 ernment. The internecine struggle of class with 
 class which cleaves every American city in twain 
 is absent from the British city. All classes are free 
 to insist upon good government. In the American 
 city the powerful interests are united in a struggle
 
 GREATEST GAIN OF ALL 125 
 
 for a corrupt government that will enrick them 
 with franchises. This is why municipal ownership 
 is a moral question. The stakes involved are politi- 
 cal freedom. 
 
 Some American critics do not like the British 
 tramways. But neither do they like the British 
 tailors, hotels, railways, or methods of doing busi- 
 ness. But compare the attitude of the British city 
 to its people with that of an American company 
 to its patrons. Stand upon the street corner of 
 any of our cities, morning or evening. Watch the 
 struggling mass of humanity fighting like animals 
 for an opportunity to stand upon the platform or 
 the running-board of a street car. Worn-out shop 
 girls are crushed or trampled upon. Women who 
 have already spent from ten to twelve hours in the 
 foetid atmosphere of a sweat shop or factory are 
 hustled about with the grossest indignity. Cars are 
 dirty or filled with disease germs. Equipment, long 
 worn out, is noisy and dangerous. The lust for divi- 
 dends is at war W 7 ith the very life of the city. 
 
 Ordinances of the councils, requiring improved 
 service, life-saving fenders, or transfers, are calmly 
 ignored, or carried into the courts, there to be de- 
 layed in enforcement or ultimately found to be in 
 violation of some vested right fraudulently acquired 
 or surreptitiously inserted into an ordinance. Gas 
 companies filch the pockets of the people by dis- 
 honest practices, by excessive charges, or false me-
 
 126 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 ters. They insolently repudiate any attempt to 
 reduce rates. They water their gas in order that 
 they may still further water their stock. And in 
 order to continue their oppression of the people the 
 franchise companies maintain a continuous lobby 
 in the council chamber and in the legislative halls 
 of every State in the Union. They purchase entire 
 parties by campaign contributions. In return for 
 the contributions the parties nominate mayors, 
 councilmen, tax assessors, even the judges upon the 
 bench, in the interest of the corporations. The 
 press which they control does not hesitate to de- 
 stroy the character or malign the motives of any 
 man who dares to question their privileges. Mem- 
 bers of the bar who lend their aid to the city are 
 made to pay the price in business if not in social 
 ostracism. Wholesale and retail business men are 
 subjected to as remorseless a boycott as was ever 
 devised by a labour union. Further than this, all 
 classes whose interest or fear can be appealed to 
 are exiled from any participation in the political 
 life of the city. It is this that makes municipal 
 ownership a moral question. This is no overdrawn 
 picture. It is true to the life of Chicago, Cleve- 
 land, Toledo, Philadelphia; true to conditions in 
 any city where an attempt has been made by the 
 sovereign municipality to control the corporations 
 which the state has endowed with splendid gifts 
 and privileges.
 
 GKEATEST GAIN OF ALL 127 
 
 No city in the Union would dare to give to its 
 people such service as they are compelled to accept 
 from the private companies. Any administration 
 would be driven from power by the all but unani- 
 mous voice of the people, which ignored the comfort 
 and lives of the public as do the street railways, the 
 gas, water, and electric lighting companies. Many 
 men admit all this, but fear the organisation of 
 the employees for the control of the city. But were 
 all the employes of the city united they could be 
 driven from power by an aroused public sentiment. 
 For then the press and every agency of public opin- 
 ion would be free to insist upon good administra- 
 tion. At most, the employees of a city would not 
 exceed ten per cent, of the voters, and any attempt 
 on their part to control the politics of the commu- 
 nity in their own interest would be out of the ques- 
 tion. Party lines would vanish in a city that was 
 free from these interests, for anyone familiar with 
 the average American city is aware that the fran- 
 chise companies are most largely responsible for 
 their persistence. 
 
 Compare this picture of the American city with 
 that of Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow, Leeds, 
 Sheffield, or any other large city in Great Britain. 
 The doings of the Town Council are of absorbing 
 interest to every member of the community. There 
 is no hatred, no warfare of interest, no class stand- 
 ing apart from the city, struggling to control its
 
 128 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 administration and all of the agencies for the 
 moulding of public opinion. In the clubs, on the 
 streets, in the restaurants, people talk about the 
 city and the proceedings of the Council. The city 
 is the most frequent topic of conversation. The 
 earnings of the different departments, the achieve- 
 ments of committees and managers are approved or 
 criticised. The city is free, privilege is absent. 
 There are none to whom bad government is desir- 
 able. The city and its enterprises are managed 
 for the people. Fares are low, and in time will be 
 very much lower. For the English city is very cau- 
 tious, and is rapidly extinguishing its indebtedness 
 out of earnings. In the rush hours of morning and 
 evening cars are in abundance. There is no crush- 
 ing of women in the struggle for standing room. A 
 seat is supplied to nearly everyone. For the cities 
 limit the standing room to from four to six. There 
 are no epidemics from pneumonia nor other diseases 
 caused by dirty or unheated cars. The cars are 
 cleaned and disinfected in a most careful way. 
 Schedules are arranged to meet the pressure of busi- 
 ness. Conductors are courteous to everyone, for 
 the public is their employer. They are paid a living 
 wage, and their positions are secure so long as they 
 merit them. 
 
 Compare, too, the fatalities of private and public 
 operation. In the British cities no means are over- 
 looked for the minimising of danger. Human life
 
 GKEATEST GAIN OF ALL 129 
 
 is cheaper than fenders in America. Human life 
 is sacred in the British city. The English cities vie 
 with one another in their efforts to serve the people, 
 to secure efficient management, to promote the com- 
 fort and convenience of the public. The American 
 street railways vie with one another to inflate their 
 securities, to rob the public through excessive fares 
 and charges. The British city endears its industries 
 to the people through the service which it renders. 
 The American franchise corporation cares not for 
 public approval so long as it is entrenched behind 
 a franchise made sacred by the courts. 
 
 The Town Councils manifest the same solicitude 
 in the administration of their other enterprises. 
 Gas is sold at from forty to sixty cents a thousand 
 cubic feet. The city encourages its use in every pos- 
 sible way. It installs fixtures. It examines them 
 when installed. It helps the consumer to economise. 
 It reads its meters honestly. Many cities place 
 heating and cooking appliances in the houses free 
 of charge or on a small rental. Penny-in-the-slot 
 devices are placed in the tenements in order that 
 the very poorest may enjoy some of the comforts of 
 life in the hours that are not devoted to toil. In 
 consequence, nearly everyone uses gas. This is one 
 of the best tests of municipal ownership. In Glas- 
 gow and Manchester, one person out of every five 
 is a user of gas, which is the equivalent of almost 
 one connection to every family.
 
 130 THE BKITISH CITY, 
 
 The British city is fraternal in its attitude to- 
 ward the people. The American city invites fra- 
 tricidal war by offering great treasures for the 
 strong and the unscrupulous to struggle for. That 
 is why municipal ownership is a moral question, 
 just as much a moral question as the turning over 
 of the police departments of our cities to a Pinker- 
 ton agency, of leaving the health administration to 
 a private company, of leasing our public schools to 
 those who would make them pay dividends. 
 
 Corruption, inflated securities, arrogance, oppres- 
 sive rates and charges, civil strife, are the prices we 
 pay for the private ownership of a public service. 
 This is the cost of individualism, where individual- 
 ism has no place. An affectionate regard for the 
 city, the absence of bulging dividends, the best pos- 
 sible service, and a fraternal sense between all 
 classes of the community, are the returns of the 
 British city from the public ownership of a public 
 service. These returns are not susceptible of sta- 
 tistical demonstration. They do not appear in the 
 city budget. They are the higher returns not men- 
 tioned in the annual balance sheet. But they are 
 more eloquent than any advantage to the rate-payer. 
 They are the things that make possible a decent 
 city life. They are the only tests we should con- 
 sider in weighing the gains and losses of municipal 
 ownership. 
 
 No programme of city building is possible until
 
 GREATEST GAIN OF ALL 131 
 
 the city controls the great transportation, lighting, 
 heat, and water utilities. They can no more be left 
 with safety in private hands than the human body 
 could entrust its organs to a control outside of it- 
 self. For the life of the community revolves about 
 them. They determine the boundaries of the city, 
 how it will be housed, how and where its life will 
 be carried on. Its health, comfort, and happiness 
 are incidental to the water, light, and heat supply. 
 The standard of living of the people is dependent 
 upon the land and the proper performance of these 
 services. A city which owns them all can co-ordi- 
 nate their administration. It can lay out its high- 
 ways as a whole. The constant tearing up of streets 
 would be obviated. The electric lighting and the 
 traction systems can be united under one control, 
 as is done in many British cities. Streets and dark 
 alleys can be better lighted, to the great improve- 
 ment of the morals of the community. The popula- 
 tion can be carried far out into the country, even, 
 if necessary, at a loss to the city. Gas and elec- 
 tricity can be made to serve the community in 
 countless ways. 
 
 When all of these enterprises are under public 
 control city building will be possible. Then men 
 will think of the city as a whole. Officials will be 
 able to turn their attention to the real possibilities 
 of a city, possibilities of which we have not yet 
 begun to dream. To-day, the honest and capable
 
 132 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 official is devoting his life to the protection of the 
 community from the aggressions of private inter- 
 ests. He has no time, and the public has no interest, 
 in any other question. Elections are fought out 
 over the franchise question to the exclusion of every- 
 thing else. 
 
 The British city is free from all this. It is free 
 to think of other things, free to have ideals. It is 
 not because the British city has more constructive 
 statesmanship that it has achieved where we have 
 failed. The average Englishman is no more able to 
 administer great undertakings than we are. But 
 the men of talent in that country are free to enter 
 politics. There is no conflict between their patriot- 
 ism and their purse. And were the American city 
 able to take over the franchise corporations, it 
 would in a short time administer them as honestly 
 and as efficiently as does the British city. Then 
 we should call to the city the talent which is now 
 exiled by interest or fear. And just as American 
 industry is more progressive, more efficient than the 
 industry of Great Britain, so American democracy 
 would give to tl^e world the most efficient city in 
 Christendom. For nothing is more mistaken than 
 the assumption that the American is too engrossed 
 with business to enter politics. We find no diffi- 
 culty in securing talent for public place when the 
 way is open for its entrance. This is true of our 
 public schools, it is true of our library boards, it
 
 GREATEST GAIN OF ALL 133 
 
 is true of the appointive offices of the Federal Gov- 
 ernment. Wherever politics is free from the con- 
 taminating influences of the big, privileged business 
 interests there men are willing and eager to enter 
 the public service. And it is these interests that 
 employ the boss and the ward heeler ; it is they who 
 supply the bulk of the campaign contributions; it is 
 they who keep alive the senseless party spirit. 
 
 We have overlooked the fact that all men, from 
 whatever class they come, have within themselves 
 something which responds to the opportunity to 
 serve their fellows. It is the most universal of all 
 forces. It lies dormant in America because of the 
 conflict of interest with patriotism. That, and the 
 hostility of the franchise corporations, exiles the 
 best and invites the worst into the administration 
 of the American city. 
 
 When the American city becomes the most im- 
 portant corporation in the community, when it 
 offers an opportunity to all to use their talents 
 on big things, without fear or the hope of gain, then 
 there will come to us an awakening like that which 
 followed in Great Britain in the wake of municipal 
 trading. And honest municipal administration can 
 come in no other way. So long as millions of dol- 
 lars are placed in jeopardy by the election of honest 
 councilmen or an idealistic mayor, just so long 
 will those millions be organised for protection 
 against the community. For wherever we go, privi-
 
 134 THE BRITISH CITE 
 
 lege and liberty are ever at war. This warfare will 
 only cease when monopoly is exiled from politics. 
 And this can only be done through the ownership 
 by the community itself of the great public service 
 corporations which are now in private hands.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 THE MUNICIPALITY AND LABOUE 
 
 IP there is any serious menace to the community 
 from the employment of large numbers of men, the 
 British city should bear witness to it. For munici- 
 pal ownership has greatly increased the number of 
 city employees. The tramways, electricity, gas, and 
 other undertakings, which have passed under the 
 control of the Town Councils during the past few 
 years, have probably given employment to from one 
 to two hundred thousand men. In the city of Glas- 
 gow, the employees number about 15,000, or ten 
 per cent, of the registered voters. In other towns 
 where the Council has gone in for the ownership 
 of the franchise corporations the percentage is prob- 
 ably equally high. 
 
 In addition to the fact that the cities are coming 
 to employ an increasing percentage of the voters, 
 the struggle for work in Great Britain is very se- 
 vere, and the pressure upon those who have jobs to 
 bestow is correspondingly great. Moreover, there 
 are no civil service laws to protect the public from 
 the spoils system. Under such conditions as these 
 the employees should be a menace to the 'reedom 
 
 135
 
 136 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 of the towns if there is any real danger from this 
 source. 
 
 There is little ground for any such apprehension. 
 I have talked with the managers of a score of de- 
 partments, and never heard the suggestion made 
 that this was a serious danger, or that the men made 
 use of their power to control or influence the elec- 
 tion of men who would be responsive to their de- 
 mands. Occasional fears have been expressed by 
 officials that the time might come when the em- 
 ployees of the city might have to be disfranchised 
 in order to prevent their control of the Council. 
 But instances of any such attempts are so rare as 
 to negative such an apprehension. Save in the 
 skilled trades, where the number of city employees 
 is limited, the men do not generally organise into 
 unions. The city is the best union they could pos- 
 sibly have. Nor would the public tolerate any at- 
 tempt on the part of the employees to run the town 
 in their own interests. Even West Ham and Bat- 
 tersea, which are controlled by the labouring 
 classes in the councils, and about which so much 
 ado has been made by the conservative British press, 
 have not ventured to abuse their powers for the 
 advantage of the employee. In so far as these com- 
 munities have given expression to radical ideals 
 they have been in the form of progressive schemes 
 for improving the condition of all classes through 
 model dwellings, libraries, public baths, and in
 
 MUNICIPALITY AND LABOUR 137 
 
 finding work for the unemployed, who would other- 
 wise have become a burden to the rates. 
 
 In the ordinary municipality there are only 
 two classes, those who serve and those who are 
 served. And the latter class will remain in the 
 large majority until something like socialism is 
 approached. To-day, the number of employees 
 rarel}-, if ever, exceeds ten per cent, of the voters 
 of the community, and of these the majority are 
 rate-payers, and have almost as much appreciation 
 of the impropriety of political activity as the 
 Mayor himself. And despite opinion to the con- 
 trary, the percentage of employees in the average 
 American city who actively participate in politics 
 is not very high. For the men to be found in the 
 City Hall are animated by the same instincts and 
 moved by the same public opinion that controls 
 their neighbours. There is no greater bogey in poli- 
 tics than the political tyranny of the office-holding 
 class. At primaries and caucuses they exert much 
 influence, but on election day they are far from for- 
 midable. No city could be carried on if its office- 
 holding class were as ignorant and inefficient and 
 as given over to bad politics as the average critic 
 assumes them to be. 
 
 The British city is still further protected by the 
 fact that the Councils aim to be model employers. 
 There is no incentive to be otherwise, because 
 there is no competitive necessity of paying the low-
 
 138 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 est possible wage. The Council refuses to buy its 
 labour in the cheapest market, if by so doing it pays 
 unfair wages or reduces the pay of its servants be- 
 low the standard of decent existence. 
 
 In its early days the London County Council fixed 
 a standard of employment. It announced that the 
 public could not expect the private employer to 
 abolish the sweatshop if it tolerated its continuance 
 in city work. So the Council established a fair 
 wage scale and adopted the Trade Union conditions 
 in all departments. It paid the prevailing rates of 
 the unions and compelled all contractors dealing 
 with the Council to observe the same rate, under 
 penalty of forfeiture. By this means it raised the 
 standard of living of thousands of men and women 
 and established a living wage in all work in which 
 the city was a partner. The Council also opened 
 a large department devoted entirely to the perform- 
 ance of municipal work. Whenever contracts are 
 to be let for the erection of dwellings, engine houses, 
 fire stations, sewers, or other public work, the 
 Works Department becomes a bidder, the same as 
 any private builder. If its tender is the lowest it 
 secures the work ; otherwise, it goes to outside par- 
 ties. In addition to this, the department has charge 
 of all repair work and the maintenance of the prop- 
 erty of the Council. By this means the Council is 
 always in a position to checkmate any combination 
 of bidders and at the same time establish a standard
 
 MUNICIPALITY AND LABOUE 139 
 
 of workmanship by which private builders are 
 measured. The department is under the control of 
 a committee, and its costs sheets are subject to 
 merciless scrutiny by the press and private inter- 
 ests. It has now been a part of the Council's policy 
 for fifteen years. While it was a source of some 
 expense during the early years, owing largely to the 
 vacillating policy with which it was supported, it 
 now handles contracts and performs work to the 
 extent of many millions of dollars a year. Accord- 
 ing to the reports of the Council it amply justifies 
 its existence in the reduced cost of public work, in 
 the more durable character of its construction, as 
 well as in the competitive check which it gives on 
 the private contractor. 
 
 Hundreds of other local authorities have followed 
 the London County Council in the policy of doing 
 work by the direct employment of labour as well 
 as in its schedule of wages. It is now well nigh 
 universal for the cities to do by direct labour a 
 large part of the work previously let out to con- 
 tractors. Many of them have erected splendid work- 
 shops, through which all of the construction work 
 of the city is done. Many tramway departments 
 have well equipped plants for the erection and re- 
 pair of cars and electrical supplies. In Glasgow, 
 the central fire station builds all of the fire appa- 
 ratus for the city, the men on the fire force being 
 employed because of their skill as artisans. Shef-
 
 140 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 field has an electrical manufacturing plant, and 
 other towns manufacture other commodities as in- 
 cidental to the work of some department. 
 
 Almost always the city employee is paid some- 
 what more than the competitive wage. In so far as 
 is possible, the trade union standard is adopted, 
 but where no union exists in a trade the Council 
 fixes a living wage, below which it will not, and 
 below which anyone dealing with the city must not 
 go. In addition to this, the Councils and the man- 
 agers of the several departments organise relief 
 funds and make provision for sickness and old asje. 
 These insurance schemes are purely optional, but 
 inasmuch as the city assumes a portion of the ex- 
 pense, the men are usually desirous of membership. 
 In nearly all cities the men are limited to six days 
 a week, and are given a number of days' holiday 
 each year on full pay. 
 
 Tramway employees have been especially bene- 
 fited by municipalisation. As a matter of fact, the 
 wretched condition of the employees was one of the 
 principal causes leading to the taking over of the 
 plants. Hours of labour were long and wages were 
 low. The men were compelled to work from seventy 
 to eighty hours a week, and in many instances as 
 much as ninety hours. The Councils have reduced 
 the hours to an average of sixty a week, with one 
 full day off in seven, while in the larger towns the 
 week's work is of fifty-five hours. According to an
 
 MUNICIPALITY AND LABOUR 141 
 
 estimate of Mr. Albert Baker, former manager of 
 the London County Council Tramways, the result 
 of nmnicipalisation has been to reduce the hours of 
 tramway employees all over the kingdom by forty- 
 eight per cent., while the wages have been increased 
 by not less than forty-two per cent. 
 
 The Councils also provide the men with free uni- 
 forms. The cost to the London County Council of 
 the betterment of the tramway employees amounts 
 to nearly $200,000 a year. In Liverpool, the in- 
 creased operating expenses are about the same, 
 while the tramway department of Glasgow is ex- 
 pending in the neighbourhood of half a million dol- 
 lars a year more than it would have paid under the 
 rate of wages and other conditions prevailing under 
 private management. 
 
 Many other considerations are shown the men, 
 in the form of clubs, recreation rooms, gymnasiums, 
 and means of improving their condition. There are 
 athletic parks and cricket teams. In some of the 
 towns the men have organised bands. The attitude 
 of the Councils is in marked contrast with that of 
 the private companies. For the towns seek to enlist 
 the co-operation of the employees in making the 
 enterprise as serviceable as possible to all of the 
 people ; they strive to awaken a consciousness of the 
 co-operative character of public work and an appre- 
 ciation of the fact that the public has dignified their 
 positions into those of public servants. The men
 
 142 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 have responded to the changed relationship. They 
 are courteous and considerate to the passengers. 
 The higher pay and the greater attractiveness of 
 public employment make them very jealous of their 
 positions and very careful not to forfeit them by 
 any act of carelessness. A fraternal relationship is 
 coming into existence between the city and its ser- 
 vants, while the constant friction over wages, hours 
 of labour, and other matters, is at an end. The 
 employees confer freely with the managers and with 
 the members of the Council. 
 
 There are no civil service laws governing the em- 
 ployment and the retention of men in the munici- 
 palities. That is left to the manager, as in any 
 private employment. He is free to discharge or 
 employ men at will. But inasmuch as there are no 
 political organisations to maintain, the spoils sys- 
 tem has never gained entrance. The employees of 
 the British city are not in politics as much as the 
 employees of the franchise corporations in America. 
 For anyone familiar with municipal conditions in 
 this country is aware that one of the commonest 
 means of controlling councilmen is through the ap- 
 pointment of their friends and relatives to posi- 
 tions. In Great Britain, many influences combine 
 to prevent the organisation of the office-holding 
 class for their own advantage. Public opinion is 
 always alert by reason of the pecuniary interest of 
 the rate-payers. There is but one issue before the 
 people, and that is the city itself. It is not con-
 
 MUNICIPALITY AND LABOUR 1-43 
 
 fused by the privileged interests which divide the 
 community into those who desire good government 
 and those who desire bad government. Moreover, 
 the condition of the employees is a matter of con- 
 stant concern on the part of the Council. There 
 is no dividend to be paid upon watered securities, 
 and consequently no pressure to keep down oper- 
 ating expenses, even if the excess earnings must 
 be extorted from underpaid labour. Thus far, at 
 least, the apprehension occasionally expressed that 
 the increasing army of city employees would prove 
 a menace to the community has not been justified. 
 And, as a matter of fact, there is no reason for 
 assuming that those who work with their hands are 
 any more likely to make use of their positions for 
 personal gain than any other class. For they are 
 subject to constant supervision by the public, and 
 all of the agencies for the making of public opinion 
 are in the hands of the non-official class. 
 
 The increase in the number of municipal em- 
 ployees does awaken an enquiry as to its effect upon 
 the programme of the future. Those already in 
 the city's employ will tend to support any move- 
 ment for the increase of the activities of the com- 
 munity. Their influence will probably be thrown 
 on the side of every reasonable increase in the so- 
 cialisation of the municipality. In this sense 
 municipal ownership has added a. powerful factor, 
 which will undoubtedly influence the future indus- 
 trial development of the British city.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 PARLIAMENT AND THE CITIES: THE TYRANNY 
 OF A CLASS 
 
 THE lust for monopoly, untaxed, and free to fol- 
 low its own desires, is the controlling motive of 
 English as it is of American politics. The House of 
 Lords, like the United States Senate, is a monopo- 
 listic body. Once this is seen, much that is other- 
 wise inexplicable becomes clear. Herein is the 
 struggle of the cities with Parliament. For the 
 cities are seeking to control the abuses which Par- 
 liament is constantly seeking to protect. The great 
 obtruding issue in Great Britain is monopoly 
 against liberty, of privilege against democracy; an 
 issue with which we are perfectly familiar in Amer- 
 ica. In this contest the attitude of the ruling class 
 is the attitude of privilege everywhere. It is the 
 attitude of the Roman Senate toward the landless 
 freemen, of the French nobles toward the third es- 
 tate, of the Russian aristocracy toward the peas- 
 ants, and of the United States Senate toward the 
 people. 
 
 The underlying motive of monopoly is as old as 
 society. It is the desire of something for nothing, 
 of income without labour. And at bottom the issue 
 
 144
 
 PARLIAMENT AND THE CITIES 145 
 
 is an economic one. It is not conservative states- 
 manship, but class selfishness, that explains the 
 jealousy of the aristocracy toward the growing 
 powers of the towns. On the one hand are the cities, 
 burdened by unjust taxation, and aroused by the 
 poverty and necessities of the people. On the other 
 hand are the members of Parliament, who make 
 use of the powers entrusted to them to protect the 
 things which the people are seeking to own or con- 
 trol. This is especially true of the House of Lords. 
 In this contest Parliament is supreme. The cities 
 are but pawns. They are permitted to do almost 
 anything that does not interfere with the abuses of 
 the privileged classes. Aside from these activities 
 the cities are kept under a jealous curb. They have 
 less home rule than the American city enjoys. True, 
 Great Britain is free from ripper legislation. Par- 
 liament does not interfere with the charters of the 
 towns for partisan purposes. The form of govern- 
 ment for one town is the form for all. By reason 
 of this fact American observers have assumed that 
 the English city is free to do as it wills. But the 
 reverse is true. The Town Councils have much 
 power of independent action in the administration 
 of the schools, police, and sanitary departments. 
 Their powers are ample when they do not conflict 
 with the class which owns. In all matters which 
 endanger some vested interest, however, supervision 
 by Parliament is constant. The aristocracy has
 
 146 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 given the people all of the appearance without the 
 substance of power. The adjustment is so cleverly 
 made that it does not suggest disingenuousness. In 
 form, the British city is a simple democracy. In 
 reality it is in a state of servitude. It is free to 
 elect whom it will conservative, liberal, radical, 
 socialist. But when the Town Council desires to 
 do anything that affects the land, or the tenements, 
 or the franchise corporations, it must go to Parlia- 
 ment for permission. In other words, the Councils 
 do not legislate on any of the most important ques- 
 tions affecting the city. Parliament is the real 
 Town Council for all of Great Britain, just as Con- 
 gress is the Board of Aldermen of the District of 
 Columbia, 
 
 Thus the freedom of the British city is not a very 
 substantial thing. It is bound by parliamentary 
 thongs. It may not move in any direction which 
 affects the purse of the over-lord without the per- 
 mission of the over-lord. The sovereignty of the 
 city is really subordinate to the sovereignty of the 
 landlord. And the landlords are in perfect har- 
 mony as to the things they want. There is no pool, 
 no syndicate, not even a gentlemen's agreement. 
 The London County Council is not permitted to do 
 anything to disturb the lands, the tenements, or 
 the markets of the Duke of Westminster, or the 
 Duke of Bedford, because a similar demand might 
 be made against the land, the tenements, or the
 
 PARLIAMENT AND THE CITIES 147 
 
 markets of Lord Derby at Liverpool, or the Duke of 
 Norfolk at Sheffield. All this is not corruption. It 
 is the instinct of a sympathetic aristocracy 7 , which 
 always controls the House of Lords ; and, when the 
 Conservative party is in power, the House of Com- 
 mons also. It is this that denies the British city 
 the right of home rule. 
 
 In respect to the things it can do, the American 
 city is much more free. Contrary to accepted opin- 
 ion, we have a larger degree of home rule than pre- 
 vails in Great Britain. Our cities can purchase 
 water-works on their own initiative. They can in- 
 stall electric lighting plants, and frequently gas 
 enterprises. And once acquired, they can manage 
 these undertakings as they will. In most States, 
 the cities can erect competing plants if the private 
 companies are exorbitant in their charges or arro- 
 gant in their demeanour. Our city councils have 
 considerable power to regulate private corpora- 
 tions, subject always to review by the courts. They 
 can borrow money on their own volition or with 
 the sanction of a popular vote. Permission from 
 the legislature must be secured in the first instance, 
 hut it is usually granted to all of the cities of the 
 State or to all of the cities of a class. The cities 
 can buy such land as they need by compulsory pur- 
 chase. They can do as they will in the adminis- 
 tration of the schools, libraries, markets, baths, 
 parks, and streets. Property can be destroyed when
 
 148 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 it becomes a menace to the community. Health ad- 
 ministration is free from interference, as is the 
 police force. There is a generosity in the powers 
 enjoyed that is not found in Great Britain. Some 
 of our cities, especially in the West, have almost 
 complete home rule, and the only obstacle to its 
 further extension is traceable to the activity of 
 the franchise corporations, fearful of ownership or 
 regulation at the hands of the people. 
 
 True, our cities are far from the ideal of a city 
 republic endowed with full power to govern itself. 
 But the English city has no such generous powers 
 as have been described conferred upon it by uni- 
 form law. 
 
 In Great Britain, the city can only borrow 
 money after it has secured the approval of Parlia- 
 ment. In all matters affecting the city's finances, a 
 similar sanction must be secured. In all trading 
 enterprises, and especially in the ownership of fran- 
 chise corporations, in the treatment of the housing 
 question, or the regulation of tenements, in any 
 matter w T hich affects the vested rights of those who 
 govern, Parliament retains control even to the 
 smallest detail. 
 
 The Town Councils do not grant the franchises 
 to street railway, gas, water, electric light, or tele- 
 phone companies. This is done by Parliament. 
 Franchises are conferred by special act, each sepa- 
 rate grant being provided for by a private bill. A
 
 PARLIAMENT AND THE CITIES 149 
 
 company wishing to operate in a local area pro- 
 motes its case before Parliament. It goes first to 
 the Board of Trade for a provisional order ; but its 
 final powers are obtained at Westminster. General 
 laws have been passed fixing the length of the fran- 
 chise, its terms and conditions, and the terms of 
 purchase by the city. But every franchise is drawn 
 to meet local conditions. Parliament fixes the rate 
 of fare which may be charged, and the method of 
 construction and operation. The city can protest, 
 can produce witnesses, and ask for the privilege 
 of operating the industry itself. Saving in the case 
 of railway and electricity undertakings, over which 
 the Councils may exercise a veto, the city cannot 
 do more. And Parliament may ignore the people's 
 protest, although the tendency in recent years has 
 been to prefer the city to a private company in case 
 of conflict. 
 
 Parliament also determines the rate of speed 
 of the tramways, the kind of rails and poles and 
 construction to be followed. The area to be served 
 is fixed in the same way. The same supervision is 
 exercised over electric lighting, gas, and water com- 
 panies. The franchises of the lighting companies 
 are for forty-two years, for street railways for 
 twenty-one years. Those of the gas and water com- 
 panies are unlimited in terms. Parliament does 
 not favour the public ownership of the gas supply 
 when there is a private statutory company already
 
 150 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 in the field. This accounts for the fact that two- 
 thirds of the gas undertakings are still in private 
 hands. A very careful supervision is maintained 
 by Parliament, however, over the gas companies. 
 Their charges are limited, and in comparison with 
 American cities are very low. The dividends are 
 fixed at from four to six per cent. Stock may not 
 be watered, and can only be sold at public auction, 
 while a sliding scale permits the companies to in- 
 crease their dividends as they reduce their charges. 
 A similar oversight is maintained of the electric 
 light and tramway companies. On complaint being 
 made by a locality the companies can be required 
 to lower their rates or improve their service. This 
 oversight on the part of Parliament is very efficient 
 in the case of gas undertakings. The charges of the 
 companies, while not so low as those of the public 
 plants are very much below these charges in Amer- 
 ica. Similar limitations are imposed on the pri- 
 vate tramway and electric lighting companies. 
 
 The very obvious necessities of health, and the 
 inadequacy of many private companies, has led Par- 
 liament to approve of the public ownership of the 
 water supply. When purchased from a private com- 
 pany, however, the cities are compelled to pay an 
 excessive price for the franchise, based upon the 
 net earnings of the plant. Parliament feels that if 
 these industries are to be regulated at all, it should 
 be done by their friends. For this reason the cities
 
 PARLIAMENT AXD THE CITIES 151 
 
 have practically no control over service. For the 
 same reason, Parliament does not permit competi- 
 tion, either the competition of the city or the com- 
 petition of another private company. It treats the 
 franchise corporation as a natural monopoly, an 
 attitude which is perfectly reasonable in view of 
 the nature of the undertaking, as well as of the fact 
 that the members of Parliament are largely inter- 
 ested in them. 
 
 In case of purchase by the city, the price to be 
 paid is agreed upon or determined by arbitration. 
 In either event, the franchise, unless it has expired, 
 must be handsomely paid for. Thus the city of 
 Liverpool paid a private company over $3,000,000 
 for the franchises alone of a street railway com- 
 pany. Glasgow and Birmingham escaped this bur- 
 den when they acquired their street railway sys- 
 tems. When the former city took over the horse 
 railway system in 1894, the company declined to 
 sell its equipment. It expected that the Council 
 would make a failure of the enterprise, and that 
 the property would revert to its hands. So the 
 Council took over the tracks, which it already 
 owned, and permitted the company to keep its 
 equipment. This action involved a complete loss 
 of the company's investment. In the case of the 
 electric lighting enterprises, large sums have been 
 paid for the unexpired franchises. 
 
 The game solicitude is manifested bv Parliament
 
 152 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 over the city's finances. Permission has to be se- 
 cured to borrow money for any purpose. Even a 
 referendum vote of the people is of no avail. A 
 special act must be passed for the purpose. Par- 
 liament also determines the amount of money which 
 may be borrowed by the city, as well as the period 
 of time in which it must be paid. This ranges from 
 fifteen to sixty years, according to the permanency 
 of the investment. For Parliament is very fearful 
 of a big local debt. 
 
 When a community desires to own an enterprise 
 it lays its case before the Board of Trade (one of 
 the Cabinet Departments), and demonstrates its 
 ability to make a success of the undertaking. Then 
 a private bill is introduced. In case of controversy, 
 testimony may be taken by a Parliamentary Com- 
 mittee. This involves considerable expense. If 
 there is no private company in the field, and the 
 local conditions seem to warrant the enterprise, 
 permission is usually granted. Later, if the city de- 
 sires to extend its service into a suburb, it has to 
 go to Parliament for another special act. The same 
 is true if it wishes to change the motive power of 
 its tramways, to secure a new source of water sup- 
 ply, or to change the candle-power of its gas. The 
 city cannot sell gas stoves or fittings ; cannot carry 
 packages on its tramways; it cannot wire houses, 
 without special Parliamentary sanction. With all 
 of their local knowledge and business ability, the
 
 PAKLIAMENT AND THE CITIES 153 
 
 Town Councils are not permitted to decide even 
 these insignificant matters. 
 
 This Parliamentary oversight is very costly to the 
 towns. Disbursements for solicitors, agents, and 
 experts, incurred in the promotion of bills, appear 
 in the annual budgets of every city. In many in- 
 stances these expenditures run into the hundreds 
 of thousands of dollars every year. As elsewhere 
 appears, the local authorities of Great Britain ex- 
 pended $3,490,000 in six years' time in the promo- 
 tion of measures of local necessity and in protect- 
 ing themselves from adverse legislation by Parlia- 
 ment. 
 
 While the Conservative party, which has been in 
 power for nearly a generation, has been opposed to 
 municipal ownership, it has been forced by the 
 towns to permit of its extension. The House of 
 Lords is especially hostile. Two commissions of 
 the Lords and Commons were created to investigate 
 municipal trading. The committees were far from 
 friendly in their attitude, and most of the witnesses 
 summoned were those identified with the financial 
 and business interests seeking private grants, 1 
 
 Despite this fact, but little damaging evidence 
 was brought to light at the hearings. The commit- 
 tee made no positive findings, save in the matter 
 of accounting, about which it made some recom- 
 
 'The testimony taken at the hearings in 1900 and 1903 is 
 published in two voluminous Blue Books under the title: "The 
 Report of the Joint Select Committee on Municipal Trading."
 
 154 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 mendations. But the very general financial success 
 of the tramway, water, and electricity enterprises 
 has established a strong presumption in favour of 
 the local authorities in case of contest with a pri- 
 vate company over the grant. 
 
 Parliament seems to be moved by the fear that 
 the cities may grow too powerful, and endanger the 
 privileges which its members enjoy. With this in 
 view, it has been made just as difficult and just as 
 expensive as possible for the towns to enter upon 
 municipal undertakings. In the first place, it is 
 costly for the towns to secure the powers. Then 
 the plants must be erected under Parliamentary 
 supervision. When franchises have been granted 
 to private companies they are both exclusive and 
 for long terms. To secure possession before the 
 termination of the grant, the Councils must agree 
 with the companies on value, or submit the matter 
 to arbitration. The latter alternative is often more 
 costly than the former, and is only resorted to when 
 compromise is impossible. All these obstacles make 
 it difficult for the towns to enlarge their activities 
 or to extend the scope of trading. Parliament has 
 been especially jealous of the London County Coun- 
 cil. It has thwarted its endeavours to build up its 
 tram lines into a comprehensive system. For years 
 it blocked every effort to municipalise the water 
 supply. The service was very inadequate, and the 
 charges of the companies were based upon fran-
 
 PAELIAMENT AND THE CITIES 155 
 
 chises granted generations ago. But Parliament 
 prevented their acquisition by the metropolis up 
 to 1905. Even then it refused to entrust the ad- 
 ministration to the County Council. A new Water 
 Board of sixty-six members was created for this 
 purpose. 
 
 Not only are the cities discouraged in their at- 
 tempts to acquire the franchise corporations, but 
 they are constantly called upon to protect them- 
 selves from attack on the part of those bent upon 
 securing for themselves and their clients grants in 
 the city's streets. At the last session of Parlia- 
 ment, the London Administrative Power Bill only 
 failed of passage by the expiration of the session. 
 It was on the calendar, and had almost been 
 reached. It provided for a practical monopoly of 
 the supply of electric current in bulk for all Lon- 
 don for forty-two years. Many people thought it 
 was designed to put the municipal electric lighting 
 enterprises, of which there are fourteen owned by 
 the Borough Councils, out of business. The Lon- 
 don boroughs and the Council expended three-quar- 
 ters of a million dollars to defeat the measure. But 
 the company seemed sure of success because of the 
 fact that over one hundred members of Parlia- 
 ment were stockholders in the venture. At the 
 same session other measures were pressed for pas- 
 sage granting traction syndicates the right to run 
 their cars over the streets of Birmingham and New-
 
 156 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 castle. These bills were only defeated by the per- 
 sistent watchfulness of the cities. 
 
 This jealous supervision cannot be explained 
 merely by a distrust of the ability of the Town 
 Councils. For the powers of the cities are very lib- 
 eral in all matters of a routine nature. The real 
 explanation is the self-interest of those in control 
 of the government. For those who own the land are 
 largely interested in the franchise corporations. 
 The traction and electricity supply has lately been 
 syndicated into a large monopoly operating all over 
 the United Kingdom. In this monopoly many of 
 the members of Parliament are interested. This 
 explains the unwillingness of those who rule to 
 concede any large measure of home rule to the cit- 
 ies. For the aggressive democracy of the Town 
 Councils would make short work of the age-long 
 abuses which are hung about their necks. 
 
 The same influences crib, cabin, and confine the 
 towns in dealing with the slums and tenements. 
 The housing evil is, at bottom, a land question, and 
 no fundamental relief is possible that does not at- 
 tack the untaxed monopoly which the land owners 
 enjoy. But the slum lords are powerful in Parlia- 
 ment, and Parliament has made but little conces- 
 sion to the demands of tenement-ridden humanity in 
 the cities. Local control over the tenements would 
 strike at the pockets of the land-owning class, just 
 as would the power to regulate the franchise cor-
 
 PAKLIAMENT AND THE CITIES 157 
 
 porations. And in granting powers to cope with 
 the tenement evil, such terms have been imposed 
 as self-interest exacts. In the clearance schemes 
 of London, Glasgow, Birmingham, Liverpool, and 
 elsewhere, the Councils have been compelled to pay 
 handsomely for the privilege of opening breathing 
 spaces, or of making the tenement habitable. They 
 have had to pay the capitalised value of a slum's 
 earnings. It thus became profitable for the owner 
 to stuff a rookery to suffocation in order to increase 
 the price which the community paid for its destruc- 
 tion. The Avorse the overcrowding the greater the 
 rental value; and the greater the rental received, 
 the more the city had to pay as damages for its 
 destruction. It thus became profitable to permit 
 property to decay in order that the Council would 
 be forced to purchase it for its own protection. 
 
 While much has been said of the model dwellings 
 of the British cities, they have, in fact, made but 
 little impression on the slum. Every dispossessed 
 occupier had to find housing elsewhere. He was 
 driven to another tenement. His expulsion from 
 one locality merely shifted the disease to another 
 and compelled the Council to repeat the process. 
 All over Great Britain there is a house famine. As 
 (he land is untaxed, the landlord is under no neces- 
 sity to build. His holdings are constantly increas- 
 ing in value. 
 
 Herein is the explanation of the terrible housing
 
 158 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 conditions of the cities. The people suffer from 
 house hunger a hunger imposed upon them by 
 the landlords in control of Parliament, whose rent 
 rolls are swelled by the famine which they have 
 created by means of the exemption of their land 
 from direct taxation. There is land enough, and 
 energy enough, but there is no chance for energy 
 to secure access to the land. At the same time 
 competitive rack rents in country and city are slow- 
 ly appropriating the wealth of the nation. 
 
 It is this that explains the tyranny of the past 
 in Great Britain. At no time has Parliament been 
 willing to clear the table and rebuild its local insti- 
 tutions, as was done by Napoleon in France, or 
 Von Stein in Germany. Great Britain is yoked to 
 tradition in every domain of life, and the cost to her 
 people is immeasurably great. Germany, France, 
 Holland, Switzerland, even Italy, have shown more 
 confidence in the wisdom of to-day than has Great 
 Britain. And the Town Councils, where alone 
 democracy has emerged from the past, are burdened 
 with this distrust of anything that is new, a distrust 
 that is born of a fear that the age-long abuses which 
 rest so heavily upon the backs of the people will 
 be taken away from their owners. 
 
 To-day, the great struggle of the British city is 
 to be free from Parliament, to be accorded home 
 rule. This is one of the most insistent political 
 needs of her people, for four-fifths of Britain's pop-
 
 PAELIAMENT AND THE CITIES 159 
 
 illation live in cities. And here alone is democracy 
 alive. With such a programme achieved, each city 
 could determine what activities it desired to under- 
 take; how it would manage its industries; how it 
 would dispose of its surplus. It could grapple 
 with the tenement problem in the interest of its 
 wretched millions, rather than in the interest of 
 the ducal owners. The city could readjust the bur- 
 den of taxation and retake from the unearned incre- 
 ment which follows its growth enough for its local 
 needs. Vacant land could then be taxed into use, 
 or it could be bought by the community in advance 
 of its growth. 
 
 Home rule would obviate the burdensome ex- 
 penses to which the towns are put in the promotion 
 of special bills. These costs form a considerable 
 item in every budget. The Town Councils should 
 be permitted to dispose of the city franchises to 
 such persons and on such terms as they wish. On a 
 referendum vote the city should be permitted to 
 enter upon such enterprises as the people desire. 
 The Council should have a free rein in the adminis- 
 tration of its own affairs, in the distribution of 
 earnings as well as the rates of fare and charges. 
 These are all local matters of which the community 
 itself is the best judge. And when the Council is 
 in doubt the question should be left to the vote of 
 the rate-payers. 
 
 The British city has fully justified its right to
 
 160 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 freedom. It does the things it undertakes amaz- 
 ingly well. There are very few failures. It cannot 
 be said that the Town Council may not be trusted. 
 They are far more trustworthy than Parliament. 
 And were the towns endowed with home rule, home 
 rule in the matter of taxation, in the matter of the 
 ownership and control of its trading enterprises, 
 the British city would become in a very short time 
 the most interesting experiment station of indus- 
 trial democracy in the world. 
 
 This supervision by Parliament is an equally 
 heavy burden on the Empire. The time of both 
 houses is so occupied with local bills that measures 
 of national importance are sacrificed. The mem- 
 ber from a city district is constantly engaged in 
 looking out for local measures. He is an ambas- 
 sador from his community to the Imperial Court. 
 He cannot give his energies to the nation at large. 
 Thus Parliament expends its time on the petty de- 
 tails of municipal administration which should be 
 left to the discretion of the Town Councils.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 GLASGOW A CITY OF THRIFT AND CONSCIENCE 
 
 THE glory of Glasgow's government is not an 
 American myth. It is a concrete reality, even to 
 the ha'penny man on the tram. "We have the best 
 city in the Kingdom, probably in the world, sir," 
 a casual neighbour on top of one of Glasgow's tram- 
 cars said to me. That sounded like Pittsburg, like 
 Chicago, or like the boastfulness of the American 
 Far West. But it wasn't the same thing. "You 
 seem to be proud of your city," I suggested, invit- 
 ingly. "Of course I am," my friend responded. 
 "Glasgow sells me gas at two shillings a thousand, 
 it gives me telephone service at little more than 
 half what it used to cost from a private company ; 
 it sells me water and electricity, and does a lot of 
 other things. As for the Glasgow trains^ they beat 
 the world." "And the tax rate?" I inquired. "Is 
 quite low," was the reply. 
 
 We passed a bowling-green, smooth as a billiard 
 table. "The city has just opened those greens," said 
 my informant, and pointing to a group of working- 
 men, he added : "Any one of those men could tell 
 
 161
 
 162 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 you the things I am telling you ; they know all about 
 our tram system ; they have a fair idea of what the 
 system earns, and what it costs to carry them. 
 They'll tell you whether the profits should be used 
 to reduce fares or to pay off the tramway debt. 
 They regard the trams, the gas, the water, the 
 electricity, as their business. A councilman has 
 got to attend to the business of those men. If he 
 doesn't, they 'heckle' the life out of him." 
 
 That's what the man on the street says about his 
 Glasgow. That's what the poor unfortunate, living 
 in a two-room tenement, says. That's what the mer- 
 chant, the manufacturer, the big business man, 
 says. They talk Glasgow all the time. Edinburgh 
 says this is vulgar. Edinburgh says it is undigni- 
 fied. At all events, it's the Glaswegian way. 
 
 Even at the club I found it. I was introduced 
 to a knot of sandy-haired business men. They were 
 deep in talk. I heard the phrases business men 
 conjure with in America. I heard of tramways, of 
 gas, of electricity, and of telephones. And espe- 
 cially of some big corporation in which they all 
 seemed to be interested. One of the men was a ship- 
 owner, another was a large merchant, another an 
 editor all were men of eminence. 
 
 The talk turned to parks, to housing schemes, 
 to symphony concerts, to a Whistler portrait in a 
 local art gallery. The corporation so absorbing to 
 them all turned out to be the corporation of Glas-
 
 GLASGOW 163 
 
 gow, the biggest corporation in Scotland. The 
 tramways, the gas, the electricity, the symphony 
 concerts, the Whistler purchase all were parts of 
 this Glasgow. These men were discussing econo- 
 mies, not parties; policies, not politics and they 
 did it as if it were their own business. 
 
 I went out to the sewage disposal works at Dal- 
 muir. An old employee took me in tow. He ex- 
 plained how the sewage was collected ; how it was 
 separated by chemical treatment, how the water 
 was purified before being poured into the River 
 Clyde. It was so pure, he said, that it was fit to 
 drink. He offered me a glassful, but I told him I 
 wasn't feeling thirsty just at that moment. So he 
 drank it himself. He told me how much the city 
 received from the sale of the sludge as fertiliser. 
 He explained the process as a gardener might de- 
 scribe the cultivation of some rare flower he had 
 given his life to producing. The man had been in 
 the city employ a long time. There was little dig- 
 nity, and less pay, about his position. But he was 
 a citizen of no mean city, and he was proud of his 
 job. He was loath to let me leave him and his cess- 
 pool. It was all so important to him, he felt it must 
 be equally important to the rest of the world. 
 
 Enthusiasm and interest, devotion and pride 
 these are the characteristics of Glasgow' citizenship. 
 I have talked with the heads of the city depart- 
 ments, with a score of town councillors, with police
 
 164 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 and fire officials, with clerks, bath-house custodians, 
 and conductors on the tram-cars with all sorts of 
 men, Tories and Liberals, Kadicals and Socialists, 
 from the Lord Provost down to the cab driver. And 
 this is the sort of citizenship I have everywhere 
 found. 
 
 Graft? Yes, I heard some talk of graft. The 
 Glaswegian doesn't call it that. He doesn't know 
 the word. But here and there a man would shake 
 his head and say : "The Council isn't what it used 
 to be." "It rather amazes me," said a newspaper 
 editor, "to read what you Americans are always 
 saying about us. Of course, though, I am a pessi- 
 mist ; but I cannot help feeling that the outlook here 
 isn't very good. The make-up of the Council is 
 changing. No, I have no personal knowledge of 
 corruption, but there are men who have. I'll give 
 you a note to a former councilman," mentioning 
 a prominent business man ; "he knows all about the 
 way things are going down in the Council cham- 
 ber." 
 
 It was true, then, this that I had so often heard 
 in America that no city could go in for such exten- 
 sive business as Glasgow had undertaken, without 
 corruption; that public ownership was bound to 
 demoralise a city. And here it was. Had even 
 Glasgow nothing to teach America? For that was 
 what I was looking for, lessons in city administra- 
 tion.
 
 GLASGOW 165 
 
 I called on one of Glasgow's most distinguished 
 citizens. He had been in the Council fifteen years, 
 and had but recently retired. He, too, was inclined 
 to send me away with the indefinite remark that 
 the Council was not what it once was; that there 
 were two or three aldermen who had no visible 
 means of support; mere adventurers, he called 
 them, who were making use of their positions in 
 questionable ways. 
 
 "Let me see," I inquired, remembering Chicago, 
 Philadelphia, and St. Louis. "You have no street 
 railway, gas, or electricity franchises to give away ; 
 no contracts to light the streets, for you do all these 
 things yourselves. You have abolished the con- 
 tractor, and do your own work. You have no fran- 
 chises, grants, or privileges, have you?" 
 
 "Oh, nothing of that kind, if that's what you 
 mean by graft," he promptly replied. 
 
 This was mystifying. Here was corruption, but 
 corruption without cause, for there was no one to 
 tempt the official. And men do not bribe them- 
 selves. When pressed to be more definite, he said : 
 "Well, there's Bailee so and so," mentioning a mem- 
 ber of the Council. "He was sitting in licence court 
 some years ago, and one evening he found on his 
 desk an envelope containing fifty pounds. It was 
 from a public-house keeper (saloon keeper) who 
 wanted a licence." "That was bad," I suggested. 
 "Was the magistrate prosecuted?" "Of course not,"
 
 166 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 came the indignant protest. "He didn't keep the 
 money. He made the matter known at once, and the 
 applicant was arrested. And, of course, he didn't 
 get his licence." 
 
 I professed the proper amount of horror, and 
 asked, "Any other instances of graft?" "Well, that 
 was a number of years ago. There was another 
 case of the same kind, but it wasn't so bad as that, 
 and we couldn't prove anything. But," he contin- 
 ued, "the trade is very active in politics. The liquor 
 interests are said to have backed one or two men 
 for the Council, men who have no business or pro- 
 fession, and who simply live by their wits." 
 
 Undoubtedly "the trade" is active in politics. 
 The Council names fourteen of its members as mag- 
 istrates in the police court. They determine what 
 licences shall be granted, and what refused. There 
 is evidence that the trade has organised for protec- 
 tion. It is certain that it aided in defeating Sir 
 Samuel Chisholm, one of the most distinguished 
 councilmen the city ever had. He had made him- 
 self obnoxious by a crusade against the traffic. Sir 
 Samuel is a prominent wholesale merchant. After 
 having been in the Town Council for half a genera- 
 tion, he became Lord Provost, the highest distinc- 
 tion in the community. As Lord Provost he urged 
 the clearing of some disreputable slums and the 
 erection of model dwelling houses for the poor. 
 This would have involved an increase in the tax
 
 GLASGOW 167 
 
 rate. The more parsimonious among the rate-pay- 
 ers combined with the trade and defeated him for 
 re-election. 
 
 The city is not menaced by any special privileges. 
 It is a government of the tax-payers, for the tax- 
 payers, by the tax-payers. For only tax-payers vote. 
 I never knew a city that hated taxes as much as 
 does Glasgow, and talked so everlastingly about the 
 rates. Any measure involving taxation, even for 
 the relief of the poor and the poor of Glasgow are 
 terribly poor, indeed has to pass a jealous scru- 
 tiny. Away back in the sixties the rate-payers de- 
 feated Lord Provost Blackie, who had promoted 
 the splendid clearance schemes for the destruction 
 of the city's worst slums. Glasgow is a tax-payers' 
 administration. I fancy it was these same tax- 
 payers who took over the various undertak- 
 ings of which the city is so proud. With Scotch 
 thrift they hated to see the profits go into private 
 pockets. 
 
 But I was not through with graft. I had read 
 in the London Times that the increasing army of 
 municipal employees was a menace to British insti- 
 tutions. I knew something of the spoils system in 
 America; knew that most people who feared mu- 
 nicipal ownership feared it because of this fact. 
 And here in Glasgow there are 15,000 men in the 
 city's employ. One-tenth of all the voters are on 
 the pay-rolls. Here was the only possible source
 
 168 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 of corruption. For nobody even suggested that the 
 city had been sold out to "the trade," or that the so- 
 called "adventurers" in the Council had ever sac- 
 rificed the city for their own advantage. I had been 
 told by a prominent citizen that the employees in 
 the gas department had once organised and threat- 
 ened to put the city in darkness if their wages were 
 not raised. Here was something real, something 
 I could verify. This was something ominous, for all 
 of our cities are adding to their activities and tak- 
 ing on new burdens which involve an increasing 
 number of employees. I went to Mr. James Dal- 
 rymple, the manager of the tramways, which the 
 Glasgow people say are the best in the world. The 
 department employs 4,400 men. I asked Mr. Dal- 
 rymple if his men were in politics; if their unions 
 had ever endeavoured to influence the Council, or 
 had tried to coerce the city. "Never within my 
 knowledge," he said. "The city is the best union 
 they can have, for the city pays good wages, better 
 than the private company did. The city gives the 
 men a nine-hour day; it provides them with free 
 uniforms; they have five days' holiday a year on 
 pay, and get sick benefits when off duty. They do 
 not need any union, although the city would not 
 mind if they did organise. There were one or two 
 instances of protest over piece-work, but we told 
 the men they could work as they pleased. There has 
 never been a strike, and never since the department
 
 GLASGOW 169 
 
 was opened, in 1894, have they attempted to influ- 
 ence the election of a councilman." 
 
 But the trouble had been in the gas department. 
 So I went to the gas manager. I asked him about 
 the strike, asked him what had happened when the 
 men threatened to close the works and blackmail 
 the city into submission. The strike turned out to 
 have been the reverse of serious. Some years before 
 an effort had been made to organise the workers 
 into a union. A handful of men left work without 
 giving notice, as they are required to do by law. 
 They were promptly discharged, and later prose- 
 cuted for leaving the works. There had been no 
 danger that the plant would close down. This was 
 the extent of this incident. It was as far as any 
 of the 15,000 employees have ever gone in control- 
 ling the Council. From time to time I heard ref- 
 erences to this danger from others, but of council- 
 manic influence, or attempted coercion, I never 
 heard of a single serious instance in all England. 
 Nor has the spoils system a place here. They do 
 not know what the spoils system means, although 
 England has no civil service laws. Each man runs 
 his department as he would a business. He picks 
 out the best men he can find; the city pays good 
 wages, and the employee remains as long as his ser- 
 vice is satisfactory. 
 
 This ended my pursuit of graft. I did ask the 
 Lord Provost, who has been in the Council for
 
 170 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 twenty years, about it. "There is none," he said. 
 "Any man who gave colour to the suspicion that he 
 was dishonest, that he was interested in a city con- 
 tract, that he even sought to make a place for a 
 relative or a friend, would be treated as a pariah. 
 He would be ostracised both in the Council and 
 out of it." 
 
 The Lord Provost is the head of the city. He is 
 as like our mayor as anything they have, and as 
 near a boss as anything I found only he is neither. 
 He has no offices to fill ; no veto messages to write ; 
 no party to lead; no salary to enjoy; no honours or 
 emoluments to bestow. He is a titular dignitary, 
 the first among equals. That is all. He is elected 
 as a councilman by his ward, and then chosen 
 mayor by the council over whose meetings he pre- 
 sides. He is an ex-officio member of all committees, 
 and his influence on legislation and the life of the 
 city depends upon his character, not upon his legal 
 powers. He represents the city on official occa- 
 sions, receives the King and distinguished guests. 
 No man can accept the position unless he can afford 
 to neglect his business and spend a considerable 
 sum of money in maintaining the dignity of the 
 office. The office is one of expense, not of income. 
 Despite his lack of legal authority, the Lord Pro- 
 vost exerts great influence on administration. He 
 is the busiest man in the city. His daily programme
 
 GLASGOW 171 
 
 is as full as that of a debutante at her first ball. 
 At the Town Hall by ten, the morning is filled with 
 correspondence and the sessions of committees. 
 Then an official luncheon. Later, perhaps, a meet- 
 ing of the Council, over which he presides, with 
 frequent interruptions to attend some public gath- 
 ering. In the evening a dinner, some notable gath- 
 ering, a congress or fair to be opened with a speech. 
 Later another address, possibly before some work- 
 ingmen's organisation. To these demands are added 
 various duties which fall upon him ex-officio, not 
 to speak of the arbitrament of labour disputes, the 
 representation of the city's interests before Parlia- 
 ment, and a host of other claims all equally in- 
 sistent. 
 
 What are the returns for all this sacrifice? When 
 the Lord Provost retires from office the city has his 
 portrait painted and hangs it in the Municipal Art 
 Gallery. It also places an official coach and pair 
 at his disposal. His other returns? Well, they are 
 certainly not of a financial sort. One of them is 
 the order of knighthood, which is usually bestowed 
 by the King. I asked the present Lord Provost 
 about these things. I had seen the portraits of his 
 predecessors in the art gallery all fine-looking 
 men, clad in purple robes and ermine, with massive 
 gold emblems about their necks. So I did not rec- 
 ognise as the Lord Provost the alert, breezy, busi- 
 ness man who dashed into his office like a railway
 
 172 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 magnate eager for the day's mail. While waiting 
 in the ante-room I had learned something about the 
 present incumbent, Sir John Ure Primrose. He 
 is a wealthy miller, and has been in the Council for 
 twenty years. During that time he has never had 
 a contest for his seat. For these people keep a man 
 in office as long as he is satisfactory. They do not 
 care whether he is a Conservative or a Liberal. He 
 may be a Labour candidate or a Socialist. All his 
 constituents ask is that he be a good councilman. 
 He must be that. There is no party nomination, no 
 party ticket, no platform only the man himself. 
 There are ward committees of a purely voluntary 
 sort which look after local interests. Two voters 
 with six seconders can place any man in nomina- 
 tion. The candidate has no assessments to pay, 
 no expenses to incur, no party to subscribe to, no 
 'boss to bow to, no machine to placate. In America, 
 the politicians tell us we must have parties in order 
 to have responsible government. The American 
 official is made responsible to his party, which is 
 his boss. With us the party is a fetich. The Glas- 
 gow alderman is responsible to the most exacting 
 of masters the people. There is the difference. 
 But if he serves them well he may remain as long 
 as he likes. Of the seventy-five elected members 
 now in the Council, more than one-third have been 
 there for at least ten years, eighteen have been in 
 office for at least fourteen years, while four have
 
 GLASGOW 173 
 
 served their wards for over twenty years. Like a 
 member of Parliament, the alderman need not live 
 in the ward he represents. In fact, not more than 
 one-third of them do. And about one-half never 
 have any contests for their seats. 
 
 The election is as simple as the nomination. The 
 ticket before the voter contains only the names of 
 the councilmanic nominees. The issue is clear. It 
 is not confused by national questions. 
 
 Here is pure democracy, the simplest that could 
 be devised. Nominations and elections by the peo- 
 ple directly, and so simply arranged that the issue 
 cannot be evaded, cannot be confused. There is no 
 boss, no machine, no party, nothing between the 
 people and their servant. When a ward is con- 
 tested, however, the campaign is as hot as if a seat 
 in Parliament were at stake, and the candidate has 
 to submit to a harassing "heckling" from the vot- 
 ers as to his position on local questions. In this 
 art the Scotch are masters. It is a body so chosen 
 that every three years elects from out its number 
 its most distinguished member, the Lord Provost. 
 
 Lord Provost Sir John Ure Primrose was a prod- 
 uct of this local democracy. He happened to be a 
 Conservative. His predecessor, Sir Samuel Chis- 
 holm, was a distinguished Liberal. William Bils- 
 land, who followed as mayor, is a Liberal. These 
 men were chosen without any change in the politi- 
 cal colour of the Council. I asked the Lord Provost
 
 174 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 Primrose why he gave up his time and business the 
 way he did for the city. 1 
 
 "It's in the blood," he said. "I had an uncle who 
 was Lord Provost before me. I was influenced by 
 his example. As far back as I can remember, I was 
 hoping to be Lord Provost. Even as a lad I con- 
 ceived the ambition to follow in the footsteps of my 
 uncle, John Ure. Even as a schoolboy I made a 
 study of extempore speaking, keeping before me this 
 ideal of public life. I was the oldest of a family 
 of twelve, and necessarily went into business as a 
 young man. At the age of thirty I entered public 
 life, being elected to the Council of the Borough of 
 Goven. Later I was elected to the Council of Glas- 
 gow, where I have served the city ever since." 
 
 "What was this boyish ambition?" I asked. 
 
 "It was an ambition to make the city a little bet- 
 ter before I die." 
 
 "Wouldn't you rather be an M.P.?" 
 
 "Decidedly not. A member of Parliament is but 
 part of a machine. The work in the Town Council 
 is creative. A man sees his w r ork grow before his 
 eyes." 
 
 "Is there any connection between the public spirit 
 of men like you and the public undertakings, such 
 
 'Sir John Ure Primrose retired in November, 1905, on the 
 expiration of his term. He was succeeded by a Liberal, Will- 
 iam Bilsland, who, in addition, is a leading advocate of the 
 Taxation of Land Values, as the Single-Taxer is called in 
 Scotland.
 
 GLASGOW 175 
 
 as the trams, gas, water, electricity, and telephones, 
 which the city carries on for its people?" I asked. 
 
 "Decidedly. A new ardour of citizenship came in 
 about 1894, the time when the city went in for the 
 tramway undertaking and a lot of other things. 
 When the city thus proved its interest in the people 
 the people responded by showing an increased in- 
 terest in the city. It's the ambition of every citizen 
 to serve in the Council. Every interest is repre- 
 sented there business, professional, and even the 
 labouring man. We have some men of wealth who 
 would not run for the Council. They are afraid to 
 rub shoulders with the labouring man. In a gen- 
 eral way, Glasgow has the civic spirit of the medi- 
 aeval Italian cities, though in a less perfervid and 
 cultured form." 
 
 "Have you any Socialists in the Council?" 
 
 "Yes; but Socialists aren't so bad. Even their 
 dreams are honest dreams. But they are not politi- 
 cal Socialists there, for we have no politics in the 
 Council. The Conservative, the Liberal, the Kadi- 
 cal, and the Socialist all work together for the city's 
 good." 
 
 "You people have taken over the water, gas, elec- 
 tricity, tramways, and telephone. Is there any op- 
 position to these undertakings in the city?" 
 
 "The gas and water were before my time. We 
 took over the trams only after a long fight. The 
 old private company that had a franchise gave us
 
 176 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 wretched service, were very arrogant, while the 
 condition of their employees was not very good. In 
 1894 their franchise expired, and the Council de- 
 cided to take the business over. We reduced the 
 fares, increased the length of the rides, nearly 
 trebled the mileage, and now it yields a splendid 
 revenue. There is nobody in the city who would 
 think of going back to private ownership. We took 
 over the electricity in 1902, and the telephones 
 about the same time." 
 
 "Where is this policy going to stop?" I inquired. 
 
 "I hold that everything that is in its essence a 
 monopoly, and is essential to the well-being of every 
 citizen of every degree, should be owned by the com- 
 munity. These things are the universal necessities ; 
 they are the things people cannot live without. 
 Then, too, they are monopolies. Every man uses 
 water and gas ; everyone rides on a tramway. These 
 things lie at the heart and w r ell-being of every citi- 
 zen of the community. I don't believe in going too 
 fast, however. I don't believe in three volcanoes at 
 once. I believe in evolution which means that 
 each undertaking should be perfected before the 
 next one is begun. We must keep the confidence of 
 the citizens. The corporation must never make a 
 mistake. The telephone is not a universal neces- 
 sity. That is the reason I opposed the city going 
 in for it. We can live without it. Besides, its des- 
 tiny is national, not local."
 
 GLASGOW 177 
 
 . That was all very well, I thought, but we have 
 some good mayors in America. We have men of 
 proved honesty, men of capacity, men of disinter- 
 ested service. And in recent years we have had 
 mayors with big ideals, men like Tom Johnson in 
 Cleveland, like Hazen S. Pingree in Detroit, like 
 Edward F. Dunne in Chicago, like Seth Low in 
 New York, like Sam Jones -and Brand Whitlock 
 in Toledo. So there was nothing either startling 
 or new about a good mayor. But our Councils are 
 bad, almost all of them. And here the Council 
 chooses the Lord Provost. I had to know the Coun- 
 cil, so I went to the Council chamber. 
 
 It was a massive room like the Senate chamber 
 at Washington; it was a chamber fitted to a city 
 that thought well of itself. The Council had dig- 
 nity, but a dignity with all the ardour of the House 
 of Representatives. The Lord Provost sat in a 
 throne-like chair. About him were those who had 
 elected him and those who will elect his successor 
 when he retires from office. 
 
 I was not alone as a visitor. The Postmaster- 
 General of Canada, the Lord Mayor of Dublin, the 
 Mayor of Frankfort, Germany, a delegation from 
 Belgium, visitors from South Africa, and three or 
 four others from America were there observing this 
 little republic at work. For the fame of Glasgow 
 seems as wide as the world. And the representa- 
 tives of the world's cities met there in cordial fra-
 
 178 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 ternity to learn of one another's experiments. This 
 was the tenor of the addresses. Not war and jeal- 
 ousy, but friendship and hospitality. 
 
 They said it was a quiet day. The Council was 
 passing on the accounts of the tramway, gas, police, 
 and cleansing committees. It was their annual re- 
 port to the directors and stockholders of this big 
 corporation. The Council committees and their 
 managers were justifying their stewardship. It 
 would have been a bad day for a delinquent, had 
 there been any. It was a hard-headed, blunt crowd 
 that listened to the reports. They despatched the 
 business of the day with a thoroughness and a 
 knowledge of details that suggested the Supreme 
 Court of the United States sitting in judgment. 
 They indulged in little rhetoric and less praise. 
 Their candour seemed almost brutal. There were 
 shipbuilders and shipowners, big merchants and 
 professional men. There were a dozen labour rep- 
 resentatives. Some of them were socialists. Here 
 I fancied I saw the beginnings of a party. It was 
 not organised as such, but its programme was evi- 
 dent in all the discussions. It was Scotch thrift 
 and humanity, the big rate-payer and the wage- 
 earner, that lined up in a parliamentary struggle 
 over the division of the surplus of the tramways 
 undertaking. Should the profits go to the sinking 
 fund, depreciation, and a big reserve, or should 
 the rates of fare be reduced and the haul for a ha'-
 
 GLASGOW 179 
 
 penny lengthened? The former policy always won 
 for Glasgow is, before all else, a city of thrift, 
 of caution, of prudence. It delights in a big profit 
 account. Xo board of directors ever protected their 
 investments more surely from disaster, or found 
 greater delight in an increasing dividend to the 
 stockholders. To be rid of the tramway debt seemed 
 the consuming ambition. I have never heard more 
 intelligent discussion of the principles that should 
 underlie public or private business than I heard 
 from these men, the majority of whom had strug- 
 gled up from humble beginnings. Many of them 
 were small tradesmen, bakers, butchers, hatters; 
 but they knew finance. Hugh Alexander, the chair- 
 man of the tramways committee, led the debate. He 
 once said in the Council that he had been educated 
 on three books : Fox's "Book of Martyrs,'' Boston's 
 "Fourfold State," and Harvey's "Meditations 
 Among the Tombs." And he discussed the obliga- 
 tions of the Council to its enterprises with the same 
 seriousness that he might have talked of predestina- 
 tion or free will. 
 
 Of such stuff are the directors of the corporation 
 of Glasgow. These are her captains of municipal 
 industry. It is such men who have sent the glory 
 of her efficiency to the ends of the earth. 
 
 Fourteen of the seventy-seven are bailees chosen 
 by the Council. In addition to their other duties, 
 they sit as police court magistrates, and dispense
 
 ISO THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 justice from two to four hours a day. Some are on 
 as many as nine committees. All of them serve on 
 five or six. Many of them are engaged on public 
 business all day long. 
 
 Here was a Town Council without corruption 
 at least we would smile at such irregularities as 
 disturb the Glaswegian ; a Council which knows no 
 party politics, and elected a Liberal to succeed a 
 Conservative as Lord Provost without a change in 
 its political complexion. Here, too, was a city 
 which knows no boss but itself; which takes the 
 merit system as a matter of course, and without 
 any law enforcing it; a city which keeps its offi- 
 cials in office as long as they will stay, or as long as 
 they serve the convictions of their constituents; a 
 city which makes its enterprises pay, and pay big, 
 and watches its finances as prudently as the most 
 conservative banking house; a city in which it is 
 the ambition of every citizen to serve without pay 
 and without return, save in the approval of his 
 fellows. 
 
 Here, too, is a city which knows no favour, no 
 friendship, no politics, in the choice of its servants. 
 "Wanted, a Town Clerk. The Corporation of Glas- 
 gow," so the newspaper advertisement runs, "in- 
 vites applications for the office of Town Clerk, 
 which is about to become vacant. The salary will 
 be $10,000 a year." Here was the most important 
 salaried office within the gift of the Council, an
 
 GLASGOW 181 
 
 office which combines the duties of the city solicitor 
 as well as all the clerical duties of the city, hunting 
 for the man, much as a German city looks for a 
 lord mayor, or an American college or church 
 searches for a president or a minister. The corpo- 
 ration was offering its most influential post to the 
 candidate from all Great Britain best qualified to 
 fill it. 
 
 Here, too, is a city in which all citizens are 
 united, demanding efficient service and securing it; 
 a city in which the privileged few who own the fran- 
 chise corporations in America, and the unprivileged 
 many who are seeking a job, are united with the 
 city rather than against it. For Glasgow offers no 
 franchises whose values run into the millions as a 
 tempting treasure to gamble for. There are no 
 privileges to corrupt the Council; no big financial 
 interests to unite the rich and influential, the press 
 and the bar, the club and the church on one side, 
 and leave democracy, untaught and unled, blindly 
 to carry on the burdens of self-government. This 
 absence of privilege frees the best talent of the city ; 
 it unites its purse with its patriotism. It is this 
 absence of class interest that binds and fuses the 
 whole people into one ambition an honest city, an 
 economical city, a serviceable city. And they get 
 it, too. The city's properties are worth $95,000,000, 
 and the annual revenues from reproductive under- 
 takings alone exceed f 15,000,000. All these enter-
 
 182 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 prises are handled with the most scrupulous hon- 
 esty. None of their earnings sticks in the hands 
 of contractors, aldermen, or clerks on its way to 
 the city treasury. Such a thing as official corrup- 
 tion is almost unknown. 
 
 A city with such a citizenship would have gotten 
 good government under any charter. So it was not 
 the form of government that explained it all, al- 
 though the method of choosing the Council makes it 
 very easy to secure good men. Nor is it home rule. 
 For the British city is more dependent upon Par- 
 liament than the American city is upon the State 
 Legislature. Parliament is most exacting in its 
 control and supervision of the city. Special per- 
 mission has to be got at Westminster to enter any 
 industry, to build tram lines, to lay water or gas 
 mains, to borrow for any improvement. Parliament 
 determines the amount which must be laid aside 
 in a sinking fund for all undertakings. Its finances 
 and its activities are only determined by the people 
 after Parliament has given its consent, and it took 
 five years of unremitting effort to secure permis- 
 sion to run the telephones. The absence of the 
 spoils system offers some explanation. Only it is a 
 result, not a cause, for there is no act of Parliament 
 making the merit system compulsory. 
 
 The explanation of Glasgow is deeper down than 
 the form of the charter, deeper than the merit sys-
 
 GLASGOW 183 
 
 tern, deeper than the method of electing council- 
 men by popular nominations important as these 
 things are. It is deeper than the Scotch character, 
 thrifty, prudent, and careful though it is. I fancied 
 it -was the Scotch character, despite conditions in 
 Pittsburg, the most thoroughly Scotch, as it is 
 among the worst, of American cities. So I went to 
 Edinburgh, the most beautiful of all British cities, 
 as it is the centre of the culture, literature, and tra- 
 ditions of Scotland. Here one should find the 
 Scotchman at his best. I went to the Town Hall. 
 The Lord Provost and the Town Clerk were away. 
 I wanted to see the Council. It would not meet 
 for several weeks. It seldom met oftener than once 
 every three weeks. I looked into its enterprises. 
 "We don't go in for such things as Glasgow does," 
 said an official. "We lease our tramways to a pri- 
 vate company. The gas and water are in the hands 
 of a parliamentary commission. The members of 
 our Council are too busy with their own affairs to 
 devote much time to the city." Glasgow, I found, 
 was in disfavour. Its thrift and enterprise were 
 undignified almost vulgar in the minds of the 
 Scotchmen of the capital city. 
 
 So I returned to Glasgow, to the man on the 
 trams, to the business man in the club, to the trades- 
 man in his shop. For I had come to believe that it 
 is the people who make the official, that it is they 
 who control the administration. We have seen that
 
 184 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 fact in Cleveland, where the people have achieved 
 efficient government; we have seen it in Chicago, 
 where, if the people have not good government, they 
 at least have aspiring administration; we have seen 
 it in Philadelphia which is a people in eruption. 
 
 So I went to the people and listened to their talk 
 of Glasgow. But it was not Glasgow so much as 
 it was the trams, the gas, the telephones, the parks, 
 the bowling-greens, the baths, the concerts, the 
 splendid sewage works, and the everlasting rates. 
 It was the Alderman So-and-so, and his speech at 
 the last Council. It was Scott Gibson and his con- 
 demnation of his fellow members for voting a few 
 pounds out of the treasury for some dinner or other. 
 It was a longer ride on the trams for a cent. For 
 the man on the street knows about these things. It 
 is this that keeps him alert. He is a good citizen 
 because it is his city; it gives him more for his 
 money than anyone else, and it gives him many 
 things. 
 
 So I came to believe that the Glaswegian loves 
 his Glasgow, as his forbears loved their Highlands, 
 because Glasgow loves its people. 
 
 "We don't compare our tramways with Manches- 
 ter or Liverpool," one of them said to me. "We 
 have the best system in the United Kingdom." I 
 think that is true. I have ridden on most of them, 
 and the Glasgow system seems to me the best of
 
 GLASGOW 185 
 
 them all. The service is as frequent as could be 
 asked, and you get a seat for a fare. You get it 
 on top of the cars if you want a smoke, and the cars 
 go everywhere. They are cleaned and disinfected 
 every night; they are bright as fresh paint can keep 
 them; they have no advertisements on them; they 
 are easy-riding, and are laid on concrete founda- 
 tions with grooved rails, which offer no obstruction 
 to other traffic. The conductors are courteous 
 they have to be. They have 1,000,000 critics, all 
 watching them. 
 
 I went again to see Mr. James Dalrymple, the 
 general manager of the street railway system. He 
 had been recently promoted to the position from 
 that of head bookkeeper. The chief, Mr. James 
 Young, had resigned, and his first and second 
 assistants had been called to other towns. The 
 managers of the British tramways are not often 
 engineers. They are business men, whose duties 
 are those of administration. They are not electri- 
 cal experts. Mr. Dalrymple had just returned from 
 America, where he had gone in response to a request 
 from Mayor Dunne of Chicago. He did not tell me 
 his impressions of America, or express an opinion 
 of our ability to manage municipal enterprises. He 
 did say that he had made a study of the street rail- 
 way systems in America, and had been entertained 
 by their managers in all of the leading cities. And 
 their opinion of municipal ownership and American
 
 186 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 politics we all know. But Mr. Dalrymple is a 
 Scotchman. He could not be that and not be con- 
 vinced that no other people in the world can do 
 what Glasgow has done. That's Scotch nature. 
 They feel that way even toward England. It's hu- 
 man nature, too, for haven't we been sending men 
 to Glasgow for years to learn how that city does 
 things? 
 
 For Glasgow has made good on her tramways. 
 A private company ran the system from 1871 to 
 1894. But the service was bad, and the treatment 
 of the employees intolerable. The people protested. 
 They tried to regulate the abuses. The company 
 was arrogant; for what could the city do about it? 
 Then Glasgow awoke. A campaign for municipal 
 ownership was started. Two elections were fought 
 over this issue. In 1892 the city decided to take 
 over the operation. This was done two years later. 
 
 The private company predicted failure; said the 
 city would go bankrupt. So they refused to sell 
 the Council their cars, because they expected the 
 system to come back to them in a short time. 
 
 The first thing the city did was to reduce the 
 hours and increase the wages of the employees. 
 Then free uniforms were added, along with five 
 days' holiday each year on pay. This increased 
 consideration for the employees now costs the de- 
 partment something like $500,000 a year. The 
 Council did not stop here. Hauls were lengthened,
 
 GLASGOW 1ST 
 
 and fares cut down 33 per cent. To-day, one may 
 ride a half mile for a cent; two and one-third miles 
 for two cents ; and three and a half miles for three 
 cents. For fares are arranged on the zone system. 
 You pay for what you get. The main thing is, what 
 does the average rider pay? In 1905, it was 1.89 
 cents, while the average fare charged per mile was 
 nine-tenths of a cent. Of the 195,000,000 passen- 
 gers carried, 30 per cent, paid but one cent., 60 
 per cent, but two cents, and only 10 per cent, of 
 the total number carried paid more than the latter 
 sum. All fares in excess of two cents might be 
 abolished and the earnings would hardly show it. 
 
 And the cost to the city for carrying the average 
 passenger (not including interest charges) was just 
 under one cent in 1905. An examination of the 
 earnings and expenses shows that the Glasgow 
 tramways could pay all operating expenses, could 
 maintain the system, could pay local taxes the same 
 as a private company, and still carry passengers 
 at a universal fare of one cent. It could do this 
 and make money. On the basis of that year's earn- 
 ings it would make about $75,000, even if there 
 was no increase in traffic. For the operating ex- 
 penses and maintenance charge in 1905 were $1,- 
 884,150. If the 195,707,519 passengers carried had 
 paid one cent each, the earnings would have been 
 $ 1,957,075. 
 
 But there would be an increase in traffic. Glas-
 
 188 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 gow proved that in 1894, when it reduced its fares 
 by 33 per cent. In three years' time the number of 
 passengers carried doubled; by 1905 the number 
 had more than thribbled. This was accompanied 
 by a great increase in the mileage of the system, 
 as well as the electro-equipment of the lines. But 
 all over England they say it's cheap fares and good 
 service that make municipal dividends on the tram- 
 ways. The chief complaint in Glasgow is that the 
 tramways make too much money. The man who 
 rides protests mildly that his fare should be still 
 further reduced, or the length of the ride extended. 
 During the first eleven months after opening the 
 system in 1894 it earned as a horse line, over and 
 above operating expenses, the sum of $208,525. 
 Since that time the growth has been tremendous. 
 The system was opened with 63 miles of track. It 
 now has 147. The gross earnings were $1,066,187 in 
 1895. In 1905 they were $3,721,854. During the 
 same period the number of passengers carried in- 
 creased from 57,104,647 to 195,767,519. The Council 
 is almost embarrassed to find proper means to dis- 
 pose of the profits. In 1905 the system paid working 
 expenses, put $334,036 into maintenance and re- 
 pairs, and paid $188,731 in local taxes. There still 
 remained $1,837,704 as net profits. This was equiv- 
 alent to a dividend of 13.78 per cent, on the total 
 capital investment in the plant, and 21 per cent, 
 on the present outstanding indebtedness.
 
 GLASGOW 189 
 
 That is why the man on the tram complains. 
 He says the Council is not only making him pay 
 for his ride, but also pay for the plant, by charging 
 twice as much as it costs to carry him. He thinks 
 it unfair to compel this generation to make a pres- 
 ent of the enterprise free from debt to the next one. 
 He points to the fact that the system is worth $11,- 
 965,305. In eleven years' time the debt has been 
 reduced to $8,835,939, while $762,873 additional 
 has been paid into the "Common Good," as well 
 as a like sum in taxes. At this rate, the plant will 
 be free from indebtedness in less than ten years' 
 time. 
 
 The Council replies by saying: "Look at your 
 fares. They have been cut down one-third. Those 
 who travel are better off by $1,000,000 a year than 
 they would have been under private management. 
 In eleven years' time the savings alone to the passen- 
 gers exceed the total bonded debt now against the 
 system." The enterprise has already paid for 
 itself out of earnings and savings. It looks as 
 though it had not only paid for itself, but 
 earned about a million dollars besides. It has 
 also repaid the cost of the old horse lines, as well 
 as a splendid manufacturing plant where all the 
 cars and equipment are built by the city by direct 
 labour. 
 
 Such, at least, are the figures which "The Glas- 
 gow Corporation Tramways" publish to the world.
 
 190 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 I asked Mr. Dalrymple about the effect of munici- 
 pal ownership on the people. He said : 
 
 "The opening of the trams in 1894 was coinci- 
 dent with, many people would say it was the cause 
 of, the renaissance of civic enthusiasm that has 
 characterised the last ten years of the life of the 
 city. Undoubtedly the more things the city does 
 for the people, the more the people are interested 
 in the city. Municipal ownership fosters interest 
 in municipal affairs." 
 
 The man on the trams is evidently right. He 
 owns the trams; therefore he is interested in them. 
 He owns the gas, the water, the electricity supply, 
 and the telephones. Therefore he watches them. 
 He loves Glasgow just as does the Lord Provost, 
 the hard-headed alderman, the man in the club, the 
 caretaker of the city's sewage works. The city is 
 his parent. It cares for him. And it is worth 
 working for. It is so big in its ideals, so big in its 
 achievements, so big in its kindness and goodness. 
 
 The Glaswegian still grumbles a little in his 
 pride. Probably he will always grumble. That is 
 one of the things government means to him. He 
 got his trams, his telephones, his parks, his concerts, 
 by grumbling. But his present trouble is a bigger 
 one. He says: "We extended our tram lines far 
 out into the suburbs; we had so many poor, such 
 terrible slums, so much sickness, vice, and misery. 
 We wanted to give our people a chance, wanted
 
 GLASGOW 191 
 
 to get them out of the tenements and into the coun- 
 try, where land was cheap. We reduced our fares. 
 In consequence, earnings fell off. Instead of mak- 
 ing land cheap for the poor, we made it valuable 
 for the landlords. We cut down commuters' fares 
 a pound a year, and rentals went up exactly one 
 pound a year. We sought to secure cheap homes 
 for our people, but the land speculator appropriated 
 the whole thing." 
 
 Then he did what he always does this Glaswe- 
 gian. He worried the Council, and the Council in 
 turn went to Parliament. The Council said : "We 
 have created immense fortunes for the land owners 
 about the city. But not content with what he has 
 already got, the landlord wants more, and sits idly 
 by until the people must have his land at any price." 
 The Council introduced a bill in Parliament to tax 
 these land values and retake to itself a portion of 
 the millions which its enterprise had created, and 
 which it is now fined for using. It did more. It 
 laid aside $15,000 to promote the bill. Tons of lit- 
 erature were distributed, and the city's officials 
 were turned into agents for propaganda work. 
 When Glasgow wants a thing it wants it hard. 
 Then the Council called a conference of cities on 
 "The Taxation of Land Values." More than five 
 hundred local authorities responded. Then they all 
 moved on Parliament and proceeded to worry the 
 members. Of course, Parliament wouldn't listen.
 
 192 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 For the members of Parliament own Great Britain. 
 They are getting rich out of the growth of the towns. 
 And they have paid no taxes on their land as land 
 for several centuries at least. This is a fact Eng- 
 lish land has not been reappraised for taxation 
 since the seventeenth century. 
 
 In its attitude toward Parliament, Glasgow re- 
 minds one of a terrier barking at the heels of a 
 mastiff. I fancy Parliament must hate this heck- 
 ling, thrifty municipality that is forever making 
 war on the abuses and privileges which everywhere 
 exist in England, and which are so profitable. For 
 the members of Parliament not only own the land, 
 they own the big city franchises, just as the United 
 States Senate owns or represents the big railroads. 
 And it must be annoying, this nagging against mon- 
 opoly. They say in England if the Glasgow man 
 doesn't go to heaven when he dies he will make it 
 very uncomfortable for the devil. But that's the 
 way he got his municipal telephone system. For 
 five long years the city spent money and energy try- 
 ing to induce Parliament to permit it to open an 
 exchange in competition with the private company 
 which was giving bad service and charging high 
 rates. It finally got permission in 1901. By 1905 
 the system had twelve thousand subscribers and 
 covered 143 square miles. An unlimited telephone 
 service cost $25.55 a year, and a limited one only 
 |17.03. The population served is about a million.
 
 GLASGOW 193 
 
 Then the private company reduced charges. But 
 despite the cheapening of rates, the exchange made 
 money, even in the face of the competition of the 
 old-established company. 
 
 The telephone was the last big enterprise taken 
 over. The city has had the water supply since 
 1855. It bought out two private companies. Then 
 it went to Loch Katrine, 34 miles away, in the heart 
 of the Highlands, to get a supply. Glasgow spent 
 millions for pure water, and now has one of the 
 finest supplies in the world. It makes money, too, 
 though the rates for domestic use are but ten cents 
 in the pound for rental. This means that for every 
 $100 of house rental paid, an additional charge of 
 $2 is made for water service. 
 
 The gas supply is also owned by the city. It 
 was bought from private parties in 1869. It is run 
 for the benefit ^of the people and not for the sake 
 of dividends. Gas is sold at 51 cents a thousand 
 feet for domestic use; for power purposes the price 
 is but 43 cents. The very poor are encouraged to 
 use gas by penny-in-the-slot devices, by which one 
 can get enough gas with which to cook a meal for 
 two cents. The city encourages industry by low 
 prices. This diminishes the smoke nuisance, De- 
 spite the reduction in price, the net profits in 1905 
 amounted to $271,930. 
 
 The price of gas has been reduced from year to 
 year. It was 78 cents in 1885, 60 cents in 1895.
 
 194 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 To-day it ranges from 43 to 51 cents. The financial 
 showing is almost as remarkable as the tramways. 
 While the capital expenditure is $18,319,170, the 
 present actual indebtedness is but f 9,340,200. The 
 surplus of capital expenditure, above the debt 
 against the undertaking, is $8,978,970. This is what 
 the city has made through owning the plant, in 
 addition to the millions saved by cheaper gas. 
 
 The electricity supply has been owned since 1892. 
 The city bought out a private monopoly for $75,000. 
 Then it proceeded to make the plant useful. For 
 that is the policy of Glasgow, to make itself useful 
 to its people. It proceeded to enlarge the system, 
 to extend the conduits all over the city. It has 
 since spent about $6,000,000 on the undertaking. 
 Now it can serve everybody, and serving everybody, 
 can reduce charges. It also sells power to the tram- 
 way department and manufacturing plants. For 
 Glasgow tries to encourage industry just as it aims 
 to promote comfort and convenience. For very 
 small consumers, the rates for lighting are 12 cents 
 per kilowatt hour and 2 cents for all current in ex- 
 cess of a small minimum. For power and heating 
 purposes, the charge is from 1^ cents to 3 cents, 
 according to the quantity used. The average price 
 received from all consumers is 5.09 cents. 
 
 Glasgow says it would be just as absurd for the 
 owner of a skyscraper to permit a private elevator 
 company to collect fares from his tenants, or for an
 
 GLASGOW 195 
 
 outside plumber to own the fixtures and collect for 
 light and heat, as it is for a city to turn over its 
 streets to private tramways, gas, and electric light- 
 ing companies. Glasgow prefers to do its own 
 plumbing and run its own elevators. 
 
 These are the big things Glasgow does. They 
 are the spectacular exhibits. But it does other 
 things. A mere enumeration of its enterprises makes 
 a long catalogue. It runs several farms upon which 
 it uses the street refuse as fertiliser. It has brought 
 them to a high state of fertility, and produces pro- 
 visions for its departments. Even from this source 
 it has a net income of $3,000 a year. It has a won- 
 derful system of sewage disposal, which is nearing 
 completion. The River Clyde has always been a 
 foul-smelling stream, but the city is expending mil- 
 lions to purify it through the destruction of its 
 sewage and the use of the sludge as fertiliser. The 
 city fire department has a big workshop at the cen- 
 tral station where it builds all of its own apparatus, 
 just as the tramway department erects its own cars. 
 Glasgow seems bent on being rid of the private con- 
 tractor. The alderman smiles when charged with 
 socialism, and says it is good business for the city 
 to erect its own cars, to make its own fire apparatus, 
 and employ its own men. And now the Council is 
 after the big contractors who build and sewer the 
 streets. It recently asked for tenders for the con- 
 struction of a sewer. The lowest bid received was
 
 196 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 |600,000. The city suspected a combine, and pro- 
 ceeded to build the sewer itself, at a cost of only 
 $375,000. Now it receives estimates from its own 
 engineer on all jobs, and is rapidly becoming its 
 own contractor. It pockets the profits which for- 
 merly went to the middleman, just as it pockets the 
 dividends which formerly went to the tramway com- 
 pany. The city does much of its work by direct 
 labour. Over this policy there is some difference of 
 opinion, but those who advocate it insist that it is 
 more economical and more efficient than contract 
 work. 
 
 Thus Glasgow looks after her people. She is as 
 frugal as a Scotch parent. I fancy the parable of 
 the talents rather than that of the prodigal son 
 finds most favour in the Scotch soul. There is no 
 waste here. In her thriftiness, Glasgow takes profit 
 from her people. Possibly they love her the better 
 for her thrift. But it looks like usury to the out- 
 sider, her enterprises earn so much. In 1905 the 
 gross profits of her five big undertakings were as 
 follows: Tramways, $1,852,855; gas, $718,154; 
 electricity, $543,952; water, $763,904; telephones, 
 $100,961. The total profits were $3,979,826. Of 
 this, however, $1,398,880 was paid for interest on 
 the investment. But a snug little sum of $2,580,946 
 still remained in excess of what it cost the city to 
 pay all charges against these enterprises. 1 
 
 'Bulletin Bureau of Labour, January, 1906.
 
 GLASGOW 197 
 
 FINANCIAL RESULTS OF THE OPERATION OF THE 
 
 TRAMWAYS, GAS, ELECTRICITY, WATER, AND 
 
 TELEPHONE UNDERTAKINGS OF GLASGOW 
 
 FOR THE 1EAR ENDING MAY 31, 1905. 
 
 Gross Operating Net Interest Net 
 
 Industry, receipts, expenses, receipts, payment. profit. 
 
 Tramways. $3,737,005 $1,884,150 $1,852,855 $242,868 $1,609,987 
 
 Gas 3,894,061 3,175,907 718,154 446,224 271,930 
 
 Electricity. 906,978 363,026 543,952 185,815 358,137 
 
 Water 1,212,999 449,095 763,904 479,258 284,646 
 
 Telephones. 269,733 168,772 100,961 44,715 56,246 
 
 Total... $10,020,776 $6,040,950 $3,979,826 $1,398,880 $2,580,946 
 
 But the Council does not use these earnings to 
 relieve the taxpayer, as is frequently asserted. Not 
 a penny of it goes to such a purpose. It is all re- 
 turned to the undertaking used to pay bonds, im- 
 prove the system, and reduce the cost to the con- 
 sumer. 1 
 
 l lt is not infrequently asserted that the city of Glasgow de- 
 rives so large a revenue from the various industries managed 
 by it that local taxes have been completely abandoned. As 
 a matter of fact, Glasgow derives no such aid from these 
 sources at all, although the contributions made to the Com- 
 mon Good fund are very substantial. This fund is a sort of 
 common reservoir, into which the Town Council places any 
 unnecessary earnings, to be used as the Council may deter- 
 mine, but usually for some permanent improvement. All of 
 the ordinary expenditures of the city are paid from the rates, 
 or from aids granted by the Imperial Government. These aids 
 are paid to the local authorities of all Great Britain, and 
 amount to a total of about seventy-five million dollars a year. 
 
 As an indication of the expenditures of a British city, and 
 for the purpose of making comparison with our own, the fol- 
 lowing table is presented. It was prepared through the kind- 
 ness of Mr. John Bowers, the Town Clerk. It indicates the 
 sums raised from taxation, as well as those received from the 
 Government for Municipal, School Board, and Poor Relief 
 purposes, as well as the amount per head for each of these 
 purposes. In a general way, the most striking thing about
 
 198 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 The same thrift characterises little things. For 
 Glasgow neglects nothing. Her motto is "Let Glas- 
 gow flourish." Interpreted by the aldermen, this 
 means municipal dividends. The city makes money 
 on its slum-clearance schemes, upon which model 
 dwellings have been erected, and which are now 
 
 the exhibit is the surprisingly large amount collected for poor 
 relief and the relatively small sum raised for school purposes. 
 The population of Glasgow is approximately 800,000. 
 
 EXPENDITURES OF THE CITY OF GLASGOW, 
 YEAR 1904-1905. 
 
 Statement showing the sum raised by assessment for Mu- 
 nicipal, School Board, and Poor Relief purposes, the relative 
 Government Grants, and the amount expended per head of 
 population which each of these represents, together with the 
 corresponding totals for the three purposes combined : 
 
 Per head of 
 
 Amount Population. 
 
 Municipal Purposes: s. d. 
 
 Rates (945,189) $4,536,907 (1 4 0.80) $5.98 
 
 Gov't Grants ( 85,804) 411,859 (0 2 2.22) .53 
 
 (1,030,993) $4,948,766 (1 6 3.02) $6.51 
 
 School Board Purposes: s. d. 
 
 Rates (224,270) $1,076,496 (0 5 8.53) $1.37 
 
 Gov't Grants ( 195,897) 940,305 (0 411.85) 1.19 
 
 (420,167) $2,016,801 (0 10 8.38) $2.56 
 
 Poor Relief Purposes: s. d. 
 
 Rates ( 269,743 ) $l-,294,486 (0 6 10.42 ) $1.65 
 
 Gov't Grants ( 33,917) 162,803 (0 010.37) .20 
 
 (303,660) $1,457,289 (0 7 8.79) $1.85 
 
 Aggregate: s. d. 
 
 Rates (1,439,202) $6,907,889 (1 16 7.75) $9.01 
 
 Gov't Grants ( 315,618) 1,514,967 (0 8 0.44) 1.92 
 
 (1,754,820) $8,422,856 (2 4 8.19) $10.93
 
 GLASGOW 199 
 
 paying their way in rentals at a rate which in time 
 Avill leave them free from debt. Glasgow undertook 
 this project back in 1866. It cost a lot of money, 
 but it checked disease and brought down the death- 
 rate. The undertaking showed a deficit for a num- 
 ber of years, but is now justifying itself financially 
 as well as otherwise. 
 
 But Glasgow has few deficits. A Council com- 
 mittee hates a shortage in an undertaking just as 
 a proud banker suffers from a bad loan. Some 
 years ago the city conceived the idea of Saturday 
 afternoon concerts in the public halls. At first they 
 were of a rather frivolous sort. They now offer 
 the best of entertainments, and during the winter 
 months fine oratorios and splendid choral work is 
 presented to weekly audiences of 30,000 people. The 
 admission fee is but two cents, but even this pays. 
 Not much, it is true, for profit is not the object; 
 but the joy of it all is heightened by the fact that 
 it pays its way. Even the sewage collected at the 
 sewage disposal works realises a handsome sum, 
 when sold as a fertiliser, as does the cleansing de- 
 partment, which has the care of the streets. 
 
 The city scorns not the pennies of the labouring 
 man who halts in the evening for a game of bowls 
 on the municipal greens. It gathers in the coppers 
 from the millions who frequent the twelve public 
 bath-houses which have been erected in various 
 parts of the city, as well as the pennies of the poor
 
 200 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 who make use of the public laundries which are con- 
 nected with them. We are going in for such things 
 all over America, but I doubt if any of our cities 
 even attempt to make them pay. 
 
 But it is not unlovely this thrift. It is probably 
 the height of wisdom. A people values that which 
 costs them effort. They value the lodging-houses 
 provided for men and women alike, where a bed 
 can be had for a few cents. They value the widow- 
 er's home, where the working man with children 
 can leave his infants under proper care. And they 
 value all the more the baths, the concerts, the game 
 of bowls on the green, because they have paid their 
 full worth, and paid it to themselves. And during 
 the long winter months the Council invites the peo- 
 ple to lectures in its own halls, of which there are 
 thirteen, where it tells them all about these things. 
 These lectures are free to all, and the chairmen of 
 the committees and the managers of the undertak- 
 ings go all over the city discussing such subjects 
 as "The Health of the Community," "The Corpora- 
 tion Tramways," "The Glasgow Police Force," and 
 "The Public Parks." No wonder the man on the 
 trams was wise wiser even than the average Amer- 
 ican alderman. He had been taken into the con- 
 fidence of his city. It is this reciprocal relationship 
 that accounts for Glasgow's fine citizenship. The 
 city cares for the people, and the people in turn 
 are jealous for the city. There is a fine fraternal
 
 GLASGOW 201 
 
 sense even though the debit account is so scrupu- 
 lously watched. 
 
 But Glasgow has its benevolences. It provides 
 generously for public concerts in the parks; it 
 has acquired some fine halls for public use; it 
 has a splendid municipal art collection, housed 
 in a fine gallery. Its parks and playgrounds 
 are extensive. They are beautifully main- 
 tained, and are open to the widest use. Its public 
 library is comparable to those of many cities in 
 America. 
 
 The city has its little extravagances, too. They 
 are part of the show. For the British city delights 
 in the spectacular. That is one of the things the 
 Lord Mayor is for to be the city's host, and foot 
 its entertainment bills. It seems like an anti-climax 
 to a long and distinguished aldermanic career to 
 be offered the privilege of expending from five to 
 twenty thousand dollars a year for the maintenance 
 of the city's dignity and the entertainment of its 
 guests. Yet this is a privilege to which the best 
 of Britain's business men aspire. And Glasgow has 
 many little flings at the expense of the treasury. 
 The aldermen go on trips to England and the Con- 
 tinent in the study of other cities. Every fortnight 
 or so one of the departments has an inspection, 
 which is its annual show. This is followed by a 
 luncheon at the Town Hall. A hundred or more 
 of the city's officials, with their guests, sit down to
 
 202 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 a dinner in the Council Chamber, and hear about 
 the committee's achievements. 
 
 I attended one of these inspections. We drove 
 over the city and returned to the Town Hall to 
 luncheon. There was all the orderliness of a state 
 dinner; the rank and station of each man was as- 
 signed. There were speeches, vastly more inter- 
 esting than those of an ordinary dinner, for they 
 all talked Glasgow. Not as an American city might 
 talk to a river and harbor committee from Congress 
 from whom it hoped for a generous appropriation ; 
 it was not business, tonnage, bank clearances. These 
 men were too big with Glasgow to talk about pri- 
 vate business. It was rather the sort of thing that 
 college men do at a fraternity banquet. 
 
 The motive of it all? "Men like to be in the 
 midst of big things. They like to serve the com- 
 munity that serves them," said Dr. Kobert Craw- 
 ford, one of the city's most distinguished citizens, 
 a man who had served with distinction on the Coun- 
 cil, and had promoted its big health and clearance 
 schemes. 
 
 "It's a sense of noblesse oblige," said Lord Pro- 
 vost Primrose, "an ambition to make the city a 
 cleaner, healthier, happier, more comfortable place 
 in which to live." 
 
 "It's my city," says the man on the tram.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 LONDON: A MUNICIPAL DEMOCRACY 
 
 LONDON is not a city. It is a score of cities. 
 Everybody speaks of it as a city, but nobody really 
 thinks of it as one. Men think only of what Lon- 
 don means to them. It means Mayfair, Belgravia, 
 Westminster, the City about the Bank, or White- 
 chapel. London is a place a place where the 
 world-wide empire of Great Britain and, in a sense, 
 all mankind, converge. It is a place, too, where 
 all the world comes. Men live in closer association 
 here than anywhere else in the world. But still 
 London is not a city. It is not a city in the eyes of 
 the law. It is a county. And its governing body 
 is called a County Council. 
 
 I do not pretend to know how this area of one 
 hundred and eighteen square miles called Lon- 
 don is governed. I suppose there are some men 
 who do know, but they must be very few. A man 
 of ordinary intelligence can comprehend the char- 
 ter of an American city in a few hours' time at 
 most ; but to understand the government of London 
 is to understand the history of London and the acts 
 of Parliament for centuries at least. The munici- 
 
 203
 
 204 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 pal code of an American city seldom exceeds a few 
 printed pages. The model code proposed by the 
 National Municipal League for adoption by the 
 legislatures of the States contains in all but twenty- 
 five printed pages. The charter of London, how- 
 ever, with all of its political agencies, would fill 
 a large volume, and the laws are all so interrelated 
 and builded upon the past, that no one, save an 
 antiquary, ever could know all about them. For 
 London never has had a definitely co-ordinated sys- 
 tem of government struck off at one sitting of Par- 
 liament. At no time has Parliament been willing 
 to take up the administration of the metropolis 
 in the way the Legislature of New York did that 
 of Manhattan Island when it adopted her recent 
 charter. The British mind hates any violent de- 
 parture from the past. It fears to begin anew. 
 It has an instinctive terror of any big change. If 
 all the laws from the time of the first political 
 organisation of the Dutch in the seventeenth cen- 
 tury, down to the last act of the Albany Legislature, 
 were preserved as the charter of New York, we 
 should have some idea of the governmental machin- 
 ery of the metropolis of the United Kingdom. 
 
 This is why few people really know how London 
 is governed; what are the powers of the various 
 political bodies; just where Parliament and the 
 County Council begin and the boroughs, boards, 
 commissions, and Poor Law agencies end.
 
 LONDON 205 
 
 A real attempt was made to evolve order out of 
 chaos in 1888, when the London County Council 
 was formed. But Parliament halted before it had 
 gone very far. It took fright at the idea of creating 
 a little democracy in the heart of the Empire. And 
 it had been better for Parliament had it left things 
 as they were. For the London County Council has 
 been the terror of the age-long privileges of the 
 landlords and franchise owners of the metropolis 
 ever since it came into existence. Parliament made 
 still further concessions to necessity in 1899, when 
 it swept away a multitude of parishes, and created 
 twenty-seven metropolitan boroughs, with Councils 
 and mayors, like any other city. These little cities 
 within the metropolis administer the public health 
 acts; they have supervision of the highways, assess 
 and collect the local rates, and have power to deal 
 with the housing and other local questions. But 
 it is the County Council which is the most import- 
 ant political agency in the metropolis. Its powers 
 were not very extensive at first. Even now they 
 seem insignificant in comparison with those of our 
 own cities. As a matter of fact, all of the Councils, 
 boards, and other local agencies, are so cramped, 
 cabined, and confined by Parliament that their com- 
 bined powers do not equal those of the average 
 American city, limited as it is in its powers. 
 
 The County Council has control of the main sew- 
 ers and drainage; the protection of the community
 
 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 from fires; the building and maintenance of 
 bridges and ferries; the control of the means of 
 transit on the streets; the street improvements 
 and lighting; asylums; housing; parks and open 
 spaces. It administers the building laws, removes 
 refuse, regulates nuisances and infectious dis- 
 eases. It inspects dairies, factories, workshops, 
 and unsanitary houses. It licenses slaughter- 
 houses, and offensive businesses. It maintains re- 
 formatories and industrial schools. It has con- 
 siderable power in matters of the public health 
 and the supervision of the metropolitan boroughs 
 in the administration of their functions. It has 
 large control over education, and serves as the 
 Education Board of the metropolis, and enjoys 
 many lesser powers. It is the County Council 
 that is making of London a city. 
 
 The Council commands the best talent in the 
 kingdom, and it is one of the most democratic bod- 
 ies in the world. It is, in fact, a city republic, and 
 as its industrial powers are increased it is likely to 
 become one of the greatest agencies of radicalism 
 in the civilised world. The Council came into exist- 
 ence through the inefficiency, if not the corruption, 
 of the old Metropolitan Board of Works, which had 
 been created in 1855 to satisfy the necessity of some 
 central body for all of London. For up to that 
 time the metropolitan area was governed by over 
 three hundred parochial boards composed of about
 
 LONDON 207 
 
 10,000 members. These boards were ancient church 
 parishes, governed by hundreds of private and spe- 
 cial acts which were unknown and inaccessible to 
 anyone save the officials themselves. The methods 
 of election to office varied from one street to an- 
 other. Even the powers were not the same. The 
 members of these bodies were elected at a town 
 meeting, usually so held that only those persons 
 interested in the election could be present. There 
 was no secret balloting only a showing of hands. 
 Up to 1855 London was really governed by political 
 inertia. It was much as though Greater New York 
 had no other authority than hundreds of ward or 
 precinct meetings, at which only those were present 
 who were candidates for office. We can imagine 
 the result of such a condition. It was not until 
 1899 that these vestries or parishes were abolished 
 and twenty-seven Borough Councils were erected 
 in their stead. These now exist alongside of the 
 County Council, and maintain a very vigorous life. 
 In addition to the County Council and the Bor- 
 ough Councils there remains the City of London 
 proper. It is a political anachronism, an historical 
 survival. It is a mediaeval city with a royal char- 
 ter. Parliament has carefully respected its ancient 
 privileges. It is a tremendously rich corporation. 
 It owns lands and plate and other forms of wealth. 
 It has a population of 26,923 by night, and hundreds 
 of thousands by day. It is the most unique nmnici-
 
 208 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 pality in the world. Its Lord Mayor is a petty 
 king; he lives in the Mansion House, just opposite 
 the Bank of England. The city has power to re- 
 make its own constitution. It is known as "The 
 Mayor and Commonalty and Citizens of the City of 
 London." There are twenty-five aldermen and 206 
 common councilmen. The latter are elected by the 
 rate-payers of the city. 
 
 The corporation spends much money in feasting, 
 in extravagant display, and in charity, but remains 
 the most reactionary influence in all London. It 
 is as though the region about Wall Street were a 
 separate corporation, distinct from Greater New 
 York, and governed by the banks, insurance com- 
 panies, the brokers, and big business interests of 
 the metropolis. The City of Westminster is also 
 a city within the corporate limits of the County 
 Council. It lies about the Houses of Parliament 
 and Trafalgar Square, and is only less ancient than 
 the City of London proper. 
 
 But the chaos of municipal administration does 
 not end with these agencies. The police department 
 is administered by Parliament directly through the 
 Home Office. The water supply of London is in the 
 hands of the London Water Board of sixty-six mem- 
 bers, while the docks on the river and the Poor Law 
 schools are administered by the Thames Conserv- 
 ancy Board and the Lea Conservancy Board. In 
 addition to these are the thirty-one Boards of Guar-
 
 LONDON 209 
 
 dians who have control of the Poor Law adminis- 
 tration. There is also the Metropolitan Asylum 
 Board, which has charge of charity administration. 
 
 All these agencies are more or less at war. Their 
 functions conflict and overlap so that a united pol- 
 icy such as is possible in Berlin, Paris, or New 
 York, is out of the question. All these agencies 
 combined expend about $75,000,000 a year. This 
 seems a pretty large sum for a city. It is larger 
 than many a national budget. Greater New York 
 expends $108,000,000 each year. But the compari- 
 son is of little value, for the cities do very different 
 things. 
 
 It is the London County Council that inspires the 
 affection of the Londoner. There are some men 
 who are beginning to love London. Not as Lamb, 
 Johnson, and Goldsmith loved London, not as the 
 world which gathers there loves it, but as the burgh- 
 ers of the free cities of old Germany, or the peo- 
 ple of Florence, in the days of her greatness, loved 
 their cities. For the London County Council is 
 beginning to care for its people just as the old 
 boards and the vestries cared for the privileged 
 interests. And that is really the test of a city. 
 What does it do for its people? Eor there is some- 
 thing reciprocal about politics, especially city poli- 
 tics. Here in America we are beginning to see 
 that a city which does little for the citizen gets 
 little from the citizen. The fraternal sense is very
 
 210 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 much wider than a secret society. It is universal, 
 and good government is in direct relation to its 
 existence. 
 
 Since its creation in 1888 the Council has been 
 engaged in one long fight with privilege, with the 
 privilege of the landlords, of the water, gas, electric- 
 ity and transportation corporations, with the old 
 school boards, the contractors, and all the reaction- 
 ary influences that had enjoyed centuries of undis- 
 turbed control of London. They were not unlike 
 the big business interests in control of the American 
 city. They looked upon the government as their 
 government, as an agency to watch over and protect 
 their privileges. That government was a thing for 
 the people to use, or that it had any business med- 
 dling with their abuses, was as foreign to their 
 thought as are the demands of the peasants to the 
 traditions of the grand dukes of Russia. 
 
 But the County Council thought otherwise. It 
 came up from the people, and it felt their needs and 
 responded to their pulse-beats. It is a big body, 
 is the Council. It contains 118 men. Two coun- 
 cilmen are elected from each parliamentary dis- 
 trict, with four from the City of London proper. 
 In addition to this, there are nineteen aldermen, 
 distinguished citizens, elected by the Council itself. 
 The aldermen serve for six years,, the members of 
 the Council for three years. There is no lord 
 mayor, not even a titular mayor. The Council elects
 
 LONDON 211 
 
 a chairman, Avho may be a peer, as was Lord llose- 
 lery, or a business mau who has fought his way up 
 to eminence through his service on the Council. 
 All business is transacted through committees, 
 which are the executive heads of the city. 
 
 The Council knows no politics at least its poli- 
 tics bears no national names. But there is plenty 
 of politics in every election, and the party names 
 are those of Moderates and Progressives. The for- 
 mer party is conservative, and tenacious of the past ; 
 the latter is radical, and looks to the future. As 
 a matter of fact, the line of division is one that we 
 know in America. It is an economic one. The 
 Moderates are identified with the landlords, the 
 franchise owners, and big business interests. They 
 are Tories, in fact, while the Progressives are Lib- 
 erals, or more often Radicals or Socialists. The 
 Progressives have enjoyed almost uninterrupted 
 control of the Council since its organisation. It is 
 they who have made a democracy of London. For 
 this is the ideal toward which its members are 
 working. And men like John Burns, who has been 
 with the Council from its beginning; like Sidney 
 Webb, the leading English Socialist ; like Sir Fred- 
 eric Harrison, are conscious of the terrible cost of 
 modern civilisation, and see in the city a means 
 for its correction. 
 
 It is about the big social questions that the con- 
 tests of the Council centre. There has come over
 
 212 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 the Englishmen of the younger generation an en- 
 thusiasm for ideals that is strangely absent in Par- 
 liament. And members of the bar, members of the 
 profession of medicine, retired gentlemen, and peers 
 of the realm, have entered the hustings along with 
 labouring men and Socialists over questions that 
 are very disturbing to the old school of English- 
 men. The council election, in 1904, was a signal 
 victory for the Progressives, the Radicals, and the 
 municipal Socialists. Their programme included 
 the clearing away of disease-breeding slums and the 
 erection of fine model dwellings owned by the Coun- 
 cil and rented to the occupants at a reasonable 
 charge. This is the Council's housing policy. It 
 includes the ownership and operation of the tram- 
 ways and their extension into a splendid system, as 
 well as a new municipal steamboat service on the 
 Thames. This is its transportation programme. 
 The taxation of land values is the next step in the 
 Council's policy. The improvement of the port of 
 London, the municipalisation of the water supply, 
 the widening of many thoroughfares, the comple- 
 tion of a main drainage scheme, the opening up of 
 small parks and open spaces, the promotion of tem- 
 perance and of education, the betterment of the 
 condition of municipal employees, and the develop- 
 ment of the Works Department, for the doing of 
 all public work without the intervention of the 
 contractor, are some of the other things the Council
 
 LONDON 213 
 
 is doing-. It is upon these issues that the rate-payers 
 of London divide at an election. And when it is 
 considered that the laws are so adjusted that local 
 taxes are paid by the tenant, and, in consequence, 
 that those who vote are conscious of their burdens, 
 it is a significant evidence of the changing social 
 order that the Radicals have been able to remain 
 in power for so long. 1 
 
 'In the triennal election of March, 1907, the Progressives 
 were badly defeated, after eighteen years of nearly uninter- 
 rupted control of the Council. The result was not surprising, 
 for the new Education Act of 1903 had thrown the school 
 administration upon the Council. It involved a heavy increase 
 in the rates, for prior to that time the educational budget had 
 not been heavy and had been borne by other authorities. But 
 while the average rates of the County Council for the previous 
 fifteen years had been but 14.2 pence in the pound, they were 
 increased by the necessities of education to 34.76 pence in the 
 pound. This was a burden which no party could carry, no 
 matter how honest and efficient its administration might have 
 been. For under the British system of levying the rates upon 
 the tenant only and of exempting land as such from direct 
 taxation, the tax rate becomes the topic of absorbing interest 
 in any campaign. The Moderates made use of this increase 
 to discredit their adversaries and ascribed it. to municipal so- 
 cialism. Some of it was due to housing, health, parking, and 
 similar schemes, and a deficit of $260,000 a year existed from 
 the Thames Steamboat service. But this had been true of all 
 previous Councils. Almost all of the increase since 1903 was 
 due to the Education Act and not to the trading enterprises, 
 for the County Council owns no undertakings save the trams 
 and the steamboats. The water supply is in the hands of the 
 Water Board and such electric lighting plants as are not in 
 private hands are owned by the borough councils. This elec- 
 tion demonstrates how the system of local taxation controls 
 the politics and the policies of the British cities. It indicates 
 the ultimate brake which Parliament has upon democracy. 
 It is by no means a reaction against municipal ownership, as 
 the American press has contended.
 
 214 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 In the beginning the people treated the County 
 Council as an experiment. They timidly read the 
 account of its sessions in the obscure little build- 
 ing where the Council meets, on Spring Garden 
 Street. For London had never thought of itself 
 as a city. It doesn't think so yet. It takes some 
 time for a people to forget its past. And the three 
 hundred parishes, with their anarchy of adminis- 
 tration, are the only memories that London has of 
 municipal administration. And it was very revo- 
 lutionary to have a big, busy, meddling Council 
 upsetting things and expressing its opinion about 
 Parliament. To add to it all, John Burns had been 
 elected to the Council from Battersea. John Burns, 
 the leader of the dockers' strike, John Burns the 
 Socialist, who had been in jail for inciting to riot, 
 and who had been heralded in the papers as march- 
 ing on London with sixty thousand hungry men 
 but a few years before! Men wondered what the 
 world was coming to. Was nothing sacred? For 
 England had always looked upon politics as the 
 exclusive business of gentlemen. I met John Burns 
 in those days when the Council was still an experi- 
 ment. That was in the early nineties. He talked 
 about his dreams the dream of the London that 
 was to be. I tramped over Battersea with him, 
 where he lives. Battersea is a part of London, and 
 has long been a working man's parish, for the wage- 
 earners are in control of its Council. Burns talked
 
 LONDON 215 
 
 of his contests, contests with the big interests above 
 and the labour unions who had elected him, and 
 paid him such a salary as he received for serving 
 them. His neighbours in Battersea and the Social- 
 ists were disappointed; disappointed because he 
 did not electrify Parliament and the Council with 
 his turgid eloquence of their wrongs. But they con- 
 tinued to believe in him, continued to elect him to 
 the Council and to Parliament. And in later years 
 England came to believe in this "intellectual com- 
 bination of a terrier and a bulldog," as Burns has 
 been termed, just as London has come to believe in 
 its Council, and the radical things the Council is 
 doing and has done in the last twenty years. For 
 the dreams which its early members dreamt are be- 
 ing realised. They were democratic dreams in the 
 interest of all the people. They justify the belief 
 in our own municipal institutions and give assur- 
 ance that the city is to be the chief agency in the 
 movement for better conditions of life that seem to 
 be agitating the whole world. For during the last 
 score of years London has found itself. The centu- 
 ries long chaos of vestry government is a thing of 
 the past. 
 
 The County Council found the people of the me- 
 tropolis badly housed. It has undertaken a com- 
 prehensive housing policy. It cleared slum areas 
 and erected model dwellings which now house or 
 will house 100,000 people. It opened up the parks
 
 216 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 to the widest use and offered to its people recreation 
 spots in the form of small parks. It found the 
 city in the hands of the private contractors. They 
 combined against the community on all work, and 
 gave such service as suited their convenience. It 
 found its employees underpaid and overworked. It 
 elevated their condition by fixing a standard fair 
 wage to be paid. It began to do its own work with- 
 out the contractor. This policy of fair wage and 
 direct employment has since been extended to al- 
 most all the cities in the kingdom. The Council 
 pays the trade union rate of wages. It has short- 
 ened the hours of labour. But it is through the 
 direct employment of labour that the greatest gain 
 has been made. In order to carry out this policy 
 a Works Department was organised. An immense 
 workshop was opened, where all sorts of city work 
 is performed. The city now has from 3,000 to 4,000 
 skilled workmen on its pay-roll. It builds sewers, 
 erects its own model dwellings, fire engine houses, 
 and police stations. The Council itself bids upon 
 all work, and if its proposal is the lowest it secures 
 the job, as would any other contractor. During 
 six months in 1905 it completed work to the value 
 of nearly $2,000,000. It carried through the clear- 
 ance scheme by which the magnificent new street 
 improvement known as King's Way was completed. 
 I visited the immense workshop of the department. 
 It lies along the Thames, just opposite the Houses
 
 LONDON 217 
 
 of Parliament. It was like any other factory in its 
 equipment. But it seemed strange that a city should 
 own such an enterprise, that it should do the thou- 
 sands of jobs that are usually done by contractors. 
 From this factory there were no dividends to be 
 made. Xo scamping of work for the sake of big 
 profits. No labour strikes or industrial wars. For 
 the city looks after its workmen in a sincere way. 
 The only motive is efficient work, at as low a cost 
 as possible. For the manager always has before 
 his eyes the Committee of the Council to whom he 
 must account. There is no loafing in these shops, 
 no needless emplo} T ees, no gangs about the outer 
 offices looking for a job. And the men seemed to 
 value their positions. Possibly the feeling that they 
 were working for the public may have added a new 
 dignity to their labour and given a new and un- 
 known stimulus to their interest. Whatever the 
 cause, the Works Department has justified itself. 
 Its cost sheets are as low as the private contrac- 
 tors', and the work done is very much better. It is 
 no longer an experiment, although the reactionary 
 influences constantly challenge it as socialism. 1 
 The Council has also adopted standing rules to 
 
 'About the Works Department and its cost to the rate-payers 
 the most persistent controversy has waged. The Moderates 
 challenge its figures and results, and allege that the Pro- 
 gressives, who control the committee, have falsified the- ac- 
 counts in order to make a favorable showing for the depart- 
 ment. The committee's report, however, shows it to have made 
 a substantial saving in costs.
 
 218 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 be observed by all contractors dealing with the city. 
 They are compelled to pay the trade union wage ; to 
 work their men according to schedule hours, and 
 otherwise observe a decent standard of living for 
 their employees. As John Burns, who, more than 
 anyone else, is responsible for this policy, tersely 
 said: "It is unworthy of a city to pay starvation 
 wages. If it is not a model employer, who then 
 can be expected to be? If it buys sweatshop-made 
 goods, the city becomes a partner, not a protector, 
 of the millions of poor of to-day, who are being 
 driven to vice, crime, and the workhouse by starva- 
 tion wages." 
 
 The Council believes that some impression can 
 be made upon the poverty of London; that it can 
 lift the tens of thousands of men who are directly 
 or indirectly serving the city to a standard of de- 
 cent existence. 
 
 These are some of the achievements of radicalism. 
 The Council has further sought to promote better 
 conditions of living through the ownership of the 
 means of transit. Not much has been done as yet, 
 for London is still content with its 'buses, while 
 the "tuppenny tube," or underground subway sys- 
 tem, is chartered by Parliament, and is in the hands 
 of a private company. But a beginning has been 
 made by the County Council. It secured powers 
 from Parliament to own and operate the street rail- 
 ways which were then in private hands. It has
 
 LONDON 219 
 
 since developed a comprehensive system. To the 
 south of the Thames forty-six miles of track have 
 been laid which converge on the river about the 
 heart of the city. Forty-eight miles are also owned 
 to the north of the Thames. These two systems 
 are to be united through a subway which has been 
 built under the new King's Way, which runs from 
 Southampton Row to the Strand. When the Coun- 
 cil took over the tramways it immediately reduced 
 fares. The average fare now paid per passenger 
 is but 1.86 cents. It is claimed that a saving of 
 half a million dollars per annum has been made to 
 the riders through this reduction. To-day, 37 per 
 cent, of the passengers are carried at one-cent fare, 
 while 48 per cent, more pay but two cents. The 
 system is splendidly constructed, and earns a con- 
 siderable sum of money for the relief of the rate- 
 payers. But the main purpose is convenience, bet- 
 ter service, clean and more attractive cars, and such 
 relief as can be offered the poor through cheap 
 transit. 
 
 The Council also found the railway employees 
 underpaid. It added nearly f 200,000 a year to their 
 income. Wages were increased, the hours of labour 
 were shortened, and free uniforms were supplied to 
 the motormen. I tramped over the system with 
 John Burns. He was conversant with every detail 
 of the enterprise. And he saw the deeper signifi- 
 cance of municipal ownership, a significance which
 
 220 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 Glasgow seems to teach, and which is the para- 
 mount motive for taking the franchise corporation 
 out of private hands. "Municipal ownership," he 
 said, "is mainly responsible for the civic renais- 
 sance that is so marked a feature of English local 
 government in the last ten or fifteen years. There 
 is one way to kill graft, and that is to absorb within 
 the sphere of municipal ownership these public 
 franchises that are a fruitful source of jobbery and 
 robbery. Just so long as public franchises are 
 granted to private monopolists, the temptation to 
 graft will alwa3 7 s exist. There is no incentive to 
 making money out of a franchise when the public 
 itself owns the public utility. Municipalise mon- 
 opoly, and grafting ceases, because grafting 
 comes in when monopolist 'A' says to politician 
 'B,' 'You fool the city to sell what it can bet- 
 ter operate itself, and you w r ill have a share of the 
 swag.' ' 
 
 The Council has also inaugurated a municipal 
 steamboat line on the Thames. It put on a splendid 
 service, and runs the boats in connection with the 
 tramways. The system does not pay in dividends; 
 as a matter of fact it does not pay its cost; but it 
 renders a public service. It forced Parliament 
 to municipalise the water supply, and within recent 
 years fourteen of the newly created Borough Coun- 
 cils have taken over the electricity supply. The 
 Council is agitating for a municipal milk supply,
 
 LONDON 221 
 
 for public bakeries, for municipal employment 
 agencies, and the serving of free lunches to school- 
 children. It is working to reduce the price of gas 
 in the metropolis. It protects its poor from short 
 weights in the purchase of coal and other commodi- 
 ties. The extent to which inspection is carried 
 on by officials of the boroughs and County Council 
 is amazing. They remove refuse and garbage, abate 
 nuisances, watch over the public health in a mul- 
 titude of ways; prevent food adulteration, inspect 
 and register dairies, inspect factories and work- 
 shops, prevent the employment of minors under 
 eighteen years of age for more than seventy-four 
 hours a week. The County Council has power to 
 prevent overcrowding and unsanitary dwelling con- 
 ditions, to license slaughter houses and offensive 
 businesses. Its powers for the protection of health 
 are very ample. 
 
 We are inclined to look upon these achievements 
 of the English city as easily obtained. But, in fact, 
 the struggle for self-government in England has 
 been harder than our own. The London County 
 Council has had to make its way against the ob- 
 struction of privilege at every turn. For years it 
 has sought permission from Parliament to link up 
 its tramway systems through the use of the Thames 
 bridges and Embankment, but the House of Lords 
 always interposed a veto. Distrustful of democ- 
 racy, the House of Lords is even more fearful of its
 
 222 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 own privileges and its outlook from the Terraces of 
 the Houses of Parliament. 
 
 The same reactionary interests prevented the mu- 
 nicipalisation of the water supply up to 1905. Prior 
 to that time it was in the hands of eight private 
 water companies. Despite the fact that portions 
 of the city were inadequately supplied, Parliament, 
 jealous of its own interests, prevented every effort 
 at municipalisation. And when the system was 
 finally taken over, Parliament declined to trust the 
 County Council, but created in its stead a Water 
 Board of sixty-six members, nominated by various 
 local authorities, and only indirectly responsible 
 to the people. And when the Water Board came 
 to purchase the companies, they were not permitted 
 to acquire them at their physical value, but were 
 forced to pay an immense award covering the capi- 
 talised value of the earnings of the plants. While 
 the eight companies were estimated to be worth in 
 the neighbourhood of $120,000,000, Parliament im- 
 posed upon the community a method of valuation 
 which involved a payment of $187,372,610, which 
 sum was still $58,000,000 less than the companies 
 claimed. 
 
 The English cities enjoy less home rule than do 
 the cities of America. They have to go to Parlia- 
 ment for every little thing. And Parliament is 
 very cautious in the things it permits the city to 
 do. This is particularly true of London. For the
 
 LONDON 223 
 
 things the County Council wants to do hurt the big 
 interests in control of Parliament. A great part 
 of the 118 square miles upon which the city is built 
 is owned by the Dukes of Westminster, of Bedford, 
 of Portland, and other parliamentary landlords. 
 They will not sell their lands, but let them out on 
 lease. .And the tenant has to make the repairs, 
 maintain the property, and pay all the taxes, too. 
 Worst of all, when the lease expires the landlord 
 takes all of the improvements without paying for 
 them. And the many activities of the County Coun- 
 cil are likely to injure these landed gentlemen in 
 some way or other. For they own the slums and 
 the death-breeding tenements. The Council wants 
 to clear them out to make them more sanitary, to 
 open up streets, and otherwise disturb the ducal 
 landlords who are in control of Parliament. The 
 same is true of the franchises of the big corpora- 
 tions. In consequence, when the Council conies to 
 Parliament for relief, the House of Lords inter- 
 poses its veto; or when the powers are granted, 
 the community is compelled to pay handsomely 
 for the privilege of making the city a decent place 
 in which to live. 
 
 The Council has now entered on the biggest strug- 
 gle of all. It is aiming to break the land monopoly 
 which afflicts London as it does all English cities. 
 It has joined an agitation for the "taxation of land 
 values," which is the English equivalent for the
 
 224 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 single-tax philosophy of Henry George. More than 
 five hundred cities and local authorities have united 
 in demanding of their representatives in Parlia- 
 ment the right to retake for local purposes a portion 
 of the unearned increment which results from the 
 city's growth, and the present Liberal ministry is 
 pledged to such a measure. 
 
 Through this means the County Council hopes to 
 force the ducal dogs in the manger to improve their 
 lands if they will not sell them. By taxation the 
 Council hopes to force the owners to tear down the 
 shacks and disease-breeding tenements, to let go 
 their immense suburban holdings, and open them 
 up to residence for the people of London. To-day 
 the land is free from taxation. By increasing the 
 cost of holding it, the Council believes it can force 
 the land into use. Through this means, too, the 
 burden of local taxes, now paid by the tenant, will 
 be shifted in part to the landlord, and, through the 
 taxing away of its speculative value, unused land 
 both within and without the city will be brought 
 into occupancy. 
 
 Most, of the great art of the world has been pro- 
 duced under the stimulus of democracy or the Chris- 
 tian religion. These were the great forces that 
 beautified the Italian cities during their age of 
 freedom and dotted Europe with cathedrals. And 
 the new London that is coming into existence under 
 the inspiration of the County Council is expressing
 
 LONDON 225 
 
 its aspirations in a big artistic way. For the first 
 time in the city's history, a comprehensive plan for 
 the beautification of the city has been worked out. 
 The County Council has dared to entertain the idea 
 of a beautiful London. It has widened old streets, 
 opened up parks, and erected artistic public build- 
 ings. Its new bridges across the Thames have, for 
 the most part, justified the standard set by Water- 
 loo Bridge, probably the finest arch bridge in the 
 world. But its greatest achievement has been the 
 Kings Way improvement. A broad thoroughfare 
 has been cut through one of the meanest parts of 
 the city from Southampton Kow to the Strand. The 
 Council has saved the bits of ancient architecture, 
 and so controlled the new as to make them all con- 
 form to an architectural whole. When completed 
 the improvement will be one of the finest roadways 
 in the world. It has cost upward of $25,000,000. 
 It involved the destruction of many of the most 
 unsanitary tenements in London. To the east are 
 the law courts, and to the south, flanking upon 
 the Strand, are the fine old parish churches of 
 Christopher Wren, to which has been added the 
 new Gaiety Theatre, to whose beauty the Council 
 contributed thousands of pounds. Along the entire 
 length of 7,000 feet plane-trees have been planted. 
 And this stupendous improvement has been so 
 financed that in sixty years' time the resale of the 
 land and the rents of the property will return its
 
 226 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 entire cost to the tax-payers. The roadway has 
 been constructed as will all great roadways in the 
 future, when our cities own all of their utilities. 
 Underneath the carriageway are subways for the 
 street cars. Beneath the broad pavements on either 
 side of the roadway are twelve-foot conduits for 
 gas, water, and electric mains and wires. Still 
 farther down are immense district sewers. In many 
 respects this is the greatest achievement of dem- 
 ocracy in London. It was bold, courageous, and in- 
 telligent. But best of all, it was an exhibition of 
 belief in the city as an entity, in municipal work 
 as a thing which should be planned in a big, beau- 
 tiful, artistic way. 
 
 London really stands for a new idea in the world. 
 It is a community with a conscious purpose. Its 
 purpose is far more than the building of streets 
 and sewers, the maintaining of an efficient police 
 and fire department, the care of the health and lives 
 of the people. London is bent upon lifting its peo- 
 ple from ignorance, squalor, disease, and poverty. 
 It has reared 500 new schoolhouses under the new 
 Public School Act, which it fostered. It has opened 
 seventy libraries. It has founded 2000 educational 
 scholarships. It has opened fifty public baths and 
 twelve polytechnics. There are now 300 beautiful 
 squares, 106 Council parks and breathing places, 
 twelve royal parks, and 120 borough gardens. Lon- 
 don is said to be the greenest large city in the world.
 
 LONDON 227 
 
 The Council has also razed many slum areas, and 
 is erecting model homes for 100,000 of its people. 
 About the city broad areas of land have been pur- 
 chased on which cottages are to be built for the 
 better-to-do classes. London is going to be its own 
 landlord. Not much has been done as yet, it is true, 
 but a big start on the housing question has been 
 made. 
 
 But the new democracy is not satisfied with the 
 achievements it has made. For what has been 
 done is but the apprentice work. The County Coun- 
 cil has only laid its foundations. It has spent 
 twenty years in justifying industrial democracy. 
 Its work has just begun. It has laid out a pro- 
 gramme of city building in which human life and 
 happiness, rather than business profits and divi- 
 dends, will be the ideal. Democracy has vindicated 
 itself in the English city. It has found its fullest 
 expression in the London County Council.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE AMERICAN AND THE BRITISH CITY A 
 COMPARISON 
 
 As A people we have ever been sensitive to foreign 
 critics. We resented the satire of Dickens and 
 Harriet Martineau prior to the Civil War, as well 
 as the subsequent scoldings of E. L. Godkin and the 
 Evening Post. We have never taken kindly to the 
 idea that we were not the greatest people on the 
 earth. We resented the suggestion that the Fed- 
 eral Constitution was not the most sublime political 
 achievement of history, an achievement only short 
 of the tables of stone handed down from Mount 
 Sinai to the people of Israel. 
 
 More recently a reaction has come over us. There 
 is a note of depression, of pessimism, in our talk. 
 The condition of our cities, the corruption of our 
 States, the decadence of Congress, the ascendancy 
 of privileged interests in the Senate, has destroyed 
 our complacency. From a condition of childish 
 belief in the talisman of a democracy we have 
 passed in a few years' time to a state of mind bor- 
 dering upon despondency before the colossal task
 
 AMERICAN AND BRITISH CITIES 229 
 
 which confronts us. A very large number of our 
 people see only failure in our institutions. They 
 are oppressed by the apparent impotence of popular 
 government to find a way out. 
 
 Rightly seen, however, the disclosures of the past 
 few years are an evidence of wakefulness. The 
 spirit of revolt that is now aroused is a tribute to 
 the vitality of democracy. If the truth were fully 
 known of other countries, we should see that Amer- 
 ica, almost alone among the nations of the earth, is 
 courageous enough and rebellious enough to insist 
 upon knowing the whole truth about herself. And 
 the one thing that the disclosures have shown is 
 that democracy in America is at war with a class 
 that is seeking to control the agencies of govern- 
 ment for the sake of its privileges. But this is no 
 new thing. It is as old as the world. What is true 
 of America is much more true of Great Britain, only 
 the mother country is so prostrate before the privi- 
 leged classes in control of Parliament, the Church, 
 and the avenues of advancement, that no one ven- 
 tures to remonstrate. Privilege and caste are so 
 inwoven with everything that men most want in 
 Great Britain that the voice of criticism has no 
 sting. It does not ring with "Shame" and "Trea- 
 son." It is always respectful, always obeisant. 
 That country does not know the invigorating power 
 of a democracy that is free in its spirit and instinct 
 with a sense of equality. And the privileged classes
 
 230 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 have enjoyed such unchallenged dominion for so 
 many centuries that their ascendancy seems sanc- 
 tioned by the divinity that doth hedge a king. In 
 consequence, all classes accept as natural that 
 which America protests against as corrupt. Dem- 
 ocracy, therefore, in America is hopeful at least 
 it is rebellious. In Great Britain it is only begin- 
 ning to find its voice. 
 
 This makes the present an opportune time to 
 appraise our municipal institutions. For all agree 
 that the cities must be reformed before much can 
 be hoped for from the commonwealths. The cities 
 contain an increasing percentage of the population. 
 They have become the controlling factors in our 
 political life. They are coming to dominate the 
 State and the nation. It is true that here corrup- 
 tion seems at its worst. But it is also true that 
 the cities are making the most aggressive stand 
 for reform. 
 
 For years the British city has been held up to us 
 as a model. It is certainly the chief contribution 
 of the United Kingdom to democracy. Glasgow, 
 Birmingham, Manchester, are heralded as the model 
 cities of the world. It is worth our while to know 
 if this is true and why it is true. From their expe- 
 riences we should be able to extract some plan of 
 relief for ourselves. 
 
 Before examining the contribution of the British 
 city to our own problems, let us take stock of our
 
 AMERICAN AND BRITISH CITIES 231 
 
 limitations, of the burdens under which we labour. 
 First of all, it is necessary to remember that away 
 from the seaboard our cities are new things. They 
 are business centres, industrial accidents. Their 
 location has been determined by natural or trans- 
 portation advantages. Their bigness is a matter of 
 comparatively few years. In consequence of this 
 newness our officials are swamped with the most 
 elementary municipal needs. Their energy is 
 devoted to the opening up and the paving of 
 streets; to the building of sewers and the develop- 
 ment of means for relieving the city of its refuse. 
 The imperative necessities of a water supply, of 
 purification plants, of means for the disposal of 
 garbage, and other health demands, have pretty 
 fully engaged our attention. Schoolhouses had to 
 be built. And they had to be adequate for a 
 rapidly growing population and satisfy a people 
 who were rather intolerant of basements or attics, 
 or bad sanitary conditions. There were parks to 
 be purchased and laid out, constant additions and 
 annexations of new territory to be made. These 
 exacting demands have crowded out those phases 
 of municipal life that are spectacular, that delight 
 the eye. It is the beauty and cleanliness of the 
 Continental city, quite as much as its efficiency, 
 that makes the casual American traveller dissatis- 
 fied with his own. 
 
 Further than this, our cities are untrained to
 
 232 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 political organisation. We have no traditions of 
 what a city should be. There is not that love and 
 veneration which long years of associated life give 
 to the European citizen. In consequence, we have 
 no municipal experience, no social sense, to fall 
 back upon. Our people have not yet learned how 
 to work together. Added to this is a large foreign 
 population which, in the larger cities, frequently 
 exceeds the native born. They came from all quar- 
 ters of the earth, and are unused to the Anglo-Saxon 
 conception of things. They have to be assimilated 
 and worked into our institutions. From this bur- 
 den the British city is free. Its population is 
 homogeneous. It is attached to the soil, and has 
 been for generations. 
 
 These are some of the limitations under which 
 the American city labours. They are the difficul- 
 ties that are obvious. There are other burdens 
 that are organic. They spring from the powers 
 of the city, and the policy adopted by the State or 
 Parliament in dealing with franchises and other 
 privileges. In America franchises for the use of 
 the streets are in the hands of the city, to be dis- 
 posed of as the Council wills. In Great Britain 
 franchises are bestowed by Parliament. The cities 
 have no power of control or regulation. This re- 
 moves the chief source of corruption from the 
 town hall. It lodges it at Westminster. There is 
 not that temptation for dishonest men to enter
 
 AMERICAN AND BRITISH CITIES 233 
 
 the Council that there is in America. There is, 
 however, every temptation for promoters and big 
 business men to enter Parliament. And such men 
 make use of their positions to, grant franchises 
 to themselves and their friends. We would not 
 tolerate the sort of class legislation that passes 
 without protest in England. For the railway 
 and mine owners, franchise barons and landlords, 
 apparently see no harm in relieving themselves 
 from taxation, in protecting their interests from 
 regulation and in securing for themselves monopo- 
 lies that only escape being "graft" by the emi- 
 nently respectable standing of those who partici- 
 pate in the transaction. 
 
 By reason of the removal of these tempting privi- 
 leges from the Council chamber the British city 
 has no such burden as the American municipality 
 labors under. There are no franchise hunters, and 
 comparatively few contractors about the town hall 
 whose interest warrants their participation in local 
 politics. All these limitations must be borne in 
 mind in any comparison of the British city with 
 our own. 
 
 The advantages of the British city are largely 
 psychical ; those of the American city are physical. 
 England excels in her political institutions and the 
 personnel of her officials. America excels in her 
 economic foundations and the absence of a power- 
 ful class interest entrenched behind age-long tra-
 
 234 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 dition and respectability and strengthened by great 
 wealth. The Town Councils of England are filled 
 with men of high character, imbued with a serious 
 sense of responsibility. Her best citizens are wil- 
 ling to devote their time to unremunerated service 
 for the city. The Town Council commands not the 
 leisure class so much as the successful business 
 man. He is proud to serve his city, and his con- 
 stituents are willing to keep him in office as long as 
 he will stay. His returns are not of a pecuniary 
 sort. For none of the elective officials in Great 
 Britain are salaried. His returns are rather those 
 of service, of honour and respect, from a people 
 which has a sort of veneration for officialdom. 
 
 And the election machinery of the English city 
 is admirably designed to get this type of man into 
 office. The method of nomination to the Council 
 is simple in the extreme. It is not necessary to 
 obtain permission from the ward boss, who has his 
 headquarters over a saloon, or to be a contributor 
 to the campaign fund of the party. It is not neces- 
 sary to have views on questions of imperial moment. 
 The English city tries, not always successfully, it 
 is true, but it tries to keep partisan questions in 
 the background. The test is rather the standing 
 of a man with his neighbours, any ten of whom can 
 put him in nomination by signing a petition. 
 
 The election is as simple as the nomination, and 
 is equally well designed to bring out the best men
 
 AMEKICAN AND BKITISH CITIES 235 
 
 in the city. The local election is not lost in some 
 national contest over protection or free trade; over 
 home rule, or some colonial policy. The council- 
 manic nominee is not placed at the tail of a ticket 
 containing half a hundred offices to be filled. When 
 the Englishman goes to the polls on November 1 he 
 goes to a city election. On that day he votes for 
 one official only, the councilman from his ward. 
 Even the mayor is chosen by the Council, and not 
 by the people directly. In consequence, the voter 
 is able to keep his eye fixed upon the city and its 
 welfare. It is easy to imagine the change which 
 would come over our elections if the voter had but 
 one, or at most two, officials to vote for when he 
 went to the polls. 
 
 In the nomination and election of councilmen, in 
 the subordination of the party to the city, in the 
 adjustment of the machinery to simple democracy, 
 responsive and responsible to the people, there is 
 much that could be learned by us with profit. Then, 
 too, the English city is free from corruption. The 
 Town Councils are uniformly honest. The cities 
 have lured into the service a class of self-sacrificing 
 men. 
 
 Each city has two elective auditors whb an- 
 nually go over the books. And it is highly enter- 
 taining to read their criticisms of official miscon- 
 duct. In one of the reports complaint is made 
 that members of the Council, when on a tour of
 
 236 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 investigation of other cities, lived too well at the 
 hotels; that they were not content with medium- 
 priced champagne, as to which there would have 
 been no complaint; but that the committee always 
 consumed the better brands. This, and much of 
 the same sort of criticism, was the burden of the 
 complaint. But official entertainment is part of 
 the show. And while the expenditure for such 
 purposes is rather generous, it is but part of the 
 spectacular in English life. Karely does it become 
 a matter of personal profit. 
 
 And the British city does the things it undertakes 
 amazingly well. This is true of all of its under- 
 takings, of its police, health, sanitary, lighting, and 
 similar activities. It seems to conduct its purely 
 business enterprises more efficiently, more cheaply, 
 in fact, than do the private companies. The street 
 railways have been all but universally municipal- 
 ised in Great Britain. In the larger cities the per- 
 centage of operating expenses to gross receipts 
 ranges from fifty to seventy per cent. The cities 
 have reduced the rates of fare from thirty to fifty 
 per cent, below the average fares charged by the 
 private companies which previously occupied the 
 field. In Glasgow, thirty per cent, of the passen- 
 gers are now carried for one cent fare. On the 
 London County Council lines one cent fares form 
 thirty-six per cent, of the total. The average fare 
 paid per passenger, irrespective of distance, is 1.89
 
 AMERICAN AND BRITISH CITIES 237 
 
 cents in Glasgow, 2.44 cents in Manchester, and 
 2.25 cents in Liverpool. In Sheffield there are no 
 fares in excess of two cents. And on these fares 
 the cities earn large sums. In 1905 the net receipts 
 in Manchester exceeded a million dollars. In Glas- 
 gow they amounted to $1,853,000, and in Liverpool 
 to $925,000. These were the earnings in excess of 
 operating expenses. In Liverpool it is claimed that 
 the reduction of fares has resulted in an annual 
 saving to passengers of $1,000,000 and in London 
 to $500,000. The city of Glasgow claims an annual 
 saving to the people in fares and profits of $2,500,- 
 000. All over Great Britain the municipal street car 
 service is highly satisfactory. The cars are run on 
 frequent schedules, operation is free from accident, 
 the cars are cleaned and disinfected, and you get a 
 seat for a fare. The type of car is the double-decker 
 pattern. Certainly the service is greatly superior 
 to that which preceded it, for the comfort and con- 
 venience of the people is safeguarded at every turn. 
 The water supply is almost universally under the 
 control of the city. The electricity supply is widely 
 owned. The tramways and electricity undertakings 
 have been taken over during the last ten years. In 
 the United Kingdom there are 270 public gas un- 
 dertakings whose average charge per thousand 
 cubic feet is fifty-nine cents. This is against an 
 average of sixty-five cents per thousand cubic feet 
 charged by the 482 private companies. And even
 
 238 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 with this difference the municipal gas undertakings 
 make immense profits. In 1903 the net receipts of 
 the Glasgow gas plant were f 718,000; of Manches- 
 ter, $746,000 ; of Birmingham, $841,000 ; while the 
 charges to consumers in these cities are very much 
 below the average. They range from forty-two to 
 fifty-eight cents per thousand cubic feet. 
 
 The British city has outdistanced the world in 
 its business undertakings. It has made municipal 
 trading pay, and pay largely. Through ownership 
 it has taken the big privileged interests that form 
 the chief burden on reform in America out of poli- 
 tics. The cities are now able to look after the 
 people better; to give them cheap transportation, 
 cheap light, fuel, and water; to encourage industry 
 and promote comfort in countless ways. There is 
 no conflict of interest in the community. There is 
 no class, no interest, no large number of persons 
 who are alien to the city's well-being. With the 
 same policy in view, the city is ridding itself of the 
 private contractor. It has established municipal 
 workshops, and does it construction work through 
 its own employees. The contractor is being abol- 
 ished. His profits now remain in the city treasury 
 or go into better work or into living wages to the 
 employees. It is this sort of thrift that has 
 brought to the British city the approval of its busi- 
 ness men. Big business does not enter city politics 
 because there are no prizes for it to gain in the
 
 AMERICAN AND BRITISH CITIES 239 
 
 political arena. Likewise the English police force 
 is a superb body of men. It is dignified, and thinks 
 well of itself. This is because the public thinks 
 well of its servants. Health administration is also 
 scrupulously careful, as is the cleaning and the 
 lighting of the streets, the looking after sewage 
 disposal and the prevention of infectious diseases. 
 
 The British city, too, is free from the spoils sys- 
 tem. Jobs are filled for efficiency and not for pull, 
 and the employee is retained during good behav- 
 iour. This is a real democracy of merit. An alder- 
 man would think of demanding a city contract for 
 himself as soon as he would the creation of an un- 
 necessary job for a friend or relative. Public opin- 
 ion, too, would tolerate the one about as quickly 
 as it would the other. Not that the English city 
 has any civil service laws. It doesn't need them. 
 Public opinion regulates the service just as it does 
 official conduct in other regards. This is the only 
 kind of a merit system that protects the public from 
 a bureaucratic administration. 
 
 It is along these lines that the British city is su- 
 preme. It has a fine sense of itself. It has an 
 intelligent conscience. It commands the service 
 of a high grade of citizenship. It has never known 
 the ward heeler, and is exacting in its demands 
 upon its councilmen. And the people delight in the 
 city's successes. They are proud of a fine tramway 
 balance sheet. They applaud an efficient manager.
 
 240 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 They are glad when the city makes a profit. Not 
 for the sake of the profit alone, but because of the 
 success of it all. The people care for the city and 
 talk city in a way that we do not and cannot com- 
 prehend. 
 
 It is in its thrifty, commercial side that the Brit- 
 ish city excels. Largely owing to the fact that 
 only tax- or rate-payers vote, the Council repre- 
 sents property, not persons. It is this that gives a 
 rather sordid, ungenerous tone to all discussion. 
 For the taxes are assessed against the rental value 
 rather than upon the capitalised value of the prop- 
 erty itself. The taxes are paid by the tenant and 
 not by the land owner. In consequence, the British 
 councilman is always in terror of the tax-payer. 
 And the people get a tax-payer's administration, 
 and an administration that is very timorous of any- 
 thing which increases the rates. 
 
 This has had a bad as well as a good side. Most 
 critics see only the good side. But as a matter of 
 fact, it is probable that this making of government 
 a commercial thing, this making the payment of 
 rent or the ownership of property a prerequisite to 
 the suffrage, this throwing the taxes upon the ten- 
 ant rather than the property, is one of the worst 
 things in British political life. I appreciate that 
 it satisfies that class of American critics who feel 
 that we have extended the suffrage too far. But in 
 the long run the evil effects are greater than the
 
 AMERICAN AND BRITISH CITIES 241 
 
 good ones. With us the suffrage is a personal 
 thing. It has no reference to the ownership of 
 property. In consequence democracy is more gen- 
 erous, more hospitable to new ideas, more ready to 
 be liberal with its parks, its schools, its libraries, 
 its provisions for the poor. These are costly luxu- 
 ries. They are not needed by the well-to-do. This 
 in part explains the fact that the American school 
 system is far in advance of that of Great Britain. 
 For our school administration, as a rule, is good. 
 In some cities it is brilliant. Its very general 
 goodness certainly relieves the wholesale condem- 
 nation of our cities. And in many cities we collect 
 from direct taxes almost as much for school pur- 
 poses as we do for municipal administration. 
 
 The same is true of our libraries. They are the 
 best in the world. Aside from private endowments, 
 our cities generously maintain these popular uni- 
 versities, with branches and distributing agencies 
 which bring an opportunity of culture and refine- 
 ment to all classes. We have also been more gen- 
 erous in our parks. We have been lavish, and, in 
 most instances, wise in the beautification of our 
 cities. We are beginning to open up playgrounds, 
 and are now erecting municipal baths, wash 
 houses, kindergartens, and enterprises of a similar 
 sort, for the relief of the very poor. There is a 
 big generosity about our democracy that is not 
 found in Great Britain. Our politics are not so
 
 242 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 cheese-paring. We are even willing to be wasteful 
 in order to get the things we want. Then, too, we 
 have a more humane spirit in our attitude toward 
 the dependent and criminal classes. The British 
 penal code is barbarous. It does not temper the 
 wind to the shorn lamb, but enforces the rigour 
 of the law against those who have failed. British 
 poor administration still confounds poverty with 
 crime. In America we are coming to discriminate 
 and to appreciate that the poor of our cities are 
 not wholly responsible for their poverty, and that 
 vice and crime are more often the result of indus- 
 trial environment than of vicious character. 
 
 There is an open-mindedness about the best Amer- 
 ican cities that is not found in Great Britain. We 
 are ready to take up new ideas, to experiment with 
 ourselves, for we have no age-long traditions that 
 restrain and chain us to the past. Chicago willingly 
 expended millions for children's parks, play- 
 grounds, and gymnasiums. Boston did the same 
 thing. The city of Cleveland has bought a 1900- 
 acre farm upon which it is endeavouring to reclaim 
 its workhouse prisoners and bring back the poor 
 and destitute flotsam of the city to a proper adjust- 
 ment with life. New York, commercialised to the 
 core, has spent millions on playgrounds and recrea- 
 tion piers. 
 
 All this is part of a generous democratic sense 
 that Great Britain lacks. It is a sense which a city
 
 AMERICAN AND BRITISH CITIES 243 
 
 that measures its life from the rate-payer's stand- 
 point never can have. For the American ideal, in 
 so far as such exists, is to make the city helpful. 
 The British ideal is to make its enterprises pay 
 their way by some means, or at least to be very 
 careful of the tax-rate. The one is democracy, the 
 other is democracy subject to the curb of the tax- 
 paying class. And it is a far easier task for Amer- 
 ica to improve the personnel of the official class 
 than it is for England to break away from this 
 rate-payer's conception of government, which, in 
 many instances, seems very sordid and mean. 
 
 The same thing is true in the growing demand 
 for municipal beauty in America, Boston, New 
 York, Philadelphia, Detroit, and notably Cleveland, 
 are doing many of the things that make the Ger- 
 man city so attractive. Our cities are embodying 
 their ideals in fine monuments, just as the people 
 of the middle ages expressed their aspirations in 
 splendid cathedrals and their local patriotism in 
 fine monuments and town halls. We are showing 
 a willingness to pay for fine architecture, for 
 beauty in the concrete. The British city, on the 
 other hand, is the ugliest city in Europe. There 
 are a few exceptions, such as Edinburgh and Dub- 
 lin and the cathedral towns. Within the past few 
 years the London County Council has done some 
 big things, and gives promise of making London a 
 more beautiful city. But it is the most democratic
 
 244 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 body in Great Britain, and London cared little for 
 beauty until it became democratic. As a rule, the 
 cities of Great Britain have been very indifferent 
 to adornment. They reflect the fear of the rate- 
 payer. The city is unwilling to commemorate it- 
 self in a beautiful way. Tyrannised over by the 
 tax-payers, it dares not incur expenditure for the 
 more superfluous luxuries of city life. The Ameri- 
 can city, however, gives promise of being beautified 
 in the next generation far beyond what it is to- 
 day. It is along these lines that our cities will 
 first attain municipal consciousness. This is partly 
 due to the fact that there is no strong commercial 
 class among us ready to resist such a movement. 
 But the main reason a reason usually ignored 
 by critics is the aspiration of democracy for a big 
 communal life. In addition to this, our streets are 
 broader and finer, our business architecture more 
 promising, in spite of the sky-scraper. The time is 
 not far distant when our cities will study beauty 
 just as do the German cities, which compete in at- 
 tractiveness for the travellers of Europe. 
 
 These are some of the things usually overlooked 
 in the comparison of our cities with those of Great 
 Britain. They are some of our advantages. And 
 the American city can correct the evils which are 
 the result of political conditions much more read- 
 ily than the British city can change the physical 
 limitations and age-long traditions that cramp and
 
 AMEEICAN AND BEITISH CITIES 245 
 
 confine it in a physical way. For the British city 
 can only cure its economic diseases through the 
 most radical departure in its land system and the 
 method of assessing local revenues. 
 
 Remote as the question of taxes may seem to an 
 understanding of municipal conditions, it lies at 
 the root of the ideals and character of the British 
 city. A comparison of London and New York will 
 indicate this fact. The local taxes paid by the Lon- 
 don land owners directly are about the same to-day 
 that they were in the seventeenth century. The city 
 of New York, on the other hand, revalues its land 
 every year. In 1904 the naked land was appraised 
 at 13,697,686,935. On this valuation, taxes in ex- 
 cess of $50,000,000 were collected for city purposes. 
 This is possibly fifty times the amount collected 
 from the land of London, whose population is twice 
 that of New York, and whose site values are prob- 
 ably not far from six billion dollars. The explana- 
 tion of such an anomaly? Those who own the land 
 in Great Britain also control Parliament. They 
 form the House of Lords. They pass all laws relat- 
 ing to taxation. Through this control they legis- 
 late into their own pockets an enormous sum, which, 
 if land were taxed as is done in New York, would 
 amount in London alone to a hundred million dol- 
 lars a year. It is against just such misuse of 
 government that President Roosevelt, Senator La 
 Follette, Governor Pingree, and Senator Colby di-
 
 246 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 rected their energies in their struggle for equitable 
 taxation. But Great Britain accepts this condition 
 without protest, or, at most, complains of it as class 
 legislation. Thus the poor of London are made 
 poorer by f 100,000,000 a year than they would be 
 if land were taxed as it is in the city of New York. 
 This explains in part the unparalleled poverty, 
 misery, and degradation of the British city. 
 
 I am not unmindful of American conditions, of 
 the corruption and incompetence of our Councils, of 
 the dirty streets and demoralised police and health 
 forces. These have become the commonplaces of 
 criticism. But these are errors we are more or less 
 rapidly correcting. We are learning how to make 
 use of our tools; how to get the right sort of men 
 in politics and keep the wrong sort of business out. 
 The next ten years is bound to see a great advance 
 in city conditions. But despite our apparent fail- 
 ures, the great advantage which the American city 
 enjoys is a physical one. It lies in our better tax 
 machinery, in our economic environment. We can 
 appreciate the condition New York would be in 
 were all of the land of the city owned by a half 
 dozen great estates, which estates were in control 
 of the Legislature at Albany, who made use of that 
 control to free the land which they own from tax- 
 ation, and compel the other class to pay all the 
 revenues of the metropolis. For that is the condi- 
 tion of the British city.
 
 AMERICAN AND BRITISH CITIES 247 
 
 It is impossible for America to have any under- 
 standing of the attitude of Great Britain toward 
 its aristocracy and the land which it owns. There 
 are some Englishmen who appreciate this condi- 
 tion, but not many. For land, as land, is sacro- 
 sanct in Great Britain. It enjoys a distinction 
 not unlike that of the Federal Constitution in 
 America. It is too sacred to be touched except by 
 the permission of those who own it. Land is really 
 the controlling factor in Great Britain's political, 
 social, and industrial life. The country is afflicted 
 with a kind of land worship, which centuries of 
 feudal ownership have cast about it. This sacred- 
 ness affects the British city in countless ways. 
 And the landlords will not sell to the people. 
 They lease, and only lease when the price has 
 reached a point where the people must have the 
 land at any cost. The owners can hold on to the 
 land indefinitely because the land, as land, pays 
 no taxes. 
 
 The British city cannot grow until the lord of 
 the manor lets go of his untaxed land. And he 
 waits until he gets the last penny out of it. Herein 
 lies the explanation of the irregular architecture 
 of the British city, the fearful tenements, and the 
 acres of unimproved land. For so long as it is 
 vacant it pays no taxes at all. If it is badly im- 
 proved, it pays but little. 
 
 In America, land is taxed, or supposed to be
 
 248 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 taxed, at its capital value. City taxes are so high 
 that the owner must improve the land or sell. He 
 cannot leave a shack where an office building should 
 be erected. In consequence, our cities are con- 
 stantly being rebuilt; the two-story building gives 
 way to a six-story. As the town grows, this gives 
 place to a sky-scraper. Not so in Great Britain; 
 for the shack pays taxes only on its rental as a 
 shack. In consequence, the land owner is under 
 no stimulus to sell. He need not worry about his 
 rentals, for the growth of the city is enough in itself 
 to compensate him for any loss in this regard. All 
 of the corruption of our councils, all of the losses 
 to the public service corporations, all of the mil- 
 lions which go to excessive street railway fares, gas, 
 and telephone, and electricity charges are insig- 
 nificant in comparison with the cost of the dead 
 hand of feudalism which casts a blight on the Brit- 
 ish city and throws all of the burdens of taxation 
 upon the tenant and the poor. 
 
 These are only the most obvious of the evils 
 of the British system of land tenure and taxation. 
 For it is the attitude toward the land that explains 
 the tenement and the slum, that crushes out light, 
 air, and sunlight, that breeds disease, and renders 
 the development of municipal architecture and 
 beauty so costly to the rate-payers. 
 
 From such an affliction we are largely free. There 
 is some sanctity of respectability about the abuses
 
 AMERICAN AND BRITISH CITIES 249 
 
 of privilege in America. But it is not age-long. 
 There is no tradition of feudalism, no respect bor- 
 dering on veneration for a class that strangles the 
 free expression of the people. True, our cities are 
 more or less prostrate before the big business inter- 
 ests desiring franchises and privileges in the streets. 
 But we are awakening to these conditions, and have 
 no hesitancy about their destruction. They enjoy 
 no sanctity such as attaches to the privileged classes 
 in Great Britain. And all over America the forces 
 of reform are coming to appreciate that good gov- 
 ernment is only possible when privilege is exiled 
 from its councils. We are coming to realise that 
 the inefficiency and corruption of municipal admin- 
 istration is economic no less than personal, and 
 that both must be corrected together. In this larger 
 perspective the American city is much more hopeful 
 than the British city. It will be a far easier task 
 to lure good men into our councils than it is for 
 Great Britain to overcome the mediaeval burdens 
 which crib, cabin and confine her cities through 
 centuries of class control of Parliament. Long be- 
 fore another generation passes, the American city 
 will have called to its aid the type of men who have 
 given the British city its present proud distinction. 
 But back of all this, our superior physical endow- 
 ment, our comparative freedom from a land mon- 
 opoly in control of legislation, our open-minded 
 democracy, assures us a city far more beautiful,
 
 250 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 vastly more helpful, and infinitely more generous 
 in its ideals than the British city now is. It is this 
 freedom from feudal abuses and the tyranny of 
 ideas inherited from an earlier civilisation that 
 give promise that the American city of the next 
 generation will not be the worst, but rather the 
 best, governed city in the world.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 THE DEAD HAND OF THE LAND 
 
 IN a previous chapter we have seen how all local 
 taxes are assessed upon the rental value of prop- 
 erty, rather than against the value of the land 
 itself; how the right to vote is a rate-payer's rather 
 than a personal right. This tying of the suffrage 
 to the pecuniary interest of the voter makes for 
 honesty, efficiency, and economy. These are the 
 advantages which flow from a limited suffrage and 
 the adjustment of the burdens of government so 
 that they are constantly in the mind of the voter. 
 These are the effects that are seen. They are the 
 advantages which commend a property suffrage 
 qualification to those who distrust democracy. 
 
 But the unseen effects of this method of levying 
 local rates are all bad. It would be difficult to 
 exaggerate the social, political, and economic evils 
 which follow from the relief of hind, as such, from 
 taxation, and the shifting of the burdens of gov- 
 ernment on to labour and industry. For that is 
 the effect of the British rating system. It punishes 
 where it should encourage. It places a premium 
 upon indolence. This, with the monopoly of the 
 
 251
 
 252 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 land, Which is the inevitable result of its exemption 
 from direct taxation, are the controlling influences 
 in the life of the United Kingdom. They are mediae- 
 val survivals of feudalism, born of the long unchal- 
 lenged rule of the land-owning classes in Parlia- 
 ment. These institutions cry out as insistently 
 for change as did the Rotten Boroughs and the un- 
 regenerate towns prior to the Municipal Corpora- 
 tions Act of 1835. The latter measure recognised 
 personal democracy. It freed the towns from the 
 dominion of a corrupt and inert class, who had come 
 to look upon the municipalities as private posses- 
 sions for the promotion of their interests. The 
 need for reform in the system of taxation is no less 
 insistent, if democracy is to use the powers resident 
 in it for the relief of the burdens which modern 
 society has heaped upon the masses. The British 
 city can never achieve its ideals until these surviv- 
 als are swept away and abuses in the form of spe- 
 cial privileges are destroyed. 
 
 At this distance w r e are able to see the causes 
 which led up to the French Eevolution. Historians 
 have generally laid the misery of the people and 
 the decay of the Empire at the door of unequal tax- 
 ation and the oppressive exactions of the privileged 
 orders. In this respect, modern Britain differs 
 but little from France of the old regime. Her peo- 
 ple are suffering from a similar oppression at the 
 hands of the gentry, who govern the country in
 
 THE DEAD HAND OF THE LAND 253 
 
 their own interest and control the distribution of 
 taxes. France and Germany attacked the feudal 
 system at its roots by abolishing the economic priv- 
 ileges of the overlord. Great Britain abolished the 
 personal relationship and the incidents of service 
 only. The land monopoly, upon which the feudal 
 system was reared, was left intact. The passing of 
 feudalism in the seventeenth century was formal 
 rather than real. The barons were relieved of their 
 obligations to the King. The obligations of the com- 
 mon people to the barons were increased. And it 
 is the survival of these feudal burdens, in the form 
 of competitive money rents and oppressive taxes, 
 that explains many of the institutions of Great 
 Britain to-day. The British cities remain in a con- 
 dition of vassalage far more oppressive and much 
 more costly than those against which the burghers 
 of the Middle Ages so valiantly fought, though this 
 servitude is of an economic rather than of a per- 
 sonal sort. It is difficult to understand either mod- 
 ern Britain or her municipal institutions except as 
 historical survivals of centuries of class rule. 
 
 When the insecurity of the Middle Ages settled 
 down sufficiently to permit of the development of 
 trade and commerce, communities arose all over 
 the face of Europe. At first they were mere trad- 
 ing posts. In time they developed into walled 
 towns. They became the centres of industry, later 
 of wealth. But the inhabitants found that they
 
 254 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 were dwelling upon the domains of some neighbour- 
 ing over-lord. They were vassals, and vassals be- 
 cause they did not own the land upon which they 
 dwelt. The property which they amassed was sub- 
 ject to seizure and arbitrary taxation. To the feu- 
 dal baron the citizens of the towns were depend- 
 ents, differing in no respect from the serfs w r ho 
 dwelt upon his broad estates. He compelled them 
 to do homage, to pay such tribute as he demanded, 
 to serve in his wars against his neighbours. He 
 called the merchant from his counting-room, the 
 artisan from his bench. Over these demands con- 
 troversy arose. The burghers resented the taxes 
 and compulsory service from which they derived no 
 advantage. As they grew in strength they pro- 
 tested. They closed the gates of the towns and 
 manned their walls with armed men. In this strug- 
 gle of the towns and the barons civil liberty had 
 its beginnings. Some of the communities compro- 
 mised, and agreed to pay a fixed tribute instead of 
 feudal dues, in exchange for the privilege of self- 
 government. Others, in time, became wholly free. 
 They defied the over-lord and in some instances 
 the Empire itself. This was the origin of the City 
 Republics in Italy. The Hanseatic towns achieved 
 their liberty in the same way. Hamburg, Bremen, 
 and Liibeck remain to this day free cities. 
 
 Many of the towns of Great Britain secured char- 
 ters in the Middle Ages from the crown. They
 
 THE DEAD HAND OF THE LAND 255 
 
 were granted self-government in exchange for gifts 
 and favours to the King. But under the corrupt 
 reign of Charles II they were despoiled of their 
 prerogatives. From this time on down to the Mu- 
 nicipal Corporations Act of 1835, they enjoyed but 
 a semblance of freedom. They were parliamentary 
 boroughs, administered in the interest of a handful 
 of freemen. But the towns of Great Britain were 
 never free as were the towns of Europe. They were 
 never released from the condition of vassalage. For 
 the nobility of Great Britain, unlike the nobility 
 on the continent, became a ruling class. They quar- 
 relled with the King, but rarely with one another. 
 They had a common cause against the Crown on 
 the one hand and the people on the other. They 
 legalised their feudal privileges and gave them the 
 sanction of law. They transmitted the obligations 
 of personal service upon which the feudal system 
 was reared into rent and taxes. Upon their estates, 
 villages, towns and cities arose. The people were 
 given their personal freedom. A standing army 
 was substituted for military service. In the time 
 of Charles II, feudalism was abolished in so far 
 as its personal incidents were concerned. Since 
 that time democracy has come in. The people have 
 been given the suffrage. Local self-government has 
 been extended to the towns. But in this transition 
 from age to age the aristocracy retained its feudal 
 ownership of the land. It abandoned none of its
 
 256 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 economic privileges. At a matter of fact, it 
 added to them with every apparent concession to 
 liberty. To-day the people pay a more exacting 
 tribute than did their Tudor ancestors. Instead of 
 personal service they now pay its modern equiva- 
 lent rent. In addition they pay the local taxes. 
 The feudal nobility made use of its position in Par- 
 liament to exempt its own property from taxation 
 and to shift it on to the tenants. And the rents 
 which the people pay are constantly increasing in 
 amount. They are no longer fixed by custom, as 
 they were under the feudal order. They are com- 
 petitive rents of a growing city. They con- 
 stantly tend to increase through the struggle for 
 existence. 
 
 To-day, the land of Great Britain is owned by a 
 handful of persons. According to the Domesday 
 Book of 1874, which, however, is said to be some- 
 what untrustworthy, it appears that one-fourth of 
 the total acreage of the country is held by twelve 
 hundred owners. Another fourth is held by 6200 
 persons, while the remaining one-half is distributed 
 between 312,150 persons. In other words, eight 
 one-thousandths of the inhabitants of Great Britain 
 own all of the land. Not one person out of every 
 hundred has any ownership in the soil. 1 But even 
 
 'The Domesday Book excludes returns of the metropolis and 
 omits great areas of woods, plantations and wastes, as well as 
 unenclosed commons over which manorial rights extend. It 
 also classes leaseholders of 99 years and over as owners. From
 
 THE DEAD HAXD OF THE LAND 257 
 
 this does not indicate the concentration of owner- 
 ship. There are twelve landlords who own four 
 and one-half million acres between them. The peers, 
 who number about six hundred, own from one-fifth 
 to one-fourth of the laud iu the kingdom. Much 
 of the land cannot be sold except by special act of 
 Parliament. And this is so costly that it is rarely 
 resorted to. A perpetual aristocracy is assured by 
 a system of primogeniture, by entails and acts of 
 settlement devised to keep estates intact within 
 the family. Conscious of the power which the 
 ownership of land confers, in a country where all 
 of the land is taken up, the aristocracy has made 
 it almost impossible for one who is born into that 
 class to divest himself of his heirship. It has made 
 it equally difficult for any one not so born to obtain 
 access to its sources of power. There is nothing 
 quite like this in the civilised world. 
 
 Great cities have come into existence during the 
 past century upon the estates of the nobility. The 
 land underlying the metropolis of London is owned 
 
 the above figures plots of land of less than one acre are 
 eluded. 
 
 Comparing these figures with those of the continental coun- 
 tries, it appears that in Prussia there are 800,000 labourers 
 who own their land and cultivate it. In Belgium, with an area 
 of less than one-fifth of England and Wales, alone there are 
 more than a million landowners, while in France there are 
 five million owners averaging 7*/ acres and a half million 
 averaging 75 acres. 
 
 See The Land and The Community, S. W. Thackeray, 
 page 211.
 
 258 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 in large part by the families of Westminster, Cado- 
 gan, Portman, Eyre, Portland, Camden, Bedford, 
 Northampton, Llangattock, and others. Sir John 
 Kamsden owns the city of Huddersfield, with a 
 population of 95,000. The Duke of Norfolk is the 
 ground landlord of Sheffield. His ground rentals 
 alone approximate about |5.00 a head for every 
 man, woman and child in the city. Lord Derby is 
 one of the chief landlords of the city of Liverpool. 
 He owns the town of Bury. The cities of Deven- 
 port and Burton-on-Trent are built upon the lands 
 of a single owner. The same is true of many other 
 English towns. They have come into existence 
 through no enterprise of the landlords, whom they 
 have enriched beyond the proverbial dreams of 
 avarice. 
 
 The Duke of Norfolk recently sold the town of 
 Sheffield the right to maintain a market. The price 
 charged for this privilege was |2,500,000. Inas- 
 much as the Duke of Norfolk owned all of the land 
 underlying the city, the Council had no other alter- 
 native but to pay the price demanded by him if it 
 desired to serve the people in this way. The Covent 
 Garden Market is owned by the family of Bedford. 
 From it the present duke enjoys a princely revenue. 
 A toll is levied upon every gardener who ventures 
 his wagons upon the neighbouring streets and al- 
 leys. Another noble lord owns Spitsfalsfield Mar- 
 ket, from which a revenue of $90,000 a year is col-
 
 THE DEAD HAND OF THE LAND 259 
 
 lected. And while these grants were originally 
 but permission to hold a market, the law, as solici- 
 tous then as now for privilege, held that these 
 grants were in the nature of a monopoly, and that 
 no other markets might be opened within a radius 
 of seven miles. And so sacred are these aristo- 
 cratic privileges that neither the London County 
 Council nor the London Borough Councils may 
 either open a market in competition with them or 
 make an investigation as to the incomes which they 
 enjoy. 
 
 The docks are a monopoly appurtenant to the 
 soil, the same as the markets. They, too, are owned 
 by the landed gentry. The great port of London is 
 in the hands of a monopoly. Other towns, like Glas- 
 gow, Liverpool, Bristol, Dublin, and Swansea, have 
 municipalised their wharves. But all the water 
 tonnage which enters the metropolis pays tribute 
 to the four great companies which own the river 
 frontage. Their aggregate capital is f 100,000,000, 
 and the metropolis has been thwarted in every effort 
 to free the port from the monopoly of its greatest 
 asset, the River Thames. The right to maintain a 
 public house is now a landed privilege, made so by 
 the late Conservative government. It is a right 
 
 affixed to the site, and is of great value. It is like 
 
 \ 
 a street railway franchise, and may only be revoked 
 
 upon compensation being paid the owner by the 
 community.
 
 260 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 Wherever possible, Parliament has created a 
 monopoly and then given it official protection. This 
 has been done by attaching the business to the land. 
 Thus the railways, the mines, the franchise corpo- 
 rations, the markets, the docks, and latterly the 
 privilege of selling liquor, have all been merged into 
 landed rights, where competition is only possible 
 with the consent of the owner. 
 
 In consequence of the monopoly of the land in a 
 few hands, Britain is a nation of tenants, of ten- 
 ants under the most remorseless system of wealth 
 appropriation ever sanctioned by law. The land 
 is held under lease, and the tenant is compelled to 
 place such buildings upon it as the owner wills. 
 He must keep them improved and in the original 
 condition of efficiency. From time to time the 
 leases are revalued. If the location has grown in 
 value, as most of the sites of a city have, the rent 
 is increased. On the expiration of the grant, all 
 of the buildings, improvements, and fixtures pass 
 to the landlord without compensation to the tenant. 
 By this process in time the land owners will come 
 into possession of all the immovable property in 
 the kingdom. They also enjoy all of the unearned 
 increment, which becomes theirs without effort 
 and under laws of their own making. Those who 
 own the land can always determine the conditions 
 of its use. And the terms of leasehold tenure in 
 Great Britain are the most oppressive and the most
 
 THE DEAD HAND OF THE LAND 261 
 
 vexatious that could be devised. When those who 
 own the land also control the government these 
 conditions cannot be altered except with the con- 
 sent of the owner. 
 
 But the greatest injustice of this merger of poli- 
 tics and privilege is to be seen in the tax laws of 
 the nation. Here the most oppressive privileges 
 have been created. The landlords have not over- 
 looked the first instinct of monopoly, which is to 
 make the masses pay. For two hundred years all 
 legislation has been devised to relieve the land from 
 direct taxation. To-day land that is not in use 
 pays no taxes. It may be worth millions of dollars 
 an acre and be situated in the heart of London it 
 pays no taxes as land. It may be a suburban estate 
 badly needed for building purposes it still pays 
 no direct taxes. If, however, the land is built upon, 
 or leased for productive purposes, the tenant pays 
 taxes in proportion to his rental. To this extent 
 the value of the land enters into the valuation. The 
 rate is so many shillings to the pound. It is a sort 
 of income tax, but an income tax that is not paid 
 by him who enjoys the income. If the property is 
 not occupied, it pays no local taxes at all. For then 
 there is no tenant to make the payment. If the 
 improvement be a shack in the centre of the city, 
 where a splendid office building should be erected, 
 it is rated as a shack at a few pounds per year. If 
 it be suburban building land, held by the owner for
 
 262 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 purposes of speculation, and rented at a few pounds 
 per acre for sheep grazing, it is taxed on the rental 
 paid for sheep grazing. Thus the land owner pays 
 no taxes on his naked land, and he pays none at all 
 if his property is improved but unoccupied. 1 And 
 what he does pay is paid by the tenant, and only 
 indirectly, if at all, shifted on to his shoulders. 
 
 No more perfect example of class legislation was 
 ever devised than this. It differs from that of the 
 ancien regime in France only in the democratic 
 forms under the guise of which the fraud is per- 
 petrated. Parliament, like other aristocratic as- 
 semblies, represents itself and its members' interest. 
 And no legislation could be more destructive to the 
 life, industry and well-being of the people than the 
 land tax laws of Great Britain. It is this monopoly 
 of the land, and its exemption from taxation that 
 explains the heart disease of the English nation. It 
 cramps the towns and strangles their development. 2 
 
 lr The city of Bradford is an example of the vicious system 
 of exempting land values, as such, from taxation, and of im- 
 posing the taxes upon the rental value of property alone. The 
 area of the old town was 10,076 acres. Of this, nearly one- 
 half, or 4,512 acres, was not built upon. This portion was 
 rated at $900,000, but was worth in the market $19,000,000, 
 and would have been rated at this latter sum if improved. 
 Thus the enterprising classes who made use of the land, and 
 built upon it, were compelled to pay nearly twice as much 
 taxes as they would have done had all land been assessed, as 
 is done in America, whether improved or unimproved. 
 
 "Examples of the destructive effect of land monopoly and 
 ' the system of taxation might be duplicated indefinitely. I. 
 have seen tenements erected in the midst of an open field out- 
 side of the city where cottages should have been built. Idle
 
 THE DEAD IIAXD OF THE LAXD 2(>3 
 
 The landlord can hold the land indefinitely free 
 from taxes, or taxed only at its annual rental. It 
 may be improved with miserable shacks in the cen- 
 tre of the town. Inasmuch as the shacks are taxed 
 at a nominal rate, there is no incentive to improve 
 them. The land may be worth a thousand dollars 
 a foot, the tax remains the same as though it were 
 a village site. If the landlord chose to leave the 
 laud vacant, or if the estate is tied up by family set- 
 tlement, or otherwise, in a way which makes im- 
 provement impossible, it pays no direct taxes at all. 
 
 It is this that explains the appearance of the Eng- 
 lish city, its unimproved homes and ancient busi- 
 ness blocks, unsuited to modern conditions; blocks 
 which would quickly make way for something better 
 were the taxes imposed upon the capital value of 
 the land as is done in America. It is this that 
 explains the lack of beauty in the British city. 
 With the exception of Edinburgh, Dublin, Cam- 
 bridge, Oxford, the cathedral towns, and parts of 
 London and Glasgow, there are few beautiful cities 
 
 land was lying all around; but these tenements were filled with 
 a dozen families to a stair. There was land in abundance for 
 cottages, but the landlord was under no compulsion to use it 
 until he was ready to do so, for the vacant land paid no taxes. 
 About all of the great cities of England is land used for agri- 
 cultural purposes, or idle, and valued for taxation at from $10 
 to $20 an acre (annual rental value), which, on being built 
 upon by tenements, became worth from $400 to $500 an acre. 
 Inasmuch as the landlord is free from taxes, he can hold the 
 land from use until the city has grown to the point where 
 tenement conditions, like those in the heart of the city, can 
 be reproduced.
 
 264 THE BKTTISH CITY 
 
 in Great Britain. No cities of America, with the 
 possible exception of Pittsburg and Chicago, com- 
 pare in ugliness with Sheffield, Manchester, Belfast, 
 and the manufacturing towns of England. While 
 Continental cities are centres of beauty, with wide 
 streets and commanding avenues, the English city 
 is black and unkempt, irregularly built, and devoid 
 of decent architecture. The system of leasehold 
 tenure under revaluation leasesdestroys any incen- 
 tive to improve the property. For the owner him- 
 self need not take the trouble to build, and the 
 tenant has only a terminable interest in the prop- 
 erty. The value of the land is constantly rising, 
 and the instinct of the owner everywhere is to 
 hold on to his property in the hope of still further 
 advances. Inasmuch as on the expiration of the 
 lease all of the improvements placed upon the land 
 pass to the landlord without compensation, the 
 tenant builds only for his immediate necessities. 
 No one has a pecuniary interest in beautifying the 
 city, and English architecture has suffered in con- 
 sequence. 
 
 The cities are lacking in open spaces and parks 
 for the same reason. Except under special legisla- 
 tion, land cannot be acquired for public use by com- 
 pulsory purchase, and the prices demanded by the 
 owner make voluntary purchase difficult and very 
 expensive. To this is added the hostility of the 
 rate-paying classes, already heavily burdened by
 
 THE DEAD HAND OF THE LAND . 265 
 
 the exemption of much of the property from taxa- 
 tion and the heavy obligations of health, cleanli- 
 ness, and education. This still further restrains 
 the Town Councils in their efforts to adorn the 
 municipalities with fine buildings, parks, or open 
 spaces. 
 
 The monopoly of the land and its exemption from 
 taxation also explains the terrible tenement con- 
 ditions of the English city. Few places in Europe 
 compare in wretchedness with the slums of the 
 smaller British towns. And the larger " ; ties are 
 much worse. The cities are cramped and confined 
 within the smallest possible area. The compari- 
 son of the population and the corporate areas of 
 several English and American cities indicates how 
 fortunate we are in this respect 
 
 GREAT BRITAIN. 
 Towns. Population. Area, Acres. 
 
 Administrative County of London. . . 4,536,541 75,520 
 
 Glasgow 781,000 12,688 
 
 Liverpool 710,337 17,792 
 
 Manchester 543,827 13,654 
 
 Birmingham 522,204 12,639 
 
 Leeds 443,599 21,572 
 
 Sheffield 426,686 23,662 
 
 UNITED STATES (Estimated, 1903). 
 
 New York 3,716,139 209,218 
 
 Chicago 1,873,880 114,932 
 
 Philadelphia 1,367,716 81,833 
 
 St. Louis 612,279 39,276 
 
 Baltimore 531,313 19,303 
 
 Cleveland 414,950 22,180 
 
 Pittsburg 345,043 18,171 
 
 The housing conditions of the British people are 
 little better than barbarous. This is true in the
 
 266. THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 country districts as well as in the cities. The mas- 
 ter of the hounds of a county is much more solic- 
 itous of his kennels than he is of the tenants on 
 his estate. It has been estimated that twenty-two 
 per cent, of Scottish families and thirty-three per 
 cent, of the families of Glasgow live in homes of one 
 room each. Sir Robert Giffen estimates that 8,000,- 
 000 of Great Britain's 41,000,000 of people live on 
 an income of less than a pound a week. Nearly 
 one-half of these persons live in dwellings which 
 are unsanitary, airless, sunless, and unfitted for hu- 
 man habitation. In London, not less than two and 
 one-half million people live under conditions badly 
 needing improvement. Of the 760,000 people in 
 Glasgow-, 91,205 are living at the rate of from three 
 to twelve persons in a room, while 194,284 are liv- 
 ing in the condition of from five to twelve persons 
 in two rooms. Numerous investigations conducted 
 by the Land Law Reform Association into the con- 
 dition of English villages show that the homes of 
 the countryside are little, if any, better than the 
 tenements of the cities. At least one-half of the 
 cottages are described as bad, and many of them 
 are overcrowded in the grossest possible manner. 
 
 In the cities the population is herded into the 
 smallest possible space. Tenements are *>uilt close 
 up to the open fields of the country. There is no 
 inducement to the landlord to sell. There is every 
 inducement to hold tight to the land. It is this
 
 THE DEAD HAND OF THE LAND 267 
 
 fact that explains the unparalleled congestion of the 
 English city. 1 Land just beyond the city's walls, 
 badly needed for homes, is held from use. by the 
 
 'In a recent volume, entitled "Municipal Ownership in Great 
 Britain," Dr. Hugo Meyer, of Chicago University, condemns 
 the English towns for the terrible tenement conditions which 
 prevail. He lays the congestion at the door of municipal own- 
 ership, and the policy of a zone system of street railway fares, 
 and the desire of the towns to make money out of these 
 enterprises. 
 
 It is difficult to understand how even a casual observer, 
 with any knowledge of English conditions, could have ven- 
 tured to lay this condition at the door of municipal owner- 
 ship. In the first place, the zone system of street railway 
 fares was universal in Great Britain before the towns took 
 over the tramways. They are a survival of private owner- 
 ship to which the people have grown accustomed by long 
 use. They were not introduced by the Town Councils, but 
 by the private companies. 
 
 Further than this, no street railways were built in England 
 prior to the act of 1870. The English town was a cramped 
 and congested thing long before tramways were thought of. 
 They have been afflicted witL tenements and slums ever since 
 the rush to the city began. In so far as relief has been of- 
 fered through improved transportation facilities, it has been 
 offered by the Town Councils, who have done something to 
 relieve tenement conditions through the extension of the tram- 
 way lines. Private companies, animated only by a desire for 
 dividends, were as indifferent to housing conditions as are 
 the street railways of any American city. But the real ex- 
 planation of the slum, of the "brutality" which Dr. Meyer 
 ascribes to the Town Councils, is traceable to the utter inability 
 of the cities to buy the land or the people to obtain a foothold 
 in all England except by the permission of some untaxed land- 
 lord, who holds his land, not that it may be used by humanity, 
 but that he may derive the last shilling of competitive rent 
 from its lease. This is the explanation of the English slum. 
 For as rapidly as the cities opened up new land for occupancy 
 its value increased immediately by virtue of its availability 
 for building purposes. Under these conditions, the cities are 
 helpless in their struggle to relieve the tenement problem.
 
 268 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 owner awaiting for the necessities of the people to 
 enable him to exact his OAvn price. All of the city's 
 improvements, every increase in population, flow 
 into the pocket of the landlord, who sits indolently 
 by and refuses to permit the city to expand over his 
 estate except on his own terms. The opening of 
 streets, the construction of sewers, the coming of 
 fire, police, and health protection are paid for out 
 of the tenant's purse. The benefits all go to the 
 landlord's. For they still further enhance the value 
 of his property. 
 
 The injustice of these conditions came to the no- 
 tice of the Town Councils through the development 
 of their tramway lines. The cities were oppressed 
 by the condition of their poor. The slums were a 
 menace to the health of the community. To clean 
 them up it was necessary to purchase the land from 
 the slum lords, for they would not permit Parlia- 
 ment to pass any legislation compelling the owners 
 to do so. If the city undertook the task, homes 
 had to be found for the dispossessed elsewhere. Oth- 
 erwise, the efforts of the Council led to even worse 
 overcrowding in some other portion of the city. So 
 the Councils decided to extend their tramways out 
 into the country, to open up suburban residences 
 for the people. But the effect of this extension of 
 the tram lines was so to increase the value of the 
 suburban land that it was out of the reach of those 
 who needed it. Instead of rents going down any-
 
 THE DEAD HAND OF THE LAND 269 
 
 where, they went up in the new territory. So re- 
 sponsive, in fact, were land values to the develop- 
 ment of the tramway lines, that a decrease of $5.00 
 a year in fares was followed immediately by an 
 increase of $5.00 a year in rents. The city lost 
 money on the operation of its new lines, and the 
 only gainer was the landlord. Thus the towns were 
 thwarted in their efforts to solve the tenement prob- 
 lem through the municipalisation of the tram lines. 
 In some cities the Councils obtained powers to 
 buy up slum areas and erect upon them model dwel- 
 lings for the relief of the congestion. In such pur- 
 chases the value of the land was increased by the 
 very overcrowding that menaced the community. 
 For the Town Councils had to pay the capitalised 
 value of the property used as a slum. If it were bad- 
 ly overcrowded it had a greater value. Landlords 
 found it profitable to create a slum in order to force 
 the city to demolish it. When the city purchased 
 such an area, and razed the tenements, it drove the 
 occupants elsewhere, and this increased the value 
 of other holdings, which in turn had to be bought 
 out at excessive figures. Thus the efforts of the city 
 to improve the condition of the poor involves a 
 heavy burden on the rate-payers, while the holdings 
 of the untaxed landlords whose greed is responsible 
 for the city's suffering, are greatly increased in 
 value. Every betterment, every park improvement, 
 every area opened up, every cheapening of street
 
 270 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 railways, gas or water service, increases the value 
 of the land which contributes nothing to the im- 
 provement. 
 
 Thus the cities are bound like Gulliver. Every 
 effort, whether inspired by philanthropy or thrift, 
 only increases the value of the land. And the 
 most fundamental problem of city life, the decent 
 housing of the people, can never be achieved so long 
 as it is to the interest of the landlord to sit idly on 
 his holdings until the demands of life itself force 
 the erection of tenement blocks immediately to be- 
 come another menace to the community. 
 
 The monopoly which the landlords enjoy is the 
 most perfect in the world, and it includes all others. 
 For the people have no other alternative but to 
 accept its decision. No combination, no gentle- 
 man's agreement is needed to enforce its will. All 
 that is arranged by the laws of the land and by an 
 immemorial custom which has all the sanction of 
 law. 
 
 The dead hand of landlordism is strangling the 
 English city. It is smothering agriculture and in- 
 dustry. It is impoverishing the people. Not only 
 are the farmers rack-rented out of what they pro- 
 duce, they are excluded by millions from the soil 
 inviting to occupancy. The towns have sought per- 
 mission from Parliament to buy up the land sur- 
 rounding the towns in order that they might retain 
 the unearned increment from the city's growth, and
 
 THE DEAD HAND OF THE LAND 271 
 
 at the same time make provision for the housing of 
 their people. Such a policy has been adopted in 
 many German towns with great success. But Par- 
 liament has never been willing to permit the in- 
 creasing treasure, which flows automatically to its 
 members' pockets to pass from its control. Lat- 
 terly, the agitation of the towns has taken a new 
 turn. Unable to buy the land, the cities have or- 
 ganised to tax the value of the land which they 
 themselves have created. 
 
 The land and the things appurtenant to the land 
 form the physical basis of British politics. The 
 concentration of land ownership in a few hands, 
 and those hands in control of Parliament, explains 
 the system of taxation which has come into exist- 
 ence, as well as its permanence in the face of its 
 manifest injustice and injury to the life of the coun- 
 try. Just as the bulk of the imperial taxes formerly 
 paid by the barons for the maintenance of the 
 Crown have been shifted from the land and cast 
 upon consumption, so the burdens of local govern- 
 ment have been shifted on to the occupier, where 
 they ultimately rest
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE BKITISH PAELIAMENT THE SANCTUARY 
 OF PRIVILEGE 
 
 MANY Americans are convinced that their gov- 
 ernment is pretty bad. Many believe it is worse 
 than that of any country of western Europe. But 
 we do not know other countries as we are coming to 
 know our own. If we did, we should probably see 
 that it is not so much in the badness as in the 
 amount of our knowledge of the badness that 
 America differs from the rest of the world. The 
 things that have become a commonplace with us 
 other peoples do not know. But we have been made 
 very wise through the disclosures of tjie past few 
 years, wiser than any people on earth. We have 
 washed all our linen in public, where it should be 
 washed. And we have found that, far from being 
 the most easy-going of people, we are very exacting. 
 We care a great deal about politics. We insist 
 upon knowing what is going on behind the scenes. 
 America is really intolerant of the things that are 
 bad. We want things right. Not merely pretty 
 good but right. 
 
 272
 
 THE BKITISH PARLIAMENT 273 
 
 But there is no one to tell other peoples what we 
 in America are all beginning to know. Most peo- 
 ples live in fear of government as the ancient He- 
 brews lived in fear of God. In England the govern- 
 ing class enjoys a sanctity of which we have no con- 
 ception. There is nothing quite like it in modern 
 Europe. For England is still feudal to the core. 
 It is true the obligations of personal service have 
 been abolished! Feudalism has been modernised by 
 trade, commerce, and manhood suffrage. But the 
 relations of classes are those of the fifteenth rather 
 than of the twentieth century. A caste like that of 
 India runs through the structure of society. Above 
 is the landed aristocracy, who own almost all the 
 land. Less than 8000 of them alone own one- 
 half of the soil of Great Britain. They, also, are 
 stockholders in the railways, the mines, the ship- 
 ping, and the franchise corporations. They finance 
 the nation. They employ the barristers and the 
 solicitors. They control the Church of England and 
 the press, and through them make public opinion. 
 From out the gentry come the clergy of the estab- 
 lished church, many of the professional men, and 
 the leisure class. The captain of industry, the mer- 
 chant prince, the successful professional man or 
 politician, is constantly knocking at the door of 
 this very exclusive class for admission. Even the 
 radical finds it difficult to resist its blandishments, 
 its softness, its assurances.
 
 274 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 This is not so true of Scotland and Ireland. But 
 this is England, and England rules Great Britain. 
 The mother country is feudal in its organisation 
 as well as in its instincts. Out of the aristocracy 
 come many of the officers of the army and the navy. 
 The church and the civil service are recruited from 
 its ranks. It patronises business which it professes 
 to scorn, but lends its name to questionable finance. 
 And into this age-long caste, the most sympathetic 
 in western Europe, all the upper classes seek to 
 enter. 
 
 Such a class is almost as immune from criticism 
 as is the Czar or the Kaiser. And this is the class 
 which governs. No wonder that England is com- 
 plaisant. No wonder her press is filled with disgust 
 over the corruption of American politics and busi- 
 ness. And we are daily being told that England is 
 the country of all others upon which we should 
 model our conduct. 
 
 It would seem hazardous to challenge a compari- 
 son of English and American politics. It would 
 seem even more hazardous to assert that there is 
 more hope from the United States Senate than there 
 is from the British Parliament. For English poli- 
 tics are assumed to be the most democratic in their 
 forms of any country in the world. And Parlia- 
 ment is treated by all as above reproach. But were 
 British politics subjected to the same searching in- 
 vestigation that Congress and the American States
 
 THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT 275 
 
 have had to face, there would be disclosed a 
 condition which differs from our own only in 
 its greater respectability and its more perfect ad- 
 justment to use by the privileged classes who 
 govern. 
 
 Not the least of the gains which have come to us 
 from the disclosures of the past few years is the 
 understanding that bribery is not the only form 
 which corruption may assume. Bribery has become 
 the least effective means of securing public plun- 
 der. It is the method of petty grafting. Then, too, 
 it is no longer safe. We have broadened our views 
 of official responsibility. We have learned that an 
 entire party may be purchased by campaign con- 
 tributions, and that the code of partisan ethics re- 
 quires that the pledges of the managers be carried 
 out. The boss is also seen in a new light. We used 
 to think of him as a ward heeler, risen to power 
 through his service to the criminal classes below. 
 We now see him as he is, a big broker the repre- 
 sentative of business interests which want things. 
 In many States he has been elevated by business to 
 the United States Senate. In other States he makes 
 senators. He has become a cog in the machine of 
 business. He is eminently respectable; but to him 
 and his makers business is the main tiling, politics 
 is secondary. In this process of control, corruption 
 has assumed a far more effective form than that of 
 bribery. It is also much safer. Privileged business
 
 276 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 is now sending its representatives to Congress. It 
 has placed its lawyers on the Bench ; its local attor- 
 neys and employees in the State Assemblies. The 
 desire for privilege, in the form of franchises, free- 
 dom from taxation and regulation, a protective 
 tariff and subsidies, are the controlling motives in 
 American politics. 
 
 This marks a revolution in our democracy. The 
 means employed by those who want things are no 
 less corrupt than the more vulgar offenses of an 
 earlier day. They involve no hazard of the penal 
 code, no loss of respectability. They are far more 
 sinister and much more costly to our institutions. 
 Through these means the nation, State, and city 
 have entered into partnership with privileged busi- 
 ness. This partnership involves the control of the 
 people's government by an economic class. This is 
 the final form which corruption always assumes. 
 It is a form with which all nations and all history 
 is familiar. 
 
 The bribe-taker and the bribe-giver, the boss and 
 the hired lobby are practically unknown in Great 
 Britain. For this reason we have assumed that 
 Parliament was free from corruption. As time goes 
 on, America, too, will be free from this vulgarity. 
 Our politics are fast becoming a merger of busi- 
 ness interests seeking privilege. But an examina- 
 tion of English politics, as relentless as that to 
 which our own has been subjected, will disclose a
 
 THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT 277 
 
 systematised use of the government that is bolder 
 and far more perfect than anything with which we 
 are familiar. In England, the things we protest 
 against are identified with high station and social 
 distinction. They are protected by the press and 
 public opinion. They are shielded by a veneration 
 for the upper classes that shrinks from criticism. 
 But beneath the surface corruption, in the sense 
 that we are coming to know corruption, flourishes 
 in Parliament. We recognise it in America. Great 
 Britain does not suspect it. We are rebellious. She 
 is self-righteous. With them corruption is fixed 
 and established. With us it is changing. And the 
 cost of this class control to the people is evidenced 
 by their appalling poverty. The gentry, with their 
 alleged noblesse oblige, have made the people of 
 Great Britain poor. They have famished Ireland, 
 and are bringing England and Scotland to a state 
 of decay. This condition is perpetuated by the 
 House of Lords. However the opinion of the coun- 
 try may change, it does not affect this hereditary 
 body. And it may always be counted on to protect 
 its own interests. 
 
 Up to the last election, Parliament w r as instinct 
 with the interests of the great plantation owners. 
 As such it was a monopolistic body. It repre- 
 sented the things its members owned. From one- 
 fifth to one-fourth of the land in the kingdom is 
 owned by the peers, who number about six hun-
 
 278 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 dred. The House of Lords is almost exclusively a 
 landed body. The land owners form the country 
 gentry, the aristocracy of Great Britain. 1 The 
 cabinet of Lord Salisbury was a family ministry 
 of great estate owners. For nearly a century the 
 contest for the control of the government has been 
 between the landed aristocracy on the one hand 
 and the commercial classes on the other, both of 
 whom were seeking privileges of some sort. But 
 even the commercial classes have taken on the 
 colour of the gentry. 
 
 Modern England differs from other aristocratic 
 nations of Europe only in the fact that her institu- 
 tions are democratic in form. But the form of gov- 
 ernment counts for little, as we in America are 
 coming to see. And the class which rules Great 
 Britain is the most privileged in western Europe, 
 possibly the most privileged in the civilised world. 
 The House of Lords has always interposed a veto 
 on any legislation which even remotely threatened 
 its interests. Its members are drawn from the few 
 thousand families that have ruled Great Britain 
 from the advent of Parliamentary government. In 
 1905 all but 70 of its 589 members were hereditary. 
 The remainder were higher dignitaries of the 
 Church of England, or Scottish and Irish repre- 
 sentative peers. This little oligarchy is deaf and 
 
 ir The number of persons in Great Britain owning more than 
 ten acres of land is only 176,000. Less than one two-hundredths 
 part of the population own ten-elevenths of the total area.
 
 THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT 279 
 
 dumb to any criticism. It is ignorant of the fact 
 that it abuses its power. A change in parties makes 
 no impression upon it. It remains reactionary in 
 the face of every popular demand. The landed 
 gentry think themselves to be the government, no 
 matter by what party it is carried on. And the 
 average Englishman is rather pleased to think that 
 he is governed by his betters. He rarely questions 
 this assumption of power. 1 
 
 We cannot appreciate the sacrosanctity of land 
 in England nor the dignity which its ownership 
 confers. Nor can we understand its standing in 
 Parliament, before the law, in society, and in the 
 eyes of the people. All classes reflect the veneration 
 which land ownership confers. There is nothing 
 like it in Europe. For there is no country that 
 has given over its politics, its army, its established 
 church, and all of the avenues of advancement to the 
 
 a "What is the House of Lords? Primarily it is a House of 
 Landlords. The landed system of this councry was created 
 in order to make the Peers the owners of the soil and the lords 
 of the land. It has done its work. According to Lord Derby's 
 return of 1874-5, 525 peers own one-fourth of the land of 
 England. The average area of each peer is about 38,000 acres. 
 
 "This is no natural growth. It has been artificially fostered 
 for nearly nine hundred years. The landed system exists to 
 maintain the House of Lords, and the ultima ratio of the 
 House of Lords is to maintain the landed system. The House 
 of Lords is a mere Tory caucus for all other purposes of legis- 
 lation. But it will defeat even a Tory government when it 
 attempts to reform the landed system. To the Peers there is 
 one thing only that is more sacred than the interests of the 
 Tory party. That is its own interests in the land." "Peers 
 or People?" by W. T. Stead, page 82.
 
 280 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 landed gentry as has Great Britain. All this has 
 created a caste system. 
 
 In spite of the tremendous growth in the powers 
 of the commercial classes during the last two gen- 
 erations, but little real impression has been made 
 upon the traditions of English life. Far from con- 
 trolling Parliament during the nineteenth century, 
 the financial interests have been identified with the 
 landed gentry, who have been enriched and made 
 more powerful by the infusion of wealth which 
 trade and commerce have brought to the country. 
 The House of Commons comes very largely from 
 the land-owning classes and those who reflect its 
 interests. This is especially true when the Con- 
 servative party is in power. A glance at the list of 
 the members of the lower house during the last gov- 
 ernment shows a surprisingly large number of land 
 owners, retired army officials, country gentlemen, 
 barristers, financiers, ship owners, retired gentle- 
 men, and younger sons of the nobility. Bankers, 
 brewers, miners, distillers, and railway directors 
 abound, as do manufacturers and solicitors. Those 
 who formed "His Majesty's Chief Officers of State," 
 or the ministry, were overwhelmingly from the aris- 
 tocracy. This is far less true of the Liberal party 
 now in power, but the social, political and profes- 
 sional aspirations of all classes lend them very 
 readily to the desires of those from whom all ad- 
 vancement is to be obtained.
 
 THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT 281 
 
 It is this that gives to Great Britain its caste-like 
 organisation. It is this that makes of the govern- 
 ment of the United Kingdom a class-conscious aris- 
 tocracy. Even the king is but the titular repre- 
 sentative of the aristocracy, for the power of the 
 Crown has passed to Parliament, and Parliament 
 for centuries has been but the mouthpiece of the 
 land-owning classes. To what extent this tradi- 
 tional veneration will overawe the new and militant 
 democracy that has recently come into existence, 
 remains to be seen. Great Britain may be on the 
 eve of a real revolution, a revolution which seemed 
 to follow the ascendancy of the mercantile classes 
 in the days of Bright and Cobden in the early half 
 of the century. But that ascendancy was short- 
 lived. The ambitions of the trading classes were 
 social no less than economic. In time its members 
 and their interests were merged into those of the 
 ancient aristocracy. It was only a third estate 
 movement at most, and its ideals were those of a 
 commercial aristocracy which was perfectly content 
 with its achievements as soon as its most insistent 
 economic and social demands were satisfied. 
 
 Great Britain does not see that the class which 
 rules, always overwhelmingly dominant in the 
 House of Lords, and almost equally dominant in 
 the House of Commons, enjoys the most perfect 
 monopoly in the modern world ; a monopoly far 
 more perfect, and infinitely more costly to the peo-
 
 282 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 pie than the coal and the steel, the oil and the cop- 
 per, the railway and the franchise corporations with 
 which we in America are oppressed. For the mon- 
 opoly which the land owners of Great Britain enjoy 
 includes all these as the merest incident to the own- 
 ership of the soil. Great estates exist which in- 
 clude metropolitan cities and villages, coal mines 
 and quarries, estates which often run into the hun- 
 dreds of thousands of acres, and spread over en- 
 tire counties, with their villages, towns, and local 
 political agencies. 
 
 It would be easy to demonstrate this dominion 
 of a small but imperious class line by line from 
 English history. The British government is really 
 merged into the economic interests of the aristoc- 
 racy. This class interest is best seen in the means 
 adopted for relieving landed property from taxa- 
 tion. The history of the tax laws of Great Britain 
 read like a chapter from the old regime in France, 
 or the contemporary history of America, 
 
 In the closing years of the seventeenth century 
 the incidents of feudalism were abolished. The long 
 controversy between the Crown and the Barons 
 came to an end. The Barons desired to be free from 
 their feudal obligations paid to the King. The King 
 accepted a tax on the land equal to one-fifth of its 
 annual rental value in lieu of the feudal services 
 and the burdens of supporting the Crown, which the 
 large land owners had rendered for centuries as
 
 THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT 283 
 
 a condition of their holdings. To this tax was 
 added an excise system, which was designed to re- 
 lieve the land of its feudal dues and to throw the 
 burdens of the government on to the backs of the 
 poor. A century later, during the Napoleonic wars, 
 Parliament decided that the land should never be 
 revalued, and that the tax should ever remain at 
 about $10,000,000. By subsequent enactments this 
 amount was still further reduced to |3,750,000, at 
 which sum it remains to this day. The land has 
 not been revalued since 1798. It is estimated that 
 the land has increased in value nearly 2000 per 
 cent, since that time; but those who own the land 
 have never permitted it to be reassessed. Even 
 though metropolitan cities have sprung into exist- 
 ence, and land which was then worth but a few 
 pounds per acre is now worth ten times that amount 
 per front foot, it is still assessed as it was when 
 Great Britain was an agricultural country. 1 
 
 The land underlying London is valued to-day as 
 it was in the seventeenth century. Much of it is 
 on the tax duplicate as the hunting preserves of 
 some great estate. It is as though Manhattan Island 
 were still valued, for purposes of taxation, as it was 
 
 'In a sense the land that is improved is assessed for local 
 purposes. For the rental value of the premises includes the 
 value of the land as well as the buildings. The evil is that 
 the tax is not upon the value of the land irrespective of im- 
 provements, as in America. It is this that permits its reserve 
 from use and speculative holding.
 
 284 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 when the City Hall Park was on the outskirts of 
 the town. The same is true of the great mineral 
 resources of Great Britain which have come into 
 use during the past hundred years. Were the land 
 of Great Britain revalued, as is the land of every 
 American State, the land-owning class which con- 
 trols the government would be paying nearly $200,- 
 000,000 a year instead of $3,750,000. They would 
 pay this sum if the rate of four shillings in the 
 pound, which was the rate agreed upon in 1692, 
 were adhered to. 1 
 
 It is to shield their property from taxation and 
 regulation that the railways, mine owners, and 
 franchise corporations enter politics in America. 
 But nowhere do their law-made privileges compare 
 
 'The annual rental of the land of Great Britain which is 
 paid to the landlords has been estimated at something over 
 200,000,000 pounds, or nearly $1,000,000,000. By some it has 
 been placed as high as $1,250,000,000. A tax of four shillings 
 on the pound of annual rental would yield from $200,000,000 
 to $250,000,000. This is equivalent to a tax of about one per 
 cent, on the selling value of the land. For the value of the 
 land of Great Britain, with the mines and resources, is not far 
 from $25,000,000,000. It pays directly in taxation about $3,750,- 
 000, or about two-tenths of one mill on the selling price. Were 
 a rate of one per cent, imposed, which is below the average 
 rate in America, the- land of Great Britain would yield about 
 fifty times what it does to-day. 
 
 It is true that the income of the land owner is subject to the 
 income tax, as well as the legacy and succession duties. But 
 so is all other property. But the great bulk of the revenues 
 of Great Britain, whether for local or imperial purposes, is 
 paid by the poorer classes and the industry of the country. 
 This is more true of Great Britain than it is of America, al- 
 though our Federal revenues are wholly derived from con- 
 sumption taxes.
 
 THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT 285 
 
 in magnitude with those of the land-owning class 
 in control of Parliament. 
 
 The same indifference to every consideration save 
 their own advantage characterises the attitude of 
 the English aristocracy toward other legislation. 
 Not content with avoiding imperial taxes, which the 
 barons bore up to the time of Charles II, they have 
 also relieved themselves from local taxation. For 
 the local rates are assessed against the tenant. They 
 are paid by the occupier. The owner of the land 
 pays nothing, or next to nothing. And, worst of 
 all, property is taxed for local purposes not on 
 its selling value, but at whatever the landlord may 
 happen to get out of it in the form of rent. If 
 he does not see fit to rent it, it pays no taxes at all. 
 
 This throwing of the taxes upon the tenant, too, 
 means that labour bears the bulk of the cost of 
 local government. It is shifted on to thrift and 
 enterprise. A premium is placed upon thriftless- 
 ness. The slum is encouraged, while he that la- 
 bours is punished for his energy. 
 
 For years the British cities have been beating at 
 the doors of Parliament, demanding relief from the 
 dead hand of the landlord. This is the great eco- 
 nomic struggle in Britain to-day. More than five 
 hundred local authorities have organised into a 
 League for the Taxation of Land Values. The move- 
 ment was promoted by the Town Council of Glas- 
 gow. It has already appropriated f 15,000 to carry
 
 286 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 on the agitation. The London County Council has 
 been in the forefront of the fight. Not that very 
 much has been asked. The local authorities have 
 only sought permission to separately value the land 
 apart from the buildings or improvements, and to 
 impose a special tax upon the value of the land 
 due to the growth of population and public expen- 
 diture, in order that they might participate in the 
 unearned increment due to the city's growth. They 
 want to find homes for their people. They are ask- 
 ing permission to have the land valued in order 
 that a tax may be imposed on its capital value as 
 is done in America. But up to the present time 
 Parliament has turned a deaf ear to the demands 
 of the cities. Its members are making use of the 
 trust reposed in them to increase their own rev- 
 enues through tax evasions by hundreds of millions 
 of dollars each year. 
 
 This class instinct of the landed gentry ramifies 
 into all legislation. It is the note which recurs 
 in all fiscal measures, in all slum clearance, in rail- 
 way regulation, in the attempts of the cities to buy 
 the franchise corporations, in all the big enterprises 
 upon which the cities are seeking to enter. When 
 the railways of Great Britain were constructed, 
 Parliament did not pass a general law under which 
 any company might build a road. Nor were they 
 given the right of eminent domain, a privilege en- 
 joyed by all transportation companies in America.
 
 THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT 287 
 
 Every railroad bad to secure a special act. It had 
 to go to Parliament for another act for every little 
 extension. Those who promoted the road had to 
 indicate its routes and termini. Before the charter 
 was granted they had to arrange to buy the land 
 from the owner at private sale. They had to buy 
 it from the members of Parliament from whom 
 they were asking a charter. And these gentlemen 
 made good bargains. They asked many times the 
 value of their land. And they got it. Otherwise, 
 the railway got no charter. 1 The railways of Great 
 Britain are capitalised at f 165,000 a mile of single 
 track. This is three times the inflated capitalisa- 
 tion of the American railways, and from six to eight 
 times their estimated cost of reproduction. The 
 paid-up capital is about six billion dollars for 21,- 
 500 miles, as against about eleven billions, the capi- 
 tal stock and bond val <*$ our 214,000 miles. The 
 landlords of Great Britain are said to have received 
 at least f 400,000,000 in excess of the actual value 
 of their land through these means. It was no un- 
 
 'A railway company has no general right to file its articles 
 of incorporation, as is done in America, and having done so, 
 proceed at once to acquire by compulsory purchase such land 
 as it needs for its right of way. Parliament is very deliberate 
 in the matter. Hearings are had as to the necessity of the 
 road, as to its routes and terminii. Persons opposed to its 
 building appear before the committees and present their objec- 
 tions. But after the charter has been granted, then the com- 
 pany can serve notice on any landowner who will not sell his 
 land voluntarily, in the form of a "notice to treat." Under 
 this procedure it is possible for the company to take such 
 land as it may need by compulsory purchase.
 
 288 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 common thing for a company to pay from $20,000 
 to $40,000 a mile for the right of way alone. The 
 members of Parliament made use of their position 
 to exact such terms as they saw fit. By means of 
 the sums received for their land and subsequent 
 purchases the landlords remain the controlling 
 owners in English railways to-day. Hundreds of 
 the members of Parliament are directors and stock- 
 holders. Having enriched themselves by the means 
 described, they now strive to protect the railways 
 from any regulation on the part of the state. The 
 railways in Great Britain are far more oppressive 
 than they are in America. Statistics show that the 
 average charge for freight per mile is about three 
 times that charged in America, And any redress 
 is much more difficult. For the water in the 
 English railways is not the result of stock jobbing ; 
 to a considerable extent at least it represents the 
 greed of the land owners, who made use of their 
 power in Parliament to secure extortionate prices 
 for their land. 1 
 
 'Railway construction in Great Britain is very much more 
 substantial than it is in America, while the costs of the termi- 
 nals were undoubtedly very much greater. In addition grade 
 crossings are elaborately protected, while human life is safe- 
 guarded by every possible means. All of these elements en- 
 tered into the cost of construction as well as the capitalisation, 
 and must now be considered in the matter of any comparison 
 of costs as well as of rates. 
 
 A controversial correspondence took place in the London 
 Times in 1902 over the relative burdens of freight rates in 
 America and Great Britain. It was maintained by the British 
 writer that, all things considered, the British rates were no
 
 THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT 289 
 
 Members of Parliament also are interested in 
 or represent the franchise corporations. They are 
 stockholders or directors in the gas, water, elec- 
 tricity, and tramway undertakings. The cities do 
 not grant the franchises themselves. Parliament 
 makes the grant in each individual city. Parlia- 
 ment also retains all power of regulation. It fixes 
 the terms of purchase by the cities. This is some- 
 times done by general, sometimes by special acts. 
 But due regard is always shown for the stockhold- 
 ers. For example, the Borough of St. Marylebone, 
 one of the boroughs of London, became dissatisfied 
 with the private electric lighting plant. Parlia- 
 ment would not permit it to erect a competing plant 
 of its own, so the Council opened negotiations with 
 the company. The borough offered $3,000,000 for 
 the plant, which was in excess of its structural 
 value. The company demanded $4,000,000. This 
 the Council declined to pay, and decided to submit 
 the matter to arbitration, as provided by law in 
 case of dispute. The referees adopted a valuation 
 of their own. But it was not a compromise one. 
 They decided that the plant, with its franchise, was 
 worth $6,250,000, or two and one-quarter millions 
 more than the company itself had asked. To this 
 
 higher than they are in this country. The American corre- 
 spondent presented statistics to demonstrate that, measured 
 by ton-mile charges, the rates in Great Britain averaged from 
 five to ten times what they do in the United States for the 
 same service.
 
 290 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 they added f 2,000,000 for a generating station, and 
 $500,000 as the costs of the arbitration. The bor- 
 ough had no right of appeal, and was compelled 
 to take over the plant at the price named, and pay 
 all of the costs of the reference. The tax-payers 
 were saddled with a burden of nearly $9,000,000 
 for an equipment which they should have secured, 
 but for the allowance of the arbitrators of franchise 
 value, for one-third that sum. 
 
 By such means as these Parliament protects its 
 members and the members of its class. It then 
 points to the recklessness of the Town Councils as 
 a proof of the incompetency of the cities, and the 
 failure of municipal ownership. Nor is this in- 
 stance exceptional. Saving as to the franchises 
 of street railways and electric lighting companies 
 which have expired, the towns, when they buy out 
 a private company compulsorily, are compelled to 
 pay a price determined by the capitalisation of the 
 net earnings of the company. This is the measure 
 of valuation of water and gas enterprises, whose 
 franchises are in perpetuity. Thus Sheffield paid 
 $1,463,000 for an electric lighting plant whose phys- 
 ical value was but $605,700. Birmingham paid over 
 $2,000,000 for a system whose value was but $1,065,- 
 000. The city of Liverpool paid $3,000,000 for the 
 franchises of the street railways. But the metropo- 
 lis of London was the worst sufferer. It paid $187,- 
 372,610 for the eight private water companies 1
 
 THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT 291 
 
 wliich it purchased in 1905. The total value of the 
 physical property was estimated to be but $121,- 
 662,000; while the companies claimed that they 
 should be allowed $247,985,000. 
 
 Naturally, there was some grumbling at these 
 prices. And some of the cities have burdened them- 
 selves by the extortionate prices they have had to 
 pay. They have not been able to make as complete 
 a success of municipal ownership as they otherwise 
 would. But the veneration of the average English- 
 man for Parliament and his "betters" does not per- 
 mit him more than a suspicion that the method of 
 valuation provided by law is in any manner con- 
 nected with the fact that the members of Parlia- 
 ment own the franchise corporations themselves. 
 Ilad the Town Councils made these grants, they 
 might, in fairness, be called upon to pay for their 
 own improvidence. But Parliament itself made 
 them. The people in the cities were not even con- 
 sulted as to the terms, the prices to be paid, or 
 the sort of service which should be rendered. 
 
 In the closing days of the Parliamentary session 
 of 1905 an effort was made to crowd through an 
 electric power monopoly for the metropolis of Lon- 
 don. The bill granted a private company what 
 would have been an exclusive franchise for forty- 
 two years. Many persons were of the opinion that 
 it was designed to kill off the fourteen municipal 
 plants already operating in the metropolis, and
 
 292 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 owned by the London boroughs. The County Coun- 
 cil and the Borough Councils combined to defeat the 
 measure. The promoters of the bill were sure of 
 its passage, for the reason that over a hundred 
 members of Parliament in both parties were among 
 its stockholders. But the Councils persevered. They 
 employed parliamentary agents and presented vol- 
 uminous testimony. It cost the rate-payers of Lon- 
 don |750,000 to defeat the bill. This sum was hon- 
 estly spent. It was used for legitimate purposes, 
 as was the $250,000 expended by the promoters of 
 the company. The fact that many leaders in Par- 
 liament were financially interested in the company 
 excited little comment. 1 
 
 It costs the English cities tremendous sums every 
 year to promote the local measures and protect 
 themselves from those who are seeking franchise 
 grants in their streets. A parliamentary report 
 has shown that in the six years from 1892 to 1898 
 it cost the local authorities of Great Britain the 
 extraordinary sum of nearly $3,500,000 to protect 
 themselves from franchise grabs or to secure pow- 
 ers that should be conferred upon the towns by 
 general law. This sum was used to promote 
 bills and protect the cities. It was not used for 
 bribery. It was not a corruption fund in the Amer- 
 ican sense. It was the necessary cost incident to 
 
 'The Electrical Times, August 17, 1905, estimates the cost 
 of promotion and opposition at from 200,000 to 250,000.
 
 THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT 293 
 
 securing all sorts of legislation that the city should 
 have had as a matter of course. The little town 
 of Barnsley spent $75,000 on a single bill. In six 
 years' time the London County Council spent $570,- 
 000 in promoting bills or protecting itself before 
 Parliament. 1 
 
 The arbitration charges incident to the purchase 
 of the eight water companies acquired by the Lon- 
 don Water Board in 1905 amounted to $335,000. 
 
 It seems incredible that such burdens could be 
 honestly incurred in purely parliamentary business. 
 To the American mind it is suggestive of the legis- 
 lative funds of the life insurance companies of New 
 York. These costs, however, are necessary. Ap- 
 pearance before a Parliamentary Committee must 
 be done by an attorney, by a parliamentary agent. 
 Experts have to be hired to give testimony relative 
 to the needs and necessities of the cities. Private 
 and local bill legislation is so costly that it is im- 
 
 *In January, 1907, the Local Government Board issued a 
 return of the expenditures of the London County Council and 
 the Borough Councils in the promotion of hills before Parlia- 
 ment and in opposing measures directed against them. Dur- 
 ing the four years ending 1905-6 the County Council spent 
 the sum of $490,000 for these purposes. Of this two-thirds 
 was for the promotion of its own measures, the balance was 
 expended for the defeat of bills that the Council desired op- 
 posed. According to the same report, the London Borough 
 Councils, during the first six years of their existence, ex- 
 pended the sum of $349,900, of which all but one-sixth was 
 spent in the opposition of measures before Parliament of 
 which the councils disapproved. This money was appropriated 
 out of the revenues of the councils and was borne by the rate- 
 payers. The Municipal Journal, January 26, 1907.
 
 294 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 possible to secure relief for any minor abuse, no 
 matter how insistent it may be. Probably the worst 
 exhibition of parliamentary costs was in the matter 
 of railway building. This was all done by private 
 bills. The Brighton Kailway had to pay |24,000 
 a mile in parliamentary costs. The Manchester 
 and Birmingham Kailway paid $25,000 a mile for 
 the same purpose, while the London & Blackwall 
 Railway paid $70,000 a mile for getting its bills 
 through Parliament. This sum is very much in ex- 
 cess of the average cost of railway construction in 
 America. This was many years ago, it is true, but 
 the system is the same to-day, and the burdens on 
 the rate-payers of the cities seeking relief from Par- 
 liament are very excessive. 1 
 
 It may be urged that all this proves nothing more 
 than an unwillingness to change ; that laws protect- 
 ing the land owners from taxation, the railways, 
 and franchise corporations from regulation and 
 competition, the cities from improvident ventures, 
 slum clearance, and trading, are but an evidence 
 of an undue emphasis on property rights. This is 
 the attitude of the average Englishman when he 
 thinks of the matter at all. His veneration for the 
 ruling class is very unlike the rebellious protest 
 of the American people toward the members of the 
 
 J For a description of the methods of railway promotion in 
 the early half of the century and the relation of the members 
 of Parliament and the land owners thereto see Essays, Volume 
 III, Herbert Spencer, page 63.
 
 THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT 295 
 
 United States Senate, whose business affiliations 
 render them very solicitous for the railways and 
 protected industries. It is this blindness to abuses, 
 this veneration for anything that is old, this sub- 
 servience to the gentry, and those who rule and 
 make use of their powers for their own enrichment, 
 that is the most disheartening thing in English life. 
 Were Parliament subjected to the same criticism 
 that the American public official has to daily face, 
 the comparison would be in favour of American 
 honesty and the future of American democracy. 
 For we, at least, know. And we are coming to pro- 
 test. And this is the first step in reform. 
 
 Great Britain takes it merely as a matter of news 
 that in the last Parliament 229 members of the 
 House of Commons held between them 673 director- 
 ships in corporations, while 108 peers were on the 
 boards of 367 companies. These interests are large- 
 ly railway, mining, brewing, distilling, and fran- 
 chise. The press does not protest, does not suggest 
 that this identity of interest between big business 
 interests and Parliament is an explanation of the 
 solicitude of Parliament for privileged wealth. 
 
 One of the most odious acts of the late Conserva- 
 tive government was the so-called Licensing Bill. 
 This measure provided that if the licence of any 
 saloon-keeper to run a public house was taken away, 
 either because the licence was unnecessary or ob- 
 jectionable, the owner should be compensated out
 
 296 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 of a fund collected from the other licensed houses. 
 The compensation to be paid was not the damage 
 to his fixtures, the cost of moving, or the possible 
 loss of rent. It was measured by the capitalisation 
 of the net earnings of the place. But the compen- 
 sation paid did not go to the saloon-keeper. It was 
 paid to the landlord who owned the premises. This 
 bill created a vested interest, a franchise of every 
 public house in the Kingdom. It became as invio- 
 late as the grant to a street railway. The trade 
 was not taxed for public revenue, as is done in 
 America. It was taxed to compensate the land- 
 owning classes for a privilege that had formerly 
 been revokable at will. The common explanation 
 of the measure was the influence of the brewing 
 and distilling interests in Parliament. In reality, 
 it was passed in the interests of the land owners. 
 And it has been estimated that the measure con- 
 ferred a free gift of something like a billion and a 
 half dollars on those who possessed the privilege of 
 keeping a public house. This was the capitalised 
 value of the rights created. 
 
 To the landlords, the government of Great Brit- 
 ain is something that is theirs by divine sanction. 
 We cannot appreciate the sanctity which attaches 
 to land and land ownership in that country. Some- 
 thing of it is seen in the social eminence of the 
 county families. In their local sphere they are 
 supreme. This worship of a class, a class for centu-
 
 THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT 297 
 
 ries identified with the land, is the controlling fact 
 in the life of Great Britain. It is inwoven into all 
 legislation. It dominates society. It ramifies into 
 jurisprudence. It supports the church. It explains 
 the poverty of the millions and the luxurious wealth 
 of the few. It corrupts the professions and public 
 opinion. It enervates the army and the church. 
 It has undermined the physical stamina of the peo- 
 ple. It has created a servility on the part of all 
 those who form the middle and lower classes no- 
 where else found in Europe. It is the control by 
 the few hundred thousand at the top that is im- 
 poverishing the nation. For the privileges of the 
 few have become an exhausting burden on the many. 
 That is what privilege always means. If it has 
 any value to the owner it must be paid from the 
 labour of others. 
 
 It is almost incredible that this merger of poli- 
 tics and business should have gone so long unchal- 
 lenged. It is even more incredible that England 
 should be able to stagger along under the burdens 
 which privilege imposes. It is doubtful if any na- 
 tion in Christendom, outside of Russia and Spain, 
 is so remorselessly plundered by its ruling classes 
 as is Great Britain. 
 
 To refer to the matter of taxation again. Despite 
 her free-trade policy, England derives over one- 
 half of her imperial taxes from the excise and cus- 
 toms duties. They are imposed upon necessaries.
 
 298 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 They are borne almost wholly by the poor. In 1904 
 the total collections from these indirect taxes 
 amounted to f 317,000,000. At the same time, Par- 
 liament granted about $75,000,000 out of the na- 
 tional revenue for the relief of local taxation. To 
 this extent the landlords in Parliament shifted the 
 cost of local government from themselves on to the 
 masses. By so doing, they relieved the land which 
 they own from so much of the taxes as ever settle 
 down upon them. They merely increased the 
 amount of rent which they could exact from the 
 tenants, who were relieved of taxes to the extent 
 of the government subsidy. 
 
 It would be a simple matter to extend this cata- 
 logue of class legislation on the part of the gentry 
 indefinitely. Cases might be multiplied of cities 
 purchasing sources of water supply at exorbitant 
 prices; of land owners who exacted the letter of 
 the bond in the protection of their property through 
 their membership in Parliament. Similar instances 
 might be cited of the fearful cost to the rate-payers 
 of slum clearance and of the fabulous prices paid 
 to the owners under arbitration purchase. For the 
 members take good care that the towns pay full 
 price for the privileges which they acquire for city 
 purposes. 1 
 
 ir rhe following instance is reported by Mr. George Haw, in a 
 very suggestive book entitled "Britains Homes," page 170: 
 "Dealing with the iniquities of our land system, Mr. Cham- 
 berlain (in a speech in the House of Commons on October 20,
 
 THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT 299 
 
 We may not call all this corruption, although if 
 the members of an American City Council dealt 
 with themselves as the members of Parliament do 
 with the railways, the franchise interests, and the 
 land which they own, there would be an outburst of 
 condemnation against them. And the cost of this 
 class control mounts into the hundreds, possibly 
 many hundreds, of millions of dollars each year. 
 This is the burden that is thrown upon labour and 
 industry through tax evasions; through excessive 
 prices for franchise corporations ; through dock and 
 
 1885) said he would give an illustrative example. He then re- 
 ferred to the Bill of the Metropolitan Board of Works for con- 
 structing Charing Cross Road through a densely populated 
 district containing many slums. The Municipality arranged 
 to retain possession of the frontages along the proposed new 
 street, so as to place the added value against the cost of the 
 scheme, and thus lessen the charge upon the rates. When the 
 bill came before a committee of the House of Commons, Lord 
 Salisbury, who had property on the line of route, opposed it, 
 and claimed the insertion of a clause for his special benefit. 
 He asked that the Municipality should not be allowed to retain 
 the frontage so far as his land was concerned, but that he 
 himself should have them. In other words, his lordship, who 
 was being paid the full commercial value of his land, 10 per 
 cent, extra for compulsory purchase, and was also receiving 
 what is known as compensation for severance; who, further, 
 without a farthing's expenditure on his own part, was reaping 
 the added value which the improvement gave to his surround- 
 ing property, actually came forward to demand the one small 
 benefit left to the rate-payers who were so largely increasing 
 his income. The committee of the Commons, finding the claim 
 altogether exceptional, rejected it; but later on his lordship 
 succeeded in converting a committee of the House of Lords to 
 his opinion. When the bill came back to the House of Com- 
 mons, the concession given to Lord Salisbury by a committee 
 of his brother-peers was struck out by special motion, and car- 
 ried without a division."
 
 300 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 land purchases ; through the privileges of all sorts 
 that have been engrafted upon the government dur- 
 ing centuries of class rule. 
 
 Viewed in a large perspective, Great Britain has 
 reached a condition not dissimilar from that of 
 Rome in the declining days of the republic, when 
 the Senate, enriched by the plunder of the public 
 lands, dispossessed the people from the soil and 
 drove them to the cities, there to subsist on public 
 aid. Like the privileged orders of the old regime 
 in France, those who rule have made use of their 
 power for the creation of special privileges, for the 
 shifting of taxes on to the defenseless members of 
 the state, for the protection of land monopoly, and 
 the burdening of the backs of labour with rent, 
 taxes, railway, and other charges, until the people, 
 like the peasantry of Ireland, have been reduced to 
 a state of helpless, hopeless poverty. England has 
 reached a state of physical deterioration. ^Eer in- 
 dustrial life is at a low ebb. She no longer recruits 
 her strength from the sod or the mill. Agriculture 
 is in a state of arrested development. The tenant 
 is being driven to the city by the competitive rents 
 of the landlords. In the city he is housed in dis- 
 ease-breeding tenements, the worst in Europe, where 
 he struggles for a bare subsistence. 
 
 In privilege is to be found the cause of England's 
 heart disease, a disease as fatal to a nation as un- 
 dernourishment is to the human body. England is
 
 THE BRITISH PARLIAMENT 301 
 
 being impoverished by those who rule, and through 
 this impoverishment the industrial, moral, and so- 
 cial vitality of her people is being destroyed. Gen- 
 erations of reverence for the aristocracy has en- 
 feebled her powers of political resistance. The peo- 
 ple are too poor to emigrate; and in the country 
 districts too hopeless to organise. The resistance 
 of the upper classes is like that of the grand dukes 
 of Russia. The cure cannot come from palliatives. 
 It can only come through a recognition of the fact 
 that democracy is an economic much more than a 
 personal thing, and that industrial opportunity can 
 only be secured through the heroic destruction of 
 the abuses of privilege which centuries of feudal 
 tradition has engrafted upon the people. 
 
 Great Britain seems to be suspecting this fact. 
 The last election, which carried an overwhelming 
 Liberal majority into Parliament and created a 
 new party, that of labour, is the first evidence of 
 real democracy. But the task is a heavy one. The 
 odds are fearfully against the people. On the one 
 hand is the House of Lords, the conservatism of 
 the Commons, the Church, the Army, the Navy, the 
 press, the bar, and all of the agencies of public 
 opinion and social power, "sitting tight" on abuses 
 so old that they have become sacred. On the other 
 is the enfeebled and subservient tenantry and la- 
 bouring classes, poor, untaught, almost unled, to- 
 gether with the middle classes, who would be
 
 302 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 content with the existing order if its worst abuses 
 were but modified in their interest. Democracy in 
 Great Britain has a long way to go before it becomes 
 articulate. It is just becoming conscious of the 
 fact that government by a class is dangerous. But 
 even the most radical proposals now before Parlia- 
 ment fall a long way short of bringing any substan- 
 tial relief, and even these reforms seem difficult of 
 early realisation.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE UPPER AND THE NETHER MILLSTONES OF 
 PRIVILEGE 
 
 EVERYWHERE in Great Britain there are symp- 
 toms of decay. In agriculture, in industry, in every 
 department of life it is manifest, but most of all in 
 the poverty and phy-sical deterioration of the people. 
 The nation seems to be in a state of incipient sene- 
 rnia. Industry is lacking in that robust aggressive- 
 ness that characterises Germany and America. All 
 this is admitted in the United Kingdom, but there 
 is no agreement as to the cause of it all, or as to 
 what should be done to remedy the condition. The 
 proposal of Mr. Joseph Chamberlin for a protective 
 tariff, thinly disguised under the plea of colonial 
 federation, was overwhelmingly defeated at the last 
 election. And a protective tariff would merely have 
 added another piece of class legislation to the mul- 
 titude under which the country now staggers. It 
 would have increased the value of agricultural land. 
 It would have added to the cost of living of all 
 classes. It would have imperilled the country's 
 carrying trade and brought ruin to many of her 
 industries. For commerce hates barriers, and the 
 
 303
 
 304 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 immense trading tonnage of Great Britain is due 
 to the fact that her ports are open to the ships of 
 the world. 
 
 Others have found the disease in the lack of popu- 
 lar education, and especially in the backwardness 
 of technical training. Very material advance has 
 been made in recent years in the promotion of uni- 
 versal state education. But the Church of England 
 is opposed to any interference with its oversight of 
 the training of the people. And the Church is so 
 inwoven with the aristocracy that any progress 
 toward secular education is difficult of achievement. 
 Moreover, England has no trained body of teachers, 
 such as are to be found in every section of Germany 
 and America. And it will take years to produce 
 them. 
 
 Other critics, and more intelligent ones, find the 
 cause of Great Britain's decay in the absence of 
 peasant proprietors such as are found on the conti- 
 nent. They would call the people back to the soil 
 through the purchase of the land by the state and 
 its distribution to small proprietors on the install- 
 ment plan. Other reformers attribute the condition 
 of the people to the drink evil, which has assumed 
 fearful proportions; while a very few place it at 
 the door of the municipal indebtedness and the 
 great increase in local rates. But much of the in- 
 crease in the expenditure of the towns has been 
 imposed by action of Parliament and the necessities
 
 MILLSTONES OF PKIVILEGE 305 
 
 of health, sanitation, and education. Municipal 
 trading, far from being a burden to industry, has 
 materially reduced local taxes. 
 
 What are commonly treated as causes are very 
 often effects. And the cause of Great Britain's 
 diminishing prestige is much more fundamental 
 than any of those indicated. It is to be found in 
 the multitude of special privileges which those in 
 control of Parliament have created during their 
 long, unchallenged rule of the United Kingdom. 
 Other nations have passed through the same expe- 
 rience, and the results have always been the same. 
 In every country where those who own the land 
 have been entrusted with the government the same 
 evolution has taken place. It has resulted in irre- 
 sponsible wealth alongside of widespread poverty. 
 
 Wherever this merging of privilege with the 
 agencies of government has taken place, great na- 
 tions have passed through the same evolution, an 
 evolution that is as natural as it is inevitable. For 
 the instinct of privilege is always to secure pos- 
 session of the government, and then make use of 
 it for the promotion and the protection of its inter- 
 ests. Special privileges can arise in no other way. 
 They are the creations of law. They are contrary 
 to the natural order, and only arise under organised 
 society. For the law of nature is the law of equal 
 opportunity. Special privilege is the denial of that 
 principle. But wherever organised government
 
 306 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 has appeared, those who owned the land and the 
 things appurtenant to the land have seized upon 
 its administration for the purpose of relieving 
 themselves of the burdens of government and of 
 increasing their monopoly privileges by means of 
 the creation of new laws. 
 
 In Great Britain, this merging of the landed class 
 with the government is now complete. It has been 
 so for generations. It has expressed itself in count- 
 less ways, but mainly in the laws relating to the 
 land and the subject of taxation. Nowhere in the 
 western world have the law-making agencies been 
 so completely at the service of special interests as 
 they have in Great Britain, and the results are to 
 be seen in the industrial and physical decay of the 
 nation, in the decline of agriculture, and finally in 
 the fearful poverty of the people. The conditions 
 are not due to any racial characteristics of the Brit- 
 ish people. They are the price of a class control 
 of the government and a misuse of power by the 
 landed aristocracy. 
 
 In its affiliations with the railways, the monopo- 
 lies, and the tariff-made trusts, the United States 
 Senate suggests a similar condition. But the mem- 
 bers of the Senate enjoy none of the social distinc- 
 tion, none of the permanence, none of the venera- 
 tion which hedges about the aristocracy of the 
 United Kingdom and gives it a sort of sanctity in 
 the eyes of the common man. Moreover, the Senate
 
 MILLSTONES OF PKIVILEGE 307 
 
 is of our own making. The people have it in their 
 power to change its personnel or make way w T ith its 
 abuses. The average Englishman feels that the 
 aristocracy of his country is clothed with some of 
 the divinity that encompasses the King. 
 
 Great Britain is free in one respect, and that is 
 her freedom of trade with the outside world. But 
 in respect of the land, the mines, the resources, the 
 railways, and taxation, the tyranny of privilege is 
 complete. And the cost of it all is shown in the 
 life of the nation. The slums of the British cities 
 are the worst in Europe. Millions of people are 
 herded in miserable lodgings, which the landlords 
 who own them will not improve nor permit the cit- 
 ies to regulate. Disease saps the strength of on- 
 coming generations, while poverty drives them to 
 the saloon as the only solace. 
 
 The condition of the smaller towns and the coun- 
 try villages is not much, if any, better. In town 
 and country the labourer is badly paid. He is 
 rack-rented out of his produce and taxed to exhaus- 
 tion. In the country the rent of the land is de- 
 termined by competition for its use. And in a 
 nation where all of the land is taken up, while 
 thousands of men are struggling to escape the work- 
 house, the rents demanded are all that the land can 
 be made to yield and still leave a living to the 
 worker. Ofttimes even this minimum of existence 
 is exceeded. Competition leads the tenant to offer
 
 308 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 more than he can pay. This is what happened in 
 Ireland. The struggle for existence led to such 
 excessive rents that the country was impoverished 
 and its population driven to America. And any 
 improvements made by the tenant, any increase in 
 productiveness also pass in time to the landlord. 
 They are made an excuse for a further increase in 
 the rent. In consequence, incentive dies. The 
 farmer is content with the things he is accustomed 
 to, because in these only is there any safety. Added 
 to this, the tenant has all the local taxes to pay. 
 They are determined by the amount of rent which 
 he pays to the landlord. If the land is not rented, 
 or yields no income, it pays no rates, for then there 
 is no one from whom they can be collected. If the 
 soil lies idle it costs the owner nothing save his loss 
 of rent. He is under no stimulus to make the best 
 possible use of his estates. He may convert them 
 into hunting preserves, as is done all over Great 
 Britain. Then they pay no rates. But the rates 
 of those who do make use of their lands are in- 
 creased in consequence. 
 
 Just as the land may be preserved as a hunting 
 park, so it may be devoted to careless agriculture 
 or grazing, when it should be devoted to intense 
 cultivation. Millions of acres are so given over. 
 England buys her garden produce across the Eng- 
 lish channel, in order that her ducal owners may 
 not be bothered with unsightly peasants or mis-
 
 MILLSTONES OF PRIVILEGE 309 
 
 erable lodgings. Men whose broad estates have 
 been built upon by populous towns, and who are 
 enjoying princely incomes from city rent rolls, can 
 afford to use their estates as suits their fancy. They 
 can treat them as playthings, even though thou- 
 sands of persons are thereby deprived of an oppor- 
 nity to work. The United Kingdom is covered with 
 great estates given over to such frivolous uses. For- 
 mer prosperous villages have been permitted to 
 decay. Farmers whose ancestors occupied the land 
 along with the Conqueror, have been driven to the 
 cities because the Lord of the Manor desired a more 
 expansive shooting preserve or a breeding planta- 
 tion. During the last century the sturdy English 
 yeomen, once the pride and defense of the nation, 
 have been slowly driven from the soil. Many Eng- 
 lish villages contain none save aged persons and 
 those unable to leave. All the others have gone 
 to the cities. There are few sadder sights than the 
 decaying British village, filled with dejected, hope- 
 less, and fast diminishing residents, who loaf about 
 the stables and the public houses, and end their 
 days in the workhouse. Human life is of trivial 
 moment in comparison with the hounds, the herds, 
 and an unobstructed outlook upon the land. To- 
 day, four-fifths of Great Britain's population is 
 crowded into the towns, while those who remain on 
 the soil do not suggest any relationship to the tra- 
 ditional farmer with whom literature makes us
 
 310 THE BKIT1SH CITY 
 
 familiar. The farm labourer is vanishing. Since 
 1850, in spite of the great increase in population, 
 there has been a diminution of over a million and 
 a quarter of persons employed in agriculture. 
 
 Those who go to the towns take their place at 
 the looms, the lathe, the forge, or the counter, with- 
 out hope and with little ambition. They are under- 
 nourished, and ripe for disease. They live in mis- 
 erable tenements, and many of them find their way 
 to the workhouse, while those who continue in the 
 industrial ranks have little to aspire to. The Eng- 
 lish wage-earner has none of the buoyancy, none 
 of the ingenuity, none of the outlook on life that 
 animates the American workman with whom he is 
 competing in the markets of the world. He is 
 crushed beneath an industrial environment from 
 which he cannot hope to escape. He has no alterna- 
 tive but the job which is under his hand, for oppor- 
 tunity is closed at every turn. His wages are low, 
 too low to permit of the slightest extravagance, or 
 even the education of his children. He is always 
 on the borderland of poverty and the temporary 
 loss of employment. An interval of sickness or 
 hard times is likely to push him and his family into 
 the workhouse. 
 
 The condition of the poor of England is evidenced 
 by the investigations of Charles Booth in London, 
 and of B. S. K'owntree in York. Mr. Kowntree ar- 
 gues from his studies that one-sixth of the working
 
 MILLSTONES OF PEIVILEGE 311 
 
 classes throughout the country are unable out of 
 their wages to secure enough food to keep them in 
 proper physical health, even if every penny earned 
 is spent on bare necessities; while one-third of the 
 wage-earners are so poorly paid that if they spend 
 up to six shillings a week per family on luxuries 
 such as drink, tobacco, or unnecessary dress, they 
 must deprive themselves of sufficient food to keep 
 themselves in a state of proper physical efficiency. 
 According to the Board of Trade returns, there 
 were in 1904, 750,000 men in the organised trades 
 who were out of employment. In the unorganised 
 and unskilled trades there was probably an even 
 greater number. It has been estimated that, in- 
 cluding the women and children who were depend- 
 ent upon them, that between 5,000,000 and 6,000,- 
 000 human beings were in serious want in 1904, in 
 addition to the millions who are always below the 
 poverty line. 
 
 The condition of the working classes is primarily 
 responsible for the decay of British industry. For 
 skilled workmen are not developed under such in- 
 dustrial conditions. Efficient labour is always well- 
 paid labour. And the higher the wage and the 
 greater the intelligence, the higher the efficiency. 
 Nominal wages are higher in America than in any 
 country in Europe. But the real wage paid is prob- 
 ably lower because of the higher skill and inge- 
 nuity of the workman. He is inspired by hope, by
 
 312 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 the desire for promotion and advancement. In its 
 last analysis, the condition of the British workman 
 is traceable to the economic environment of the peo- 
 ple. This is not due to any ethnic characteristic. 
 The British emigrant has peopled the world and 
 brought forth order and prosperity wherever he set 
 his foot on colonial shores. At home he has no 
 chance. Monopoly has closed the door of oppor- 
 tunity against him. 
 
 The controlling influences in the economic en- 
 vironment of the British artisan and farm labourer 
 are the system of land tenure and the levying of 
 local rates upon the occupier and industry. Here- 
 in, back of all surface causes, is the explanation of 
 modern Britain. For taxes can come from only 
 two sources. They must be paid either from the 
 rent of the land or from labour. In the last analy- 
 sis there is no other source from which taxes can 
 come. To the extent that labour is taxed land is 
 relieved, and the incomes of the land-owning classes 
 increased. 
 
 The annual burden of rent and taxes which the 
 labour of Great Britain bears is from one to 
 two billion dollars. It amounts to approximately 
 forty dollars a head on every man, woman and child 
 in the United Kingdom. It is the equivalent of two 
 hundred dollars a family. The element of rent 
 enters into every article of consumption. In some 
 form or other, disguised though it may be, it is paid
 
 MILLSTONES OF PKIVILEGE 313 
 
 by the forty millions of landless workers to the 
 handful of persons who own the resources of the 
 country. More than half of it is probably paid to 
 less than ten thousand persons. 
 
 Political economists have rarely emphasised the 
 influence of the land and its distribution among the 
 people upon the life and welfare of a nation. Eent 
 is accepted as part of the natural order of indus- 
 try, and its payment is treated as a voluntary sacri- 
 fice, which is under man's control, just as are the 
 other necessaries of life. Even the marvellous in- 
 crease in the value of urban land in the United 
 States and the princely incomes of the Astors and 
 similar landlords, which are constantly growing 
 through no energy of the owners, are the subject of 
 little comment and less concern. The suggestion 
 that these great unearned incomes, which exceed 
 in amount the total revenues of the city, should be 
 subjected to special taxation, is treated as the dan- 
 gerous proposal of those who would confiscate the 
 property of others for the benefit of the thriftless 
 classes. Yet the effect of the private appropriation 
 of the labour and industry of the people through 
 rent and the exemption of this purely social prod- 
 uct from taxation is the most important influence 
 in determining the distribution of wealth and the 
 welfare of a people. 
 
 For rent is not a voluntary payment. The 
 amount of rent which one may pay for the house
 
 314 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 in which he lives is to some extent under his con- 
 trol. But in some form or other the total rent of 
 the nation is an involuntary tribute imposed upon 
 all those who do not participate in its enjoyment. 
 It is part of the charge for every service. The 
 aggregate amount of rent increases from day to 
 day. From its payment there is no escape. The 
 growth of population of itself insures the gradual 
 rise in the value of the resources of the nation and 
 the annual tribute which must be paid by those who 
 labour to those who own. 
 
 In this fact is to be found the explanation of 
 increasing poverty in the midst of increasing 
 plenty. In the slow appropriation of the wealth 
 of a nation by the land-owning classes, and the ex- 
 clusion of mankind from access to the soil, is the 
 explanation of the decay of nations. Even in a 
 country in which agriculture is subordinate to com- 
 merce and industry, the vitality of the producing 
 classes, as well as their standard of living, is de- 
 pendent upon their relation to the resources of the 
 earth. In Great Britain, where all of the land is 
 taken up, the rent which must be paid is determined 
 by the need to live. No activity is possible until 
 man has found an abiding place for himself and 
 his family. The soil is limited in amount by na- 
 ture. It is still further limited by the arbitrary 
 will of the owners who withhold it from use. The 
 opportunity to work commands a monopoly price.
 
 MILLSTONES OF PKIVILEGE 315 
 
 And the only return which the tenant receives from 
 the payment of rent is the right to work. This is 
 the only contribution which the land owner makes 
 to the industrial life of the nation. In return for 
 this privilege the land owners of Great Britain 
 appropriate more than one thousand million dol- 
 lars a year. 
 
 This is the tribute which the industry of that 
 country annually pays to the class which owns the 
 land. It is the first charge upon the life of the 
 nation. From this payment there is no escape. 
 From the landlord there is no appeal. The rent 
 charge is a first lien on all that the nation pro- 
 duces. The owner of the soil, who neither toils nor 
 spins, benefits by the industry of the nation, to 
 which he contributes no labour, but which is daily 
 increasing the amount which he may charge to the 
 next generation. The landlord need not fear for 
 a tenant, for there is always another at hand ready 
 to take the place of him who has failed. In good 
 times or in bad a long line of workers stands ready 
 to accept any opportunity which offers a chance of 
 escape from the alternative of the workhouse. 
 
 This is the condition into which Great Britain 
 has fallen through the long-continued government 
 of the country in the interests of those who own 
 the land. The landless classes have been reduced 
 to a state of industrial dependence to the merest 
 fraction of the population. But this is not the only
 
 316 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 burden which those who labour pay as a price for 
 the privilege of being governed by their betters. 
 From the diminishing returns of the merchant and 
 the manufacturer, the tenant farmer and the wage 
 earner, are collected all of the local taxes. He who 
 owns the land is free from any direct payment to 
 the maintenance of local government. And the 
 local taxes, like the rent, are constantly increasing 
 in amount. But none of the increase is shifted 
 on to the land, which alone is benefited by the local 
 expenditure. It is all borne by the industrial 
 classes. Thus those who labour are rack-rented by 
 the landlord out of all that competition will permit 
 him to take and furthermore they are taxed by the 
 state out of the little that remains. The total local 
 taxes of the United Kingdom amount to approxi- 
 mately |250,000,000 a year. 
 
 Herein, of itself, is an adequate explanation of 
 the decay of Great Britain. For those who labour 
 are being crushed between the upper and nether 
 mill stones of ground rent and taxes. Ireland 
 paid the price of the system in the devastation of 
 the country, and the same process is reaching its 
 logical conclusion in Great Britain to-day. 
 
 Growing out of the exemption of land and the 
 resources of the nation from direct taxation is land 
 monopoly, and with it the closing of opportunity. 
 For in the last analysis the life and industry of a 
 people is traceable to the liberty of access to the
 
 MILLSTONES OF PKIVILEGE 317 
 
 soil and the freedom of the worker from tribute to 
 the land owner. The cry of all Britain is for land, 
 land to use, to build upon, not to own. The soil of 
 the United Kingdom is fertile enough There is op- 
 portunity for millions upon the countrysides, were 
 it not for the dead hand of monopoly and the bur- 
 den of competitive rents and unjust taxes. The 
 people could raise an abundance of food and dairy 
 products. But the independent peasant farmer, so 
 universal in France, Holland, Switzerland, South 
 Germany, and Denmark, is not to be found in Great 
 Britain. He can only gain access to the soil on 
 ruinous terms. He cannot purchase the land, even 
 if he were able to do so, for only a limited portion 
 of the soil is alienable. The owner need not sell. 
 He need not make any productive use of his hold- 
 ings. The land is free from any direct taxation, 
 and consequently from any necessity to make it pay 
 for itself. Those who are responsible for this con- 
 dition explain the decay of British agriculture by 
 the competition of the American West. This and 
 the greater attractiveness of city life, it is claimed, 
 have depopulated the countryside and forced the 
 landlord into careless cultivation and grazing. It 
 is the fixed belief of most people that Great Britain 
 cannot grow sufficient food for the needs of her 
 people. This assumption would seem to be dis- 
 proved by the intensive culture under peasant pro- 
 prietorship on the continent. In a chapter devoted
 
 318 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 to the "Possibilities of Agriculture," in his "Fields, 
 Factories and Workshops," P. Kropatkin says: 
 
 "But the above will be enough to caution the 
 reader against hasty conclusions as to the impossi- 
 bility of feeding 39,000,000 people from 78,000,000 
 acres. They will also enable me to draw the follow- 
 ing conclusions: (1) If the soil of the United King- 
 dom were cultivated only as it was thirty-five years 
 ago, 24,000,000 people, instead of 17,000,000, could 
 live on home-grown food, and that culture, while 
 giving occupation to an additional 750,000 men, 
 would give nearly 3,000,000 wealthy home custom- 
 ers to the British manufacturers. (2) If the cul- 
 tivable area of the United Kingdom were cultivated 
 as the soil is cultivated on the average in Bel- 
 gium, the United Kingdom would have food for at 
 least 37,000,000 inhabitants, and it might export 
 agricultural produce without ceasing to manufac- 
 ture, so as freely to supply all the needs of a 
 wealthy population. And finally (3) if the popu- 
 lation of this country came to be doubled all that 
 would be required for producing the food for 80,- 
 000,000 inhabitants would be to cultivate the soil 
 as it is cultivated in the best farms of this country, 
 in Lombardy, and in Flanders, and to utilise some 
 meadows which at present lie almost unproductive 
 in the same way as the neighbourhoods of the big 
 cities in France are utilised for market gardening. 
 All these are not fancy dreams, but mere realities ;
 
 MILLSTONES OF PEIVILEGE 319 
 
 nothing but modest conclusions from what we see 
 about us, without any allusion to the agriculture of 
 the future." 
 
 On the continent of Europe, where land is al- 
 lotted in small holdings instead of being held in 
 great manorial estates, the condition of the people 
 and the prosperity of the farming population is in 
 marked contrast to the agricultural workers of 
 Great Britain. 
 
 In the cities conditions are the same. Great 
 metropolitan areas are owned by a single landlord, 
 from which he derives millions in rentals. He need 
 not improve his holdings until he is ready to do 
 so. He usually lets them to another, who is then 
 taxed by the community for his industry. The re- 
 sult is that a large part of Great Britain is unpro- 
 ductive. In city and country, land, mines, and 
 building sites are unusued and unoccupied. In con- 
 sequence the competition for that which is used is 
 increased, while the owner is enabled to demand a 
 monopoly price by reason of the artificial scarcity 
 which he has created. 
 
 Everywhere labour and energy are punished. 
 Everywhere monopoly is encouraged. Human in- 
 genuity would find it difficult to devise a society 
 more perfectly arranged for privilege or more ef- 
 fectually adjusted to the destruction of opportu- 
 nity. The system of land tenure, the difficulty of 
 its alienation, the costliness of every transaction,
 
 320 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 and the unjust system of taxation, are the burdens 
 which those who rule Great Britain have imposed 
 upon those who produce and upon whose enterprise 
 all others, even the aristocracy, rely. The privi- 
 leges of the ruling classes are protected as jealously 
 as though they were Heaven sent. Valuable mining 
 resources, upon which great cities rely for their 
 fuel, may be closed by reason of a strike or the de- 
 sire of the owner for higher royalties. He is under 
 no compulsion to develop the property, for the local 
 rates are determined by the output of the mines. 
 The mines may lie idle for months or years, await- 
 ing the will of the owner. Whole sections of a city 
 may be kept out of the market for the same reason, 
 or in hopes of a speculative increase in the value 
 of the estate. Land about the suburbs is closed to 
 occupancy or used for idle pleasures, while those 
 who must find homes at any cost are forced to take 
 whatever they can get, and pay a monopoly price 
 therefor, because of the artificial limitation of the 
 supply. 
 
 All of this is possible because of the fact that the 
 land and the resources of the country are not taxed 
 on their real value. By reason of the assessment 
 of property on the rental received rather than its 
 actual value, that which is used is very heavily 
 burdened. For it is not the value in the market 
 that is taken; it is the rental that the owner hap- 
 pens to receive from the use which he has seen fit to
 
 MILLSTONES OF PRIVILEGE 321 
 
 make of it. The net result of this arrangement is 
 that it is very easy to keep the resources of the 
 country out of use, and to command a monopoly 
 price for those which are in the market. In conse- 
 quence, idle labour which is everywhere seeking 
 employment, and which is now maintained by the 
 poor rates, is excluded from the soil. In city and 
 country opportunity is closed, while industry can 
 only be carried on upon the terms of the land- 
 owning classes. And costly though the apparent 
 evils are, those that cannot be seen are very much 
 worse. For the results of these conditions ramify 
 into all of the relations of life. They are strangling 
 the life of the people. They form the economic 
 limitations upon British society. They explain the 
 political motives of Parliament and the struggle 
 for existence on the part of the people. To the 
 monopoly which results therefrom is attributable 
 not only the low standard of living of the great 
 mass of the people, but the lack of hope and vital- 
 ity, which is a condition precedent to any vigorous 
 national life.
 
 CHAPTEE XIX 
 
 THE NEXT STEP OF INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 
 
 THE contemporary literature of Great Britain, 
 as well as the vital enthusiasms of the present Lib- 
 eral ministry, seems to indicate that a change is 
 imminent in the attitude of the nation toward its 
 problems. Complacency has given place to en- 
 quiry. The traditional explanations of the decline 
 in agriculture, the decay in industry, and the in- 
 creasing poverty of the people, are being questioned. 
 The cure of the nation's heart disease is being 
 sought, not so much through charity as through 
 positive legislation. And the most radical of the 
 many seemingly radical measures of the present 
 ministry are those relating to the reform of local 
 taxation. 
 
 It may seem inadequate to find in the method of 
 raising local revenue, or the system of land tenure, 
 an explanation of the decay of a nation. The con- 
 dition of the peasant farmer, of the city Hooligan, 
 of the tenement and the slum, seem far remote from 
 such causes, especially in a country whose eminence 
 lies not in agriculture but in its commerce and 
 industry. But remote as the connection may seem, 
 
 823
 
 INDUSTKIAL DEMOCKACY 323 
 
 it is none the less true that Great Britain is in 
 danger of losing whatever supremacy she enjoys 
 because of the monopoly of the land and the re- 
 sources of the nation, and their exemption from 
 direct taxes. The line of political, no less than 
 social, cleavage is between those who own the land 
 and those who do not, between those who now carry 
 the burdens of government and those who have re- 
 lieved themselves therefrom. 
 
 The incomes which the landed gentry enjoy in 
 the form of rents probably exceed a thousand mil- 
 lions of dollars each year. This is the first tax 
 upon the life and industry of the nation. 1 It must 
 be paid before any activity is possible. It is paid 
 
 by labour, and can come from no other source. 
 
 *The capital value of the land, apart from the houses, etc., 
 of the United Kingdom can only be approximated, inasmuch 
 as land is not valued in such a way as to appear either in the 
 census returns or the tax-rolls of the country. The income 
 tax returns are based upon the rentals of the property, which 
 are not a fair measure of the real value of the property. The 
 same thing is true of the local rates. Land which is not 
 used, or which is carelessly developed, is returned at an insig- 
 nificant rental value. The Financial Reform Almanac for 1905 
 gives the gross annual rental value of the land alone at 194,- 
 000,000, or about $1,000,000,000. At five per cent, this would 
 give a capitalised value of $20,000,000,000, which, measured by 
 American land values, seems very low. For this includes as 
 land the railways, canals, mines, quarries, and franchises. 
 Other authorities have placed the annual rental value at 
 250,000,000, or $1,250,000,000, which would give a capitalised 
 value of $25,000,000,000. This land is now on the tax dupli- 
 cate at a valuation fixed in 1692, a valuation which has never 
 been revised owing to a resolution of Parliament that the 
 land tax, amounting at that time to $10,000,000, should never 
 be increased.
 
 324 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 There is no Fortunatas purse out from which the 
 rent rolls of the aristocracy can be paid. This co- 
 lossal burden rests upon the backs of the producing 
 classes. It is paid by forty-one millions of people 
 to the merest handful of persons who have created 
 this servitude through their long-continued con- 
 trol of the government. 
 
 In addition to competitive rents, the producing 
 classes are burdened with almost all of the local 
 taxes as well. For Parliament, like the privileged 
 interests so active in America, has relieved the 
 property which its members own from the necessity 
 of contributing to the maintenance of local govern- 
 ment. 
 
 But this is only the beginning of the long list of 
 special privileges which those who rule Great Brit- 
 ain have created for themselves. Not content with 
 shifting the local taxes from their own property, 
 the bulk of the imperial taxes have been cast upon 
 the defenseless classes as well. This is in spite of 
 the fact that England derives $200,000,000 a year 
 from the income and inheritance taxes. For the 
 fiscal year 1905, out of a total revenue of $600,000,- 
 000 from all sources, the customs and the excise 
 yielded $340,000,000. This sum was collected from 
 the necessities of life. There is no attempt to dis- 
 guise the nature of these taxes, or the motive of 
 their imposition, as is done in America. They are 
 levied upon articles of common consumption. They
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 325 
 
 are paid by the poor. More than one-half of the 
 imperial revenue conies from sugar, tea, cocoa, cof- 
 fee, tobacco, and other articles of daily use. The 
 privileged classes cry out loudly against the income 
 tax and the death duties, while the masses, who pay 
 the bulk of the taxes, sink sullenly into poverty 
 without knowing why, under the burden of com- 
 petitive rents, local rates, and consumption taxes, 
 whose aggregate amount exceeds two thousand mil- 
 lion dollars a year. As Tolstoy has said, the aris- 
 tocracy of a country will do everything for the poor 
 except to get olf their backs. 
 
 Were all of the local and all of the imperial taxes 
 levied upon the capital value of the land, the bur- 
 dens would be shifted from those least able to bear 
 them on to those best able to do so. Even then the 
 few hundred thousand at the top would be left in 
 the enjoyment of unearned incomes of hundreds of 
 millions of dollars a year. 
 
 But the agitation for the taxation of land values 
 promoted by the Town Councils and adopted as 
 its industrial programme by the present Liberal 
 party is, least of all, a fiscal expedient designed 
 to relieve the overburdened rate-payers. The move- 
 ment has a far deeper purpose. To the constantly 
 increasing body of men who, since the time of John 
 Stuart Mill and Henry George, have advocated the 
 appropriation by the community of a portion of 
 the incomes of the landed gentry, the taxation of
 
 326 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 land values is a social even more than a fiscal phil- 
 osophy. It is not the relief of the overburdened 
 rate-payer that inspires the movement so much as 
 an opportunity of access to the resources of nature. 
 It is a new dispensation, in which the earth will be 
 reclaimed by the people, that has inspired workers 
 in every quarter of the world to a belief in the single 
 tax imposed upon the value of the land alone. And 
 no country in Christendom is so inviting an experi- 
 ment station for its adoption as is Great Britain. 
 In no nation is the land more closely monopolised 
 or the people more completely exiled from its use. 
 
 Were the taxes upon the land increased to two 
 hundred million dollars (which the land would pay 
 if it were assessed at the rate of four shillings in 
 the pound, which is about the equivalent of one 
 per cent, upon the capital value) owners could no 
 longer sit idly on their colossal estates. Then 
 they would be compelled to make use of their land, 
 or permit someone else to do so. Great hunting 
 preserves would be brought into cultivation. They 
 would blossom under the hands of industry. They 
 would become the homes of humanity rather than 
 the breeding ground of wild game. The master of 
 the hounds would then erect comfortable cottages 
 instead of kennels for his dogs. Millions of other 
 acres now lying idle, or used for grazing fancy cat- 
 tle, would be converted into peasant farms. The 
 independent yeoman, once so universal, would be
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 327 
 
 lured back to the land from which he has been dis- 
 possessed, and in which he had an inalienable right 
 until the landlords appropriated the common lands 
 to themselves by enclosure acts and similar legis- 
 lation. For a great part of the land of Great Britain 
 was the common possession of all the people up to 
 the first half of the nineteenth century. 
 
 The taxation of land values, or landlords' rent, 
 would stimulate the owner to activity. The English 
 village would come to life again. Owners would 
 be forced to compete for tenants in order to meet 
 the demands of the state. They would develop their 
 holdings, not devastate them for the pleasure of 
 the chase. Great Britain would soon be her own 
 market garden. Instead of eight million people 
 upon the countryside there would soon be twice 
 that number. And this competition on the part of 
 owners for tenants would lead to a reduction in 
 rents, just as the competition on the part of tenants 
 leads to their increase. The very necessities of the 
 landlord would increase the opportunities of labour. 
 This result inevitably follows a tax levied upon 
 the value of land directly. The higher the tax the 
 greater the stimulus to production. Such a tax 
 operates upon the owner just as rent acts upon the 
 tenant. That is what such a tax upon land values 
 is in effect; it is a rent charge payable to the state. 
 And just as the agricultural tenant is forced by 
 necessity to make the best possible use of his hold-
 
 328 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 ings in order to meet the rental to his landlord, so 
 the owner who now indulges his days in idle pleas- 
 ures would then be forced to devote himself to his 
 estate in order to meet the demands of the com- 
 munity. And the tax upon land values is the only 
 tax which is a stimulus to production. All others 
 are a burden upon industry and a charge upon 
 labour. Moreover, the land values tax cannot be 
 shifted. It remains where it first falls. 
 
 Not that the full effect of such a change would 
 follow from the imposition of a rate of four shil- 
 lings in the pound. For the rate in America very 
 often exceeds one per cent., and even we are begin- 
 ning to suffer from the burdens of speculative land 
 monopoly. But it would do much. At one stroke 
 it would relieve the overburdened rate-payers of 
 more than two hundred millions of dollars of local 
 taxes. It would do more than a thousand Parlia- 
 mentary colonies to call the people back to the land. 
 It would be automatic. It would require no state 
 aid. The owner of the land would hasten to the cities 
 to find labour for his estates. He would erect cot- 
 tages. He would be forced to make life attractive 
 to the people. Soon there would be jobs hunting 
 people, instead of people hunting jobs. As the rate 
 was increased conditions would further improve. 
 A tax of eight shillings on the pound, or two per 
 cent, upon the capital value of the land, would still 
 further stimulate the exodus to the countryside.
 
 INDUSTKIAL DEMOCRACY 329 
 
 In a short time wages would rise. For wages are 
 highest when rent is low, just as they are lowest 
 when rent is high. Kent and wages are reciprocal. 
 They are dependent upon one another. The higher 
 the rate of the tax upon the value of the land the 
 greater the necessity of cultivation. And as the 
 land comes into use the greater the demand for 
 labour. 
 
 The imposition of such a tax is an automatic 
 means of ushering in another reform. Free trade 
 in land would come of necessity. Parliament would 
 speedily permit of its alienation. The law of set- 
 tlements, of entails, of primogeniture, would pass 
 away in the interests of the landlords, just as they 
 came into existence for the preservation of their 
 power. For those who could not make use of their 
 estates would seek to dispose of them to someone 
 who would. Under such a system of taxation the 
 easy alienation of property would follow of neces- 
 sity. 
 
 The cities would respond to the invigorating in- 
 fluence of such a tax as well as the country districts. 
 For the city, no less than the countryside, is filled 
 with unused land. Under existing conditions the 
 slum lord can leave his land unoccupied and unim- 
 proved, just as the country squire can give it over 
 to his hounds to course upon. The owner can wait 
 until the city builds up to his holdings before he 
 lets go of them. Then the land is leased for build-
 
 330 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 ing purposes. In time the lease is revalued. The 
 owner does nothing to give value to the land, yet 
 by the mere growth of population he is automati- 
 cally enriched. All of the unearned increment flows 
 into his purse. There is little reason for the slum 
 lords to build, for society is daily adding to their 
 wealth by the mere growth of population. Were 
 the land taxed at its capital value, as is done in 
 America, it would be impossible to sit thus idly 
 upon the premises. 
 
 The naked land underlying London is probably 
 worth six thousand million dollars. The site values 
 of New York are worth more than two-thirds that 
 sum, with less than one-half the population. The 
 London land owners pay in direct taxes less than 
 one million of dollars per annum. The land- 
 lords of New York pay over fifty millions of dollars 
 in taxes upon the naked land alone. Were the land 
 of London taxed at one per cent, of its capital value, 
 or approximately four shillings of its present possi- 
 ble rental, it would pay sixty millions of dollars 
 a year to the relief of local taxation, or nearly as 
 much as the total local revenues of the metropolis. 
 Were it taxed as it is in New York, at eight shil- 
 lings in the pound, or two per cent, on its value, 
 it would pay over one hundred millions. 
 
 Measures for the separate valuation of the land 
 from the improvements, and the levy of a local rate 
 upon the value of the land alone, have been before
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 331 
 
 Parliament on several occasions, but the bills never 
 got beyond their second readings. The opposition 
 of the landed interests was so great that even a vote 
 upon the final passage could not be secured. It is 
 upon some such measure as this, to which the Lib- 
 eral party is pledged, that the impending conflict 
 between democracy and privilege is likely to be 
 waged. 1 The towns are almost a unit for its adop- 
 
 a Measures for the rating of land values or the levying of a 
 direct tax on the value of the land have been introduced into 
 Parliament on several occasions. In 1902 Mr. Trevelyan intro- 
 duced the "Urban Site Value Rating Bill," which empowered 
 Town Councils to separately value land and improvements and 
 assess the actual value of the land at the rate of two shillings 
 in the pound. In 1903 Dr, Macnamara presented the "Land 
 Values Assessment and Rating Bill," which applied only to 
 urban authorities and permitted a local tax equivalent to one 
 penny on the pound of actual capital value, measured by the 
 same rule as is applied in America. During the present ses- 
 sion of Parliament a measure for Scotland was introduced, 
 which is understood to be but a forerunner of a similar meas- 
 ure for England. The conditions of the two countries are so 
 different that the matter had to be treated under seperate bills. 
 The Scotch measure provides for a tax of two shillings on the 
 pound. But the special committee on the subject recommended 
 that the measure be delayed until the land was assessed. For 
 there is as yet no means of knowing what the land is really 
 worth. With that obtained it is proposed to bring forward 
 the taxing measure. This can be done in two ways. Either 
 as a means for raising local revenues, in which case it would 
 be open to the disapproval of the House of Lords, who would 
 probably interpose a veto. The other method is to include the 
 land tax as part of the budget. This the House of Commons 
 controls, for the Lords have no authority over revenue meas- 
 ures. The present Prime Minister is in sympathy with the 
 programme for the taxation of land values and the great ma- 
 jority of Parliament is committed to it by their election 
 pledges. There is a possibility that some measure, either for 
 local or state purposes, will pass the present session.
 
 332 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 tion, and about this movement industrial democ- 
 racy in Great Britain is massed. It is the first real 
 expression of democracy since the Reform Bills of 
 the early half of the nineteenth century. That 
 movement was inspired by the awakened ambitions 
 of the industrial classes, who desired to be admitted 
 to a share of the government. The new democracy 
 includes many young men from the universities, as 
 well as the Fabian socialists, the labour members, 
 and the shop-keeping classes of the towns. 
 
 While the relief of the overburdened rate-payers 
 would be the first and most obvious effect of the 
 taxation of land values, this would be but incidental 
 to the social and industrial advantages which would 
 follow. Just as the countryside would blossom 
 with new life through the opening up of broad es- 
 tates to tillage, so the city itself would awaken 
 through the stimulus to industry. Land now lying 
 idle would be built upon. Property worth thou- 
 sands of dollars a front foot could no longer be 
 left vacant. Some means would have to be found 
 to meet the demands of the city. Mediaeval build- 
 ings would be rebuilt. Shacks and rookeries would 
 come down. Great suburban estates, now idly held 
 for pleasure or speculation, would come into the 
 market to be built upon. Soon landlords would 
 compete for tenants. The owners themselves would 
 build model dwellings, or lease the land to someone 
 who would. For there is land enough to house all
 
 INDUSTKIAL DEMOCKACY 333 
 
 London decently, and labour enougk to erect the 
 buildings. In time the towns would spread over 
 wider areas. The surrounding territory would ap- 
 peal for occupancy. Better homes would be built, 
 and the fearful death rate of the slums would di- 
 minish. No longer would it be necessary for the 
 cities to erect model tenements. Self-interest would 
 compel the landlords to do so, just as it supplies 
 the motive for the erection of the splendid office 
 buildings of the American cities. 
 
 Only when the landlords are forced by necessity 
 to make use of their holdings will they do so. A 
 rate of four shillings in the pound would be a stimu* 
 lus. To-day it is profitable to create a scarcity of 
 homes in order to secure a monopoly rent. Thrift 
 is taxed because of its thrift. The idle go un- 
 touched. If the state is to discriminate at all, it 
 should be to punish the owner of the shack and 
 encourage him who makes decent homes for the 
 people. This stimulus to the use of land now lying 
 vacant would usher in a new industrial order. This 
 gain would transcend all others. The cry of the 
 countryside for labour would relieve the labour 
 pressure of the cities. Labour would then command 
 a higher wage. The relief of industry from taxa- 
 tion would still further stimulate enterprise. The 
 poor rate, which now amounts to eighty millions 
 of dollars for the maintenance of a million paupers, 
 Avould diminish. In time it would tend to disap-
 
 334 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 pear altogether. The erection of homes would stim- 
 ulate the building industry. Mines now lying idle 
 would be forced into use. The call of the land would 
 offer homes for millions. The prices of fuel, of 
 food stuffs, of rents, would fall in consequence of 
 the increased supply. 
 
 Along with the increase in wages, the reduction 
 in the burdens of taxation and the improvement in 
 sanitary surroundings, would come an improvement 
 in the physical efficiency of the people. To-day the 
 British labourer is in a state of physical exhaus- 
 tion. Even Parliament has recognised this fact, 
 and provided for an investigation into the subject 
 in 1904. The condition of the population has 
 alarmed the War Office. Fifty per cent, of the can- 
 didates for military service from London had to be 
 rejected because they were physically unfit, while 
 of those offering themselves at Sheffield, York, and 
 Leeds, over forty-seven per cent, were reported as 
 deficient in physical character and stamina. A large 
 part of the people of Great Britain are undernour- 
 ished, badly housed, and underpaid. 
 
 The taxation of land values is thus not an iso- 
 lated question. It lies at the very heart of the life 
 of Great Britain. It explains the monopoly of the 
 land, its use as game preserves by the few, and the 
 disease-breeding tenements crowded by the many. 
 To thousands its adoption is a social philosophy. 
 They recognise that the life of a people is controlled
 
 INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 335 
 
 by its resources. They accept the economic inter- 
 pretation of society. They see that their country 
 is being destroyed through the oppression of the 
 aristocracy and misuse of power by the land-owning 
 classes. They would relieve the unequal distribu- 
 tion of wealth, not through socialism, but through 
 the appropriation by the state of all of the social 
 value which society itself has given to the land. 
 The} 7 would open the resources of the nation to all 
 of the people through the pressure of direct taxa- 
 tion, which would force the landed gentry to relin- 
 quish their monopoly holdings and turn them over 
 to productive uses by the people. Such is the pro- 
 gramme of the new and militant democracy of Great 
 Britain. 
 
 But if history offers any guidance, the House of 
 Lords will be a unit in its opposition to any such 
 bill. It will not submit without a struggle to the 
 impairment of its privileges. For this is a measure 
 which strikes at the root of the power of the aris- 
 tocracy. It is not a party struggle, it is an eco- 
 nomic one, just such a struggle as took place in 
 Rome during the last two centuries of the republic; 
 just such a struggle as preceded the Revolution in 
 France ; just such a struggle as is being witnessed 
 in Russia to-day.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE CITY OF TO-MORROW 
 
 IT is strange that no great mind has lent its con- 
 structive powers to the city. While men are dream- 
 ing of colonial empires, of continent-wide railway 
 systems, of the perfection of armaments, of the 
 building of monster Dreadnoughts, of sky-towering 
 structures, and the possibilities of aerial naviga- 
 tion, no one has offered us a vision of the city that 
 would use all of the agencies of science and inven- 
 tion for the well-being of the people. Neither the 
 statesman nor the administrator, the poet nor the 
 philosopher, the architect nor the builder, have 
 thought of the city as worthy of their efforts. 
 
 The cities of ancient Greece, and the mediaeval 
 Italian towns, were the inspiration of every mind. 
 Their makers were conscious of the splendour of 
 their canvas. They built as Michael Angelo painted, 
 as the cathedral builders of the Middle Ages ex- 
 pressed the ideals of their times. Art, education, 
 beauty, comfort, were consciously studied. Every- 
 thing was subordinated to life, of which the city 
 was the centre. This was the motive of the early 
 city builders. Thus the princes of Europe, in a 
 
 336
 
 THE CITY OF TO-MOEKOW 337 
 
 later age, looked upon their towns. In order that 
 the Head City might be worthy of its Kingdom, 
 tribute was laid upon every people and upon every 
 art. So the first and the third Napoleons viewed 
 Paris. Jefferson, almost alone in Great Britain 
 or America, saw the city as a whole. From the Old 
 World he called a city builder to design the capital 
 of the new nation. To-day, Washington and the 
 country are awakening to an appreciation of the 
 prescience of his dreams. But the ideals of earlier 
 ages were those of beauty, adornment, of patronage 
 of the arts and sciences. The city makers of the 
 past were content with the visible foundations and 
 surroundings. Democracy, and the great discover- 
 ies which have made the nineteenth century pre- 
 eminently an industrial age, were wanting. 
 
 The city of to-morrow will mean very much more 
 than splendid streets and public structures, art, 
 and physical beauty. These are but the ground 
 plans. Political democracy has added a new ele- 
 ment. New tools have been placed in the hands of 
 the people. The most important of these are the 
 power of taxation and the common ownership of 
 many industrial undertakings, to be used for the 
 welfare of all. These, with a free people, free to 
 govern themselves, free to decide all matters of lo- 
 cal concern, untrammelled by some government 
 above, are the agencies by which the city of the 
 next generation will find itself.
 
 338 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 For good or for evil, the city is the most porten- 
 tous fact of the twentieth century. And, free to 
 respond to the needs of the people, it will become 
 the most inviting canvas ever offered the artist or 
 the architect, the philanthropist or the statesman. 
 To be Prime Minister of a great municipality will 
 be more alluring than to be governor of a common- 
 wealth or the president of the world's greatest cor- 
 poration. For in the years that are coming all of 
 the agencies of science and invention will be 
 pressed into the service of the city. Then the 
 contributions of twenty centuries of civilisation 
 will struggle in its service. Then men will serve 
 the city with an eagerness that the claims of busi- 
 ness do not now command. 
 
 The city of to-morrow need know no degrading 
 poverty, no corruption. For poverty and corrup- 
 tion are of our own making. They are the products, 
 and the inevitable products, of privilege. They are 
 the creatures of legislation. This is true of Great 
 Britain as it is of America. Poverty is not volun- 
 tary, not personal. It is traceable to economic en- 
 vironment, and chiefly to the monopoly of the earth 
 and the laws of our own creation. This is seen 
 wherever man is given an opportunity to better 
 his condition. Even the penal colonies of Aus- 
 tralasia became self-respecting communities under 
 the invigorating influence of opportunity. All 
 America bears testimony to the same principle. For
 
 THE CITY OF TO-MORROW 339 
 
 America was peopled by the dispossessed of other 
 lands. And from whatever corner of the earth men 
 came, they responded quickly to the new chance 
 which democracy opened to them in the form of 
 economic freedom. To-day, poverty, vice, and crime 
 are as open to correction as they are to creation. 
 Just as costly privileges have been created in the 
 interests of a few, through the rule of a class, so 
 equal opportunity will be offered to all through the 
 rule of the people. It is in the city that democracy 
 will first become conscious of these powers, con- 
 scious of the common life of the community, and of 
 the power of organised government to promote the 
 well-being of the people by positive political action. 
 And when the city does awaken it will surpass the 
 historic cities of Greece and Italy in the splendour 
 of its achievements. For to all the greatness which 
 they commanded will be added the element of mod- 
 ern democracy, whose possibilities are only begin- 
 ning to be tested in the realm of industrial co- 
 operation. 
 
 Even to-day the city contains more of hope than 
 of despair. It is the centre of the best as well as 
 of the worst. During the past few years ideals have 
 been forming. In the contest with privilege they 
 have taken shape. The people are learning to make 
 use of tools that have been misused to destroy rath- 
 er than to promote democracy. In America, no less 
 than in Great Britain, the possibilities of the city
 
 340 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 are becoming apparent. Industrial democracy is 
 seeking expression in municipal ownership, in 
 juster taxation, in beautiful structures, in schools, 
 parks, libraries, playgrounds, in museums, gym- 
 nasiums, art galleries, in a hundred means for 
 the broadening out of the possibilities of life. Our 
 sympathies are being widened. The solicitude for 
 privilege and property is on the wane. There is 
 an awakening belief in the power of government 
 to affect the distribution of wealth. This convic- 
 tion is reflected all over the world. Social reform 
 is seeking to make use of the city as an experiment 
 station. The necessities of life itself compel the 
 most conservative to assent to an increase in the 
 functions of the community. In the city, opinion 
 is plastic. It is sympathetic to the demands of 
 humanity. The city has been trained to a reliance 
 upon itself. The needs of education, of health, po- 
 lice, and fire protection have forced upon the city 
 countless activities to w r hich the country districts 
 are alien. And the cities of Europe, and, to an in- 
 creasing extent, the cities of America, have justified 
 the confidence reposed in them. The people have 
 learned to trust themselves in their collective capac- 
 ity. They could not be induced to abandon any of 
 the activities which have been undertaken, or pass 
 them back to private hands. In a hundred ways 
 the city is being socialised. It has taken on a sense 
 of togetherness, of fraternal dependence. This be-
 
 THE CITY OF TO-MORROW 341 
 
 lief in co-operative effort, acting not through vol- 
 untary association, but through compulsory politi- 
 cal agencies, is one of the greatest assets of modern 
 society. It is this that distinguishes it from the 
 past. It is through co-operative political effort 
 that the civilisation of the future will be reared. 
 
 A mere enumeration of the activities of a highly 
 organised city like Glasgow, The London County 
 Council, Berlin, or Cleveland, would fill many 
 pages. The community touches us at every turn. 
 It is far more important than the nation. It pro- 
 tects us, educates us, offers recreation and a hun- 
 dred services which, if rendered by individual ini- 
 tiative, would result in chaos. And the cost of it 
 all is insignificant. In America, the per capita ex- 
 penditures of the average city of a quarter of a mil- 
 lion inhabitants range from $12 to $35 a head. They 
 rarely exceed $20. In the city of Glasgow they 
 are about $11 a head. This is the cost of the 
 schools, the parks, the libraries, of city buildings, 
 art museums, music, and other forms of education 
 and recreation. It includes the cleaning and the 
 lighting of the streets, the maintenance of the po- 
 lice, health, and fire departments, the administra- 
 tion of justice, and the care of the dependent and 
 the criminal classes. At this insignificant cost, 
 which would not provide education for a single 
 child at a private school, the city serves us in a 
 multitude of ways. And this socialisation of life is
 
 342 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 really only beginning. This is seen all over Amer- 
 ica as it is in Europe. Along with the movement 
 for the ownership of the public service corporations 
 is a great increase in the minor activities of the 
 community. The city is seeking to relieve the cost 
 of the industrial struggle. It is opening neighbour- 
 hood parks, playgrounds, and bath houses. It is 
 supplying kindergartens and creches. It is adding 
 to the school curriculum. Children are cared for 
 by public physicians and nurses. Meals are being 
 offered at an insignificant cost, or at no cost at all. 
 There are gymnasiums and lecture courses which 
 are open to the parents as well as to the children. 
 The public school buildings are being erected so 
 as to serve as local centres, to be used in the even- 
 ing as places of meeting and recreation. Music, 
 art, and many means of popular culture are being 
 brought to all classes. The social settlement will 
 become in time a city club. It will be a winter 
 park. Here a substitute for the saloon will be of- 
 fered. And when we consider that these activities 
 are but a few years old it is possible to get some 
 idea of the rapidity of the movement. The city of 
 the next generation will humanise life in many 
 ways. There will be public parks and city clubs 
 in every ward. About these centres the life of the 
 district will centre. The city will stimulate art, 
 music and talent. It will offer recreation in abun- 
 dance to the poorest.
 
 THE CITY OF TO-MORROW 343 
 
 The city of to-morrow will be a place in which 
 to live. It will supply so many things and at so 
 slight a cost from the common purse that the prob- 
 lem of existence, even to the poorest, will be greatly 
 simplified. Then man's work will serve him, not 
 enslave him. For the ideals of that city will not be 
 dividends upon property so much as dividends 
 in the form of happiness on life. It is an ideal 
 which will call to the service of humanity the great 
 agencies of production that are now lost to us 
 through monopoly in private hands. We need only 
 summon to the aid of the city the discoveries that 
 are now known, and the talent that we now have, 
 to change the city of to-day from the abode of much 
 misery and suffering to the greatest agency for 
 happiness the world has ever known. All this in- 
 volves a reversal of our ideals of government from 
 a mere agency of property into an agency for hu- 
 manity. It involves a conception of the city as an 
 entity, a political and industrial democracy, de- 
 signed for the use of people rather than for the pro- 
 tection of privilege and property. 
 
 It is this dignity which privilege enjoys that ex- 
 plains the poverty, the misery, and the 'corruption 
 of the city. Everywhere privilege and property are 
 exalted above human life. Humanity is subordi- 
 nated to inanimate things. The right of the slum 
 lords to his rents is a higher right in the eyes of 
 the law than the right of the helpless tenement
 
 344 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 dweller to sunlight, fresh air, and freedom, from 
 contagious disease. The privileges of the franchise 
 corporation in the streets, corruptly obtained 
 though they may have been, enjoy a higher distinc- 
 tion than the municipality, whose citizens are de- 
 pendent upon cheap transit, light, and water. The 
 members of the British Town Councils are more 
 solicitous of the rate-payers than they are of edu- 
 cation, playgrounds, and the decent housing of the 
 people. It is the subordination of every other con- 
 sideration to the superior rights of property that 
 explains the present condition of our cities. We 
 have not yet learned that property is but an agency, 
 a means of happiness, not an end and object for 
 which society is organised. In Great Britain, as 
 well as in America, the land, the slums, the fran- 
 chise corporation, have been given protection, while 
 humanity dies of disease or starves of hunger. 
 Throughout all of our thought runs the assumption 
 that government is a protector of property, rather 
 than a means for promoting the well-being of the 
 people. Not until this ideal passes will the city 
 begin to realise its possibilities. Not until then 
 will its ultimate programme be open to adoption. 
 
 In this awakening America will probably lead the 
 way, hopeless though many of our cities now ap- 
 pear. Industrial democracy will find its first as 
 well as its fullest expression in this country. 
 America is free from the tyranny of the past. No
 
 THE CITY OF TO-MORROW 345 
 
 worn-out institutions camp and confine our imagi- 
 nations. There are no such fearful feudal burdens 
 as the old world staggers under. Here, too, the 
 privileged interests are more easily seen. Tney are 
 limited in number. Their offences may not be 
 greater, but they are of the vulgar sort, against 
 which the public can readily organise. In Great 
 Britain all privilege is protected by respectability. 
 It enjoys an age-long lineage. It is surrounded by 
 all of the historic distinctions of the mother coun- 
 try. It is not vulgarly corrupt. It is safeguarded 
 by the rule of a class that for centuries has been 
 identified with all that the imagination of the 
 Briton holds dear. And it includes as its hand- 
 maiden the Church of England and all of the ave- 
 nues of social advancement. From this we are 
 happily free. 
 
 Long before this psychical evolution is complete 
 there will be a change in the physical basis of the 
 city. As a matter of fact, the physical must precede 
 the psychical. The attitude of the people toward 
 the city is dependent upon the control by the city 
 of its economic environment. The physical and the 
 mental are reciprocal. There can be no big city 
 life until the city manifests a fraternal regard for 
 the people and appreciates its own political dignity. 
 And, first of all, the city will be constructed with 
 a conscious physical plan, and in contemplation 
 of the performance of many services now in pri-
 
 346 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 vate hands or not performed at all. Its foundations 
 will be laid in advance of its growth. Provision 
 will be made for transit under the roadways. Great 
 conduits, owned by the city, will convey water, both 
 hot and cold, to every home. These conduits will 
 be constructed like those under the new Kings Way 
 in London. Through them will be carried the gas, 
 the electricity, the telephone, and other means of 
 communication and service. Just as the great office 
 buildings are going far underground in the making 
 of their foundations, so the city will build its 
 streets, in anticipation of the future needs of the 
 community. Once laid, they will be permanent. 
 They will not be torn up by half a dozen warring 
 agencies, any one of which has rights more dignified 
 than those of the community itself. Through these 
 ducts the water, light, heat, power, and means of 
 communication will be conveyed. Our homes will 
 be heated as well as lighted by the city. There will 
 be an end of coal bins, of individual furnaces and 
 fires, of all of the dirt and labor now incident to 
 the maintenance of heating establishments in every 
 home. The industry of the city will be supplied 
 with power in the same way. And all of these 
 agencies will be operated from a common central 
 station. All of the lost energy, all of the extrava- 
 gant waste that now goes up a hundred thousand 
 chimneys will be concentrated in a single plant, 
 which will supply power and heat and light not
 
 THE CITY OF TO-MORKOW 347 
 
 only for the individual consumer, but for all of the 
 great public services of the community. The econ- 
 omy resulting from such a union of energy would 
 justify the complete rebuilding of a city. It could 
 all be paid for out of the savings of a few years. 
 
 Far more fundamental to the problem of city 
 building than the ownership of these services are 
 the land and the means of transportation. For 
 upon these the homes of the city depend. The city 
 of to-morrow is not to be a tenement city. It will 
 be spread over a wide area. It will be ruralised in 
 a way not now thought to be possible. Homes will 
 be offered to the worker miles from the city's centre, 
 in cheap and rapid communication with his work. 
 For it is only the limitation of the means of transit 
 that confine the city to its present restricted area, 
 restrictions imposed not by the difficulties of the 
 transportation problem, but by the cupidity of pri- 
 vate enterprise. With the changes now taking place 
 in the use of electric traction it will be possible 
 to live fifty or a hundred miles from the city's cen- 
 tre as conveniently as it is now possible to live at 
 one-tenth of that distance. When the city devotes as 
 much concern to the homes of its people as it now 
 devotes to the erection of docks and the develop- 
 ment of its commercial advantages, the housing 
 problem will be open to ready solution. For the 
 slum and the tenement are the product of land mon- 
 opoly, which in turn is traceable to the system of
 
 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 taxation, and the inadequacy of the means of trans- 
 portation. 
 
 Many of the municipalities of Germany provide 
 for the cheap and expeditious transit of working- 
 men into the suburbs. In Great Britain the Town 
 Councils have done what they could in this direc- 
 tion, but the monopoly of the land has thwarted 
 their efforts to do very much. Belgium has proba- 
 bly done more than any other country to enable its 
 people to live at a distance from their work. Most 
 of the railways are owned by the state, and for the 
 last fifteen years the government has consciously 
 pursued a policy of distributing the population into 
 the countryside. Workingmen's tickets are sold at 
 very low rates. For the insignificant sum of forty- 
 three cents it is possible to travel a distance of 31 
 miles a day for six days in the week. Longer dis- 
 tances are arranged on a similar schedule. This is 
 but little more than half the cost of street railway 
 fares to the American workman. Through this pol- 
 icy the population has been lured out into the coun- 
 try villages. In 1875 the number of such tickets 
 sold was but 193,675. In 1901 the number had in- 
 creased to 4,412,723. It is estimated that one-ninth 
 of the industrial workers of Belgium employed in 
 the towns continue to live in the country, where 
 they are able to own a patch of ground, and, along 
 with the superior advantages of the city, enjoy the 
 economic opportunities of the country. Describing
 
 THE CITY OF TO-MORROW 349 
 
 the effect of this policy on the appearance of the 
 country, Professor Vandervelde, from whose arti- 
 cle these facts are taken, says : "Nothing surprises 
 the traveller who goes from London to Brussels 
 more than the contrast between the solitary 
 stretches of pasture in Kent and the animated land- 
 scapes in the neighborhood of the Belgian towns. 
 Enter Hesbaye or Flanders from whatever side one 
 may, the country is everywhere thickly strewn with 
 white, red-roofed houses, some of them standing 
 alone, others lying close together in populous vil- 
 lages. If, however, one spends a day in one of the 
 villages I mean one of those in which there is no 
 local industry one hardly sees a grown up work- 
 man in the place, and almost believes that the popu- 
 lation consists almost entirely of old people and 
 children. But in the evening quite a different pic- 
 ture is seen. We find ourselves, for example, some 
 twelve or thirteen miles from Brussels, at a small 
 railway station in Brabant, say Rixensast, Genval, 
 or La Hulpe. A train of inordinate length, consist- 
 ing almost entirely of third-class carriages, runs 
 in. From the rapidly opened doors stream crowds 
 of workmen, in dusty, dirty clothes, who cover all 
 the platform as they rush to the door, apparently 
 in feverish eagerness to be the first to reach home, 
 where supper awaits them. And every quarter of 
 an hour, from the beginning of dusk till well into 
 the night, trains follow trains, discharge part of
 
 350 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 their human freight, and at all the villages along 
 the line set down troops of workmen, masons, plas- 
 terers, pavers, carpenters with their tool bags on 
 their backs. Elsewhere it is colliers, miners, work- 
 men in rolling mills and foundries, who are coming 
 from the Mons district or Charleroi, or Liege, some 
 of them obliged to travel sixty or seventy miles to 
 reach their homes in some world-forgotten nook in 
 Flanders or Limburg. And on other parts of the 
 railway, in Campine, in Flanders, or the Ardennes, 
 Anthwerp dock labourers, weavers in the Koubaix 
 and Turcoing factories, metal workers, travel daily 
 into France, and when their day's work is done re- 
 turn to the country place where they find their beds. 
 In short, in Belgium there are few villages which 
 do not contain a group of industrial workers who 
 work at a distance, and often at a great distance, 
 from their homes." 1 
 
 In Great Britain, as in America, the highways are 
 in private hands. They are operated with an eye 
 single to dividends. In Belgium, and in Germany, 
 the means of transportation are owned by the state, 
 and are operated with a conscious policy of serving 
 the people. Until the means of transit are owned 
 by the public, and operated to promote the largest 
 possible service, the distribution of the city over a 
 wide area is, of course, impossible. But the city of 
 
 'The Improvement of the Dwellings and Surroundings of the 
 People, p. 159, [Manchester.] Translation of portion of an 
 article from Soziale Praxis, of August 13, 1903.
 
 THE CITY OF TO-MORROW 351 
 
 to-morrow will operate its means of transit as the 
 modern office building operates its elevators. Rapid- 
 ity, safety, comfort, cheapness, not bulging divi- 
 dends, excessive charges, and the shortest possible 
 hauls, will be the standards of the municipality. 
 Then the tenement and the slum will begin to dis- 
 appear, then the population will be scattered over 
 a wide area, then mankind will be permitted to en- 
 joy the advantages of the country and at the same 
 time participate in the comforts and conveniences 
 of the city. The city of to-morrow may have a 
 diameter of a hundred miles. London will be spread 
 over half a dozen counties. The city of New York 
 will run far out into Connecticut, New Jersey, and 
 Long Island, while Manhattan Island will be but a 
 clearing house of banks, shops, hotels, clubs, and 
 business establishments. 
 
 All these services will be operated at insignificant 
 cost, or at no cost at all to the individual consumer. 
 Already, in a number of cities, the suggestion has 
 been made to abandon all charges for water to do- 
 mestic consumers. For aside from the cost of col- 
 lection, the operating charges of a water plant are 
 an insignificant sum. Artificial gas is sold in Great 
 Britain at from twenty-five to sixty cents a thou- 
 sand feet, and at this price yields a handsome reve- 
 nue. The by-products, in the form of coke, ammonia, 
 tar, and other chemicals, will pay for the gas in the 
 mains, and it seems rather foolish to maintain a
 
 352 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 collection department merely to pay for its own 
 cost. Electric current can be produced at less than 
 a cent a kilowatt hour. It is sold by private com- 
 panies at from five to fifteen cents a kilowatt hour. 
 Were a moderate charge made for commercial and 
 manufacturing purposes, all of these services of 
 water, gas, and electricity, could be rendered to 
 the people at the most insignificant cost. 
 
 In America, the prevailing rate of street railway 
 fares is five cents. In Glasgow the average fare 
 under municipal ownership is 1.89 cents. The re- 
 ports of the Tramway Department show that fares 
 could be further reduced to one cent and still pay 
 all operating expenses, maintenance, and other 
 charges. But a cautious policy of debt repayment 
 has induced the British cities to subordinate the re- 
 duction of charges to the retirement of the debt and 
 the relief of taxation. In a few years, however, 
 many of the plants will be free from debt, and then 
 a new policy will be open to adoption. Fares and 
 charges can be reduced to operating cost or the 
 maintenance of the undertaking can be thrown 
 upon the general rates. 
 
 Whatever the operating policy of the future may 
 be, the British cities have demonstrated that the 
 franchise corporations can be operated by the com- 
 munity at a very great saving to the people. In 
 time we, too, will feel that these great undertakings 
 are as necessary a part of the city's life as the po-
 
 THE CITY OF TO-MORROW. 353 
 
 lice, the fire, the health, and the school departments. 
 All of these things the city of to-morrow will do 
 on behalf of the people. The franchise corporations 
 will be utilised in a hundred ways not now thought 
 of. Then a conscious plan of city building will be 
 possible. Then the streets and public places can 
 be laid out as an architect plans a building. Then 
 all of the physical foundations of the city can be 
 planned in advance. Then transit, heat, light, 
 power, and water will be brought to the people in 
 anticipation of their needs, while the construction 
 work will be so planned that it need never be dis- 
 turbed. 
 
 Already the territory surrounding the German 
 cities is being laid out in this way. In 1901 the 
 Prussian Government issued instructions to the 
 governors of the provinces to use every influence 
 to induce the municipalities to purchase all of the 
 land they could obtain for the purpose of improving 
 housing conditions. Many of the German cities 
 were already large landlords. And under authority 
 of this decree they have greatly increased their 
 holdings. In some cities the land of the community 
 exceeds 150 square yards per head of the population. 
 Had the city of Manchester as much land as the 
 average of the five largest land-owning cities of 
 Germany, it would be the possessor of 16,860 acres, 
 or 26 1-3 square miles. The land so acquired is 
 laid out by the city in anticipation of the needs of
 
 354 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 the people. It is leased to the tenants, who are 
 required to build according to the plans of the 
 Council. Eminent architects and engineers are em- 
 ployed to lay out new additions, to plan the streets 
 and parkways so as to insure the health and com- 
 fort of the people, as well as the beauty of the sur- 
 roundings. Factories and manufacturing plants 
 are segregated, and a large amount of the land is 
 laid out in open spaces. Instead of permitting the 
 erection of tenements, which in Great Britain are 
 found even in the open fields about the towns, pro- 
 vision is made for small one-family cottages. The 
 streets are laid out to conform to the general plan 
 of the locality. There are sites for public build- 
 ings, open places for the people's recreation, while 
 trees, shrubbery, and other decorations, enhance 
 the beauty of the locality. The German city has 
 already developed a strong sense of the dignity 
 and the possibility of the city, while the central 
 government has accorded it ample pow r ers for the 
 working out of its life. 1 It is this that explains the 
 efficiency of the German city rather than the form 
 of its government. It has a large degree of free- 
 dom and a fine sense of itself. The cities of America 
 and Great Britain are lacking in any strong con- 
 
 'For an excellent and very exhaustive discussion of the hous- 
 ing activities in Germany, together with valuable information 
 as to conditions in Great Britain, see "The Improvement of 
 the Dwellings and Surroundings of the People: The Example 
 of Germany," published by the Manchester University Press. 
 Is. 1904.
 
 THE CITY OF TO-MORROW 355 
 
 cern for human life. The solicitude for property 
 prevents the destruction of the slum except at enor- 
 mous cost to the tax-payers. But the city of to- 
 morrow will no more permit a land owner to main- 
 tain a slum than it will permit a butcher to sell 
 diseased meat, or a drunken man carelessly to bran- 
 dish a loaded revolver in a crowded public highway. 
 
 The German city sees the housing problem as it 
 really is a land problem. It is not lack of build- 
 ing materials or labour, it is the land speculator 
 who is responsible for the slum. And the German 
 cities are attacking the monopoly by the purchase 
 of large tracts of outlying property, and the 
 taxation of land values. The former policy enables 
 the community to save to itself the future unearned 
 increment on so much of the land as it acquires, and 
 permits it to control the development of the city. 
 Town Councils are also empowered to tax sites 
 that have not been built upon at their market value. 
 In those communities where this policy has been 
 put in force the taxes upon the site value of the 
 land have, in many instances, been increased as 
 much as a thousand per cent. 
 
 There is nothing new in the latter proposal in 
 America. Land has always been assessed under the 
 general property tax, and in New York, Boston, 
 Detroit, and elsewhere, the appraisal of the land 
 and the improvements has been made separately. 
 In those cities we now have exact information show-
 
 356 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 ing the colossal increase in the value of urban land 
 and the possibility of levying all of the local rates 
 upon the site values alone, and the abandonment 
 of all taxes upon buildings and improvements. Ac- 
 cording to the appraisal of 1904, the value of the 
 naked land in New York, exclusive of all improve- 
 ments, was |3,697,686,935. The annual rent rolls 
 of a small number of owners, and paid by the re- 
 maining three million tenants, amounted, at five 
 per cent., to $184,884,430 per annum. This is the 
 equivalent of f 52.85 on every man, woman and child 
 in the metropolis. The total expenditures of the 
 city in that year were but $108,000,000, of which 
 sum about $54,000,000 was collected from the land. 
 Were all other forms of taxation abandoned, and 
 the total expenditures of the city thrown upon the 
 unearned increment of the handful of landlords, 
 all of the present needs of the city would be met 
 from this source, and the land owners would still 
 be left with a princely income in excess of $100,- 
 000,000. But this is not all. From 1904 to 1905 
 the value of the land alone increased $140,000,000. 
 or $30,000,000 more than all of the expenditures 
 of the city. So rapid is the growth of land values 
 in any growing city, that were the city to appro- 
 priate only the increase from year to year, all other 
 taxes could be abandoned. In all of the cities of 
 America, where investigations have been made into 
 this subject, the same is true. A study of the rela-
 
 THE CITY OF TO-MORROW 357 
 
 tion of land values to population seems to indicate 
 that the value of the bare land underlying any large 
 city is worth about $1,000 per head. If the popula- 
 tion increases five per cent, the land increases at a 
 like rate. Every babe that is born, every immigrant 
 who adopts the city as his home, contributes a value 
 of $1,000 to those who own the land. This value, 
 which their coming has created^ they are then 
 charged for using. And every contribution in the 
 form of taxes but increases the value of the site 
 which the people occupy and the amount of the 
 tribute to be paid to the owner of the land. 
 
 It is this that makes the tax upon land values 
 so natural a source of municipal revenue. It is 
 more than adequate for all of the needs of the city. 
 It is the joint product of all of the community. 
 No energy of the owner gives it value. It is purely 
 social in its origin. It responds to every expendi- 
 ture of the municipality. It rises with the coming 
 of transit, the opening of streets and sewers, the 
 erection of schools and public structures, and the 
 provision for police, health, and fire protection. 
 Every activity of the community enriches the land- 
 owning class and no other. For the land, and the 
 resources of the land, are the only forms of wealth 
 that do not depreciate and decay with the passing 
 of time. 
 
 Such a tax, imposed to the limit, would substitute 
 the community for the ground landlord. The ren-
 
 358 THE BKITISH CITY 
 
 tals which now flow into the pockets of a handful 
 of owners would then pass into the city treasury. 
 They would be adequate for all of the needs of the 
 most highly organised municipality. All other taxes 
 could be abandoned, while countless services now 
 in private hands could be supplied without cost to 
 the citizen. But the chief gains from such a redis- 
 tribution of taxes would be social. Land would be 
 forced into use. The owner could no longer sit idly 
 upon his estates until the necessities of humanity 
 led him to offer them to the market. He would 
 build homes for the people, while suburban land 
 would be opened up to market gardening and the 
 erection of cottages. Under such conditions, pri- 
 vate initiative would lead to the erection of model 
 dwellings. There would be competition for tenants 
 on the part of the landlord. No longer would there 
 be a famine in houses. Then the slum w r ould come 
 down, just as the manufacturer abandons worn-out 
 machinery, in order to meet the pressure of his 
 more progressive neighbour. Then we would see 
 the same sort of enterprise and ingenuity in the de- 
 signing of homes that is now manifest in the mak- 
 ing of automobiles or of any other competitive 
 product which monopoly does not control. The 
 city would not need to erect model dwellings, for 
 the burden of taxation would awaken in the land 
 owner the same ingenuity that prevails in other 
 lines of trade.
 
 THE CITY OF TO-MORROW 359 
 
 Not only would the taxation of land values re- 
 lieve the housing question, open up the countryside 
 to occupancy, and widen out the city's boundaries, 
 it would awaken industry of every kind. Wages 
 would rise through the stimulus to building and 
 the multitude of other industries that are now 
 strangled by the monopoly of the resources of the 
 earth. The land would be reclaimed by the people. 
 It would be opened to cultivation, subject to an 
 annual rent charge to the state. The countryside 
 would awaken into new life. It is only in this way 
 that the city can be ruralised and its full possibili- 
 ties be realised. Its boundaries would then be de- 
 termined by natural causes rather than by the dead 
 hand of the laud speculator. 
 
 The taxation of land values is far more than a 
 fiscal expedient for the juster distribution of the 
 burdens of government. It is a philosoph}* of indi- 
 vidualism. It would place in the hands of the com- 
 munity those things that are public, and leave in 
 private hands those activities that are competitive. 
 The line of division is simple and definite. It is 
 drawn at those monopolieswhich are identified with 
 the land. It would have the community own the 
 means of transportation, the gas, water, electric 
 light, and telephone services, and administer them 
 for the public weal. The city would retake the 
 value of the land through taxation because the life 
 of the community is dependent upon it, and because
 
 f 
 
 360 THE BEITISH CITY 
 
 it is the joint product of all. No policy of city build- 
 ing is possible so long as the physical foundations 
 are in private hands interested only in exacting the 
 highest possible price for its use. For the interests 
 of the landlord are at war with the needs of human- 
 ity. Every effort of the city to improve the con- 
 dition of the people is frustrated so long as the pri- 
 vate interest of the land owner remains superior to 
 the well-being of the community. Any reduction 
 in the charges for water, gas, and transportation 
 becomes but a contribution from one class of land 
 owners to another. 
 
 Such a programme is only possible when the city 
 is free, free from interference by Parliament or the 
 State Legislature. The city of to-morrow will be 
 a simple democracy, a little republic, like the great 
 cities of the past. It will be an experiment station 
 in government. It will be endowed with ample 
 power to levy its taxes as it will. It will be free 
 to undertake such activities as the people may de- 
 cide. Its charter will be of its own making. Wheth- 
 er its form be that of the German, the British, or 
 the American city, will be a matter of trial. As 
 the activities of the community increase, the admin- 
 istrative agencies will be made to conform to the 
 local needs, rather than to some uniform charter 
 which the legislature has adopted. All this can be 
 done through a charter convention, or by the Coun- 
 cil itself, subject to a referendum vote of the people.
 
 THE CITY OF TO-MORROW 361 
 
 Such a means of charter amendment already pre- 
 vails in California, Oregon, and a number of West- 
 ern States. The activities which the city may un- 
 dertake will be passed upon by the people in the 
 same way. Upon petition of a certain percentage 
 of the voters, any ordinance, any appropriation, any 
 action of the Council, may be submitted to the ap- 
 proval of the electors. The policy to be followed 
 on excise and sumptuary questions, which are a 
 source of so much trouble to American and British 
 cities, may be solved in the same way. The opening 
 and the closing of the saloons on Sunday, the mat- 
 ter of Sunday theatres and recreations, the method 
 of controlling the liquor traffic, these and many 
 other questions of public policy, which involve no 
 criminal question, should be disposed of by the peo- 
 ple most interested rather than by some distant 
 legislative authority without knowledge of or inter- 
 est in the life of the communities most involved. 
 
 There will be a widening of the suffrage in the 
 city of to-morrow. Democracy will recognise that 
 the city is as much a woman's city as it is a man's. 
 To her it means protection of the life and the health 
 of children from disease, the promotion of educa- 
 tion, and recreation. Upon her the most oppressive 
 burdens of society are now thrown. She pays the 
 heaviest price for the incompetence of the city. She 
 pays the cost of the dirt, the impure water, the in- 
 efficiency of the health and other departments. For
 
 362 THE BRITISH CITY 
 
 these are the domestic services. And when they are 
 indifferently performed they increase the burden of 
 her life. When the city enjoys her vote and her 
 service there will come a quickened interest in the 
 higher side of municipal life. Then the city will 
 become a people's city rather than the outward 
 and visible symbol of the commercialism that dom- 
 inates all of our ideals of life. Through her it will 
 be socialised in the lines that promote health, and 
 ease, and comfort, and happiness. 
 
 To many people any belief in the city is the idlest 
 of dreams. They see only a loss in the passing of 
 the rural population to the crowded industrial life 
 of the modern city. But it is natural that men 
 should want to be in the midst of the currents of 
 civilisation, even though it involves some risk of 
 failure. For many fail. The city of to-morrow will 
 seek to relieve the vicarious cost of those who con- 
 tribute their lives to the making of the city. It will 
 become a sympathetic political organisation, in- 
 spired by no abstract formulas of the proper limits 
 of co-operative activity save the fundamental one 
 that the end of government is the welfare of the peo- 
 ple. Such a sense is already a long way advanced. 
 The change which has already come over the atti- 
 tude of the cities of the United States is little short 
 of revolutionary. The city is being inspired by a 
 new morality. It lies latent in every community, 
 and only needs a leader to call it into life. It is the
 
 THE CITY OF TO-MORROW 363 
 
 morality of social justice, which is the mission of 
 industrial democracy to the modern world. It is 
 this that makes the city of to-morrow the hope of 
 civilisation, just as the city of to-day is its despair.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Administration, Nature of 
 city, p. 31. 
 
 Agriculture, Population de- 
 voted to diminishing, p. 1; 
 possibilities of, in Great 
 Britain, p. 318; effect of 
 taxation of land values on, 
 p. 326. 
 
 America, Political conditions 
 in, pp. viii, 228; size of city 
 councils, p. 28; cities, limi- 
 tations of, p. 230; some of 
 its successes, p. 241. 
 
 Aristocracy, Influence of Brit- 
 ish, on legislation, p. 277; 
 amount of rent paid to, p. 
 312; see land. 
 
 Art and democracy, p. 224. 
 
 Audit, Method of, p. 235. 
 
 B 
 
 Beauty, Lack of, in British 
 
 cities, p. 243. 
 Belgium, Policy of, in matter 
 
 of transportation, p. 348. 
 Board of Trade, control over 
 
 cities, p. 152. 
 Business interests at work in 
 
 Congress, p. viii. 
 Business men, attitude toward 
 
 municipal ownership, pp. 
 
 viii, 119. 
 Burns, John, p. 214. 
 
 C 
 
 Caste in Great Britain, p. 279. 
 
 Charles II and the govern- 
 ment of towns, p. 11. 
 
 Charters, Medieval, p. 254. 
 
 City, the center of new de- 
 mocracy, p. x; the British 
 is honestly administered, p. 
 x; poverty in, p. x; conflict 
 with privilege, p. xi (see 
 privilege) ; city population 
 in Britain, p. 1; work, 
 magnitude of, p. 50; cor- 
 ruption due to franchise 
 corporations, p. 50; ideals 
 of, p. 58; do not have home 
 rule, pp. 146, 159; affection 
 of the people for, pp. 99, 
 125; area of, in England 
 and America, p. 265; lack 
 of hope and opportunity in, 
 p. 310; ancient, p. 336; the 
 new ideals of, p. 337; is the 
 center of hope, p. 339; in- 
 creasing functions of, p. 
 340; too much emphasis on 
 privilege and property, p. 
 348; necessity of control 
 over physical foundations 
 by community, p. 346; 
 changes in the ideals of 
 administration, p. 351; Ger- 
 man cities and their control 
 of land, p. 353. 
 
 Citizen, English, attitude to- 
 ward city, pp. 61, 181. 
 
 366
 
 366 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Class lines in English city, p. 
 39; in the government, p. 
 56. 
 
 Clerk, Town, p. 36. 
 
 Committees of Councils, and 
 how they work, p. 30. 
 
 Congress, Influences that con- 
 trol, p. viii. 
 
 Corruption, Due to franchise 
 corporations, p. 50; in Brit- 
 ish cities, p. 67; absence of, 
 in Glasgow, p. 164; compari- 
 son of, in England and 
 America, p. 272; under old 
 royal charters, pp. 12-14; 
 municipal ownership, not a 
 cause of, p. 68; in America 
 and Great Britain, p. 272. 
 
 Councils, Town, enjoy all of 
 the powers of city, p. 24; 
 size of, and method of, elec- 
 tion to, p. 27; is a rate-pay- 
 ers' body, p. 41; in London, 
 p. 138; in Glasgow, p. 167. 
 
 Councilmen, Arduous nature 
 of duties, p. 32. 
 
 Decay, Industrial and social, 
 in England, p. 304; causes 
 assigned for the same, p. 
 304; due to privilege, p. 
 305; in villages, p. 307. 
 
 Democracy, in cities, pp. xv, 
 8; ideals at war with pres- 
 ent conditions, p. 4; begin- 
 ning in English cities, p. 
 55; programme of munici- 
 pal, pp. 57, 65; effect of 
 rate-paying class on, p. 240; 
 is not a matter of form, p. 
 278. 
 
 Docks, a monopoly right, p. 
 259. 
 
 E 
 
 Economic motive in city poli- 
 tics, pp. vii, 10, 41. 
 
 Efficiency of British city, p. 
 236. 
 
 Elections, Method of conduct- 
 ing same, pp. 33, 173; in 
 England and America, p. 
 234. 
 
 Electors, Qualifications of, pp. 
 44, 240. 
 
 Employees of city, p. 31. 
 
 Electric lighting, slow devel- 
 opment of, p. Ill; method 
 of securing powers from 
 Parliament to operate, p. 
 112; life of franchises lim- 
 ited, how, p. 112; franchise 
 values paid for by the cit- 
 ies, p. 113; generally suc- 
 cessful, p. 115. 
 
 Enthusiasm, due to public 
 ownership, p. 50. 
 
 Employees of the British city, 
 p. 135; alleged dangers from 
 the increase of, p. 136; 
 wages under London Coun- 
 ty Council, pp. 138, 216; 
 Works Department, p. 138; 
 in Glasgow, p. 167. 
 
 Estates of aristocracy, p. 308. 
 
 F 
 
 Financial success of munici- 
 pal ownership, p. 75; of 
 tramway operation, pp. 88, 
 92; of gas, p. 105-108. 
 
 Franchise corporations, cor- 
 rupting influences of, in 
 America, pp. 50, 232; atti-
 
 INDEX 
 
 367 
 
 tude of, toward American 
 cities, p. 125; arouse class 
 conflicts, p. 126; interfere 
 with city building, p. 131; 
 effect on city life, p. 132; 
 how granted, in England, p. 
 148; method of purchase by 
 cities, p. 152 ; absence of cor- 
 rupting influence in British 
 city, p. 233; members of 
 Parliament interested in, p. 
 289. 
 
 Fraternal attitude of British 
 city, p. 132. 
 
 G 
 
 Gas supply, Attitude of Par- 
 liament towards, p. 101; 
 number of public and pri- 
 vate plants, p. 102; statis- 
 tics of ownership and op- 
 eration, p. 103; general re- 
 sults of municipal owner- 
 ship, pp. 104-109; in Glas- 
 gow, p. 193. 
 
 Germany, policy of cities as 
 to land, pp. 348, 353. 
 
 Glasgow, attitude of people to- 
 wards, p. 161; graft in, p. 
 164; is a government of 
 tax-payers, p. 167; has no 
 special privileges to bestow, 
 p. 165; employees, number 
 of, p. 169; the Lord Pro- 
 vost, p. 170; method of 
 electing councilmen, p. 173; 
 the Town Council, p. 177; 
 love of people for city, p. 
 181; tramways, p. 184; busi- 
 ness enterprises of, p. 191; 
 taxes collected by, p. 164; 
 electric lighting in, p. 118; 
 tramways in, p. 95. 
 
 Government, End of, p. 5. 
 Guilds, Trading, p. 21. 
 
 H 
 
 Home rule in America, p 
 
 147; in England, p. 159. 
 Honesty of city administra- 
 
 tration in Great Britain, p. 
 
 40. 
 House of Lords, Composition 
 
 of, p. 278. 
 Housing conditions, pp. 157, 
 
 266. 
 
 Hunting preserves, p. 308. 
 Huxley, Quotations from, p. 
 
 122. 
 
 I 
 
 Ideals of London County 
 Council, p. 227. 
 
 Imperial taxes, and injustice 
 of, p. 324. 
 
 Indebtedness of British cities, 
 p. 71. 
 
 Indirect taxes, and evil effects 
 of, p. 42. 
 
 Industrial conditions of cit- 
 ies, p. 3. 
 
 Industrial decay, and causes 
 of, p. 311. 
 
 Landed aristocracy, p. 9 ; pow- 
 ers of, p. 64; influence on 
 legislation, p. 286; incomes 
 of, p. 323; see Parliament 
 and privilege. 
 
 Land, Value of, in New York 
 and London, pp. 245, 283; 
 attitude ot British people 
 towards those who own, p. 
 247; monopoly of, p. 251; is
 
 368 
 
 INDEX 
 
 closely held, p. 256; condi- 
 tions which promote it, p. 
 257; sanctity of, p. 296; 
 monopoly of, and effects on, 
 agriculture, p. 309; on the 
 life of the people, p. 317; 
 value in Great Britain, p. 
 323. 
 
 Land reform, p. 63. 
 
 Land values, and efforts of 
 cities to tax, p. 268; pres- 
 ent amount of tax on, p. 
 283; programme of taxa- 
 tion, p. 285. 
 
 Leases, land and conditions 
 of, p. 260. 
 
 Licensing bill, p. 295. 
 
 Livery companies, p. 21. 
 
 Local bill legislation, p. 292. 
 
 Local taxes and method of as- 
 sessing, p. 42 ; amount of, p. 
 316; method of raising of 
 great importance, pp. 261, 
 320; under the control of 
 Parliament, p. 284. 
 
 London, City of, pp. 20, 207. 
 
 London County Council, pp. 
 46, 138; trading enterprises 
 in, p. 71; lack of order in 
 the method of administra- 
 tion, p. 203; the different 
 agencies, p. 204; its powers, 
 p. 205; parties in the Coun- 
 cil, p. 211; its programme, 
 p. 215; the Works Depart- 
 ment, p. 216; the struggle 
 with privilege, p. 221; a 
 new idea in the world, p. 
 227. 
 
 M 
 
 Mayor, powers and privileges 
 of, p. 25; in Glasgow, p. 
 170. 
 
 Market rights, a monopoly, p. 
 258. 
 
 Merit system in England, p. 
 239. 
 
 Metropolitan Board of Works, 
 p. 206. 
 
 Monopoly, the desire for it a 
 power in government, pp. 
 ix, 144; is always active in 
 Parliament, p. 281. 
 
 Municipal Corporations Act, 
 1835, p. 16. 
 
 Municipal ownership enter- 
 prises, how managed, p. 30; 
 stimulated by rate-payers, 
 p. 47; influence upon the 
 citizen, p. 52; influences 
 causing its growth, p. 59; 
 cause of good government 
 not of corruption, p. 68; in- 
 debtedness for, 71; number 
 and classes of enterprises, 
 p. 71; in London, p. 71; op- 
 position to trading, p. 72; 
 unfairness of the reports, p. 
 73; earnings of, p. 74; 
 financial success assured, p. 
 75; relief of taxation from, 
 pp. 76-77; distinction be- 
 tween public and private 
 enterprises, p. 78; move- 
 ment but beginning, p. 81; 
 Renaissance of city govern- 
 ment due to, p. 99; a larger 
 question than a financial 
 one, pp. 120-125; interfer- 
 ence of private corpora- 
 tions with American poli- 
 tics, p. 126; involves class 
 struggles, p. 126; compari- 
 son of American and Eng- 
 lish cities, p. 127; city 
 ideals only possible when 
 franchises are in public
 
 INDEX 
 
 369 
 
 hands, p. 132; in Glasgow, 
 pp. 184-197; general success 
 of, p. 236; in the city of to- 
 morrow, p. 346. 
 
 N 
 
 Nominations, Methods of mak- 
 ing, p. 32. 
 
 Non-employment, Statistics of, 
 p. 2. 
 
 P 
 
 Parliament is reactionary, p. 
 6; supervision of city mat- 
 ters, p. 37; attitude towards 
 gas supply, p. 101; repre- 
 sents privilege, p. 144; its 
 attitude towards cities, p. 
 145; denies home rule, p. 
 146; prescribes method of 
 borrowing money, p. 148; 
 private bill legislation, p. 
 152; attitude of conserva- 
 tive party, p. 158; fears the 
 powers of cities, pp. 154- 
 157; responsible for tene- 
 ment and housing condi- 
 tions, p. 156; struggle in 
 Great Britain is between 
 Parliament and cities, p. 
 158; need of home rule, p. 
 159; relation with monop- 
 oly, p. 260; class legislation 
 of, p. 290; costs of private 
 bills, p. 292. 
 
 Poverty in English city, p. 5; 
 influence on trading, p. 62; 
 in Great Britain, p. 310. 
 
 Politics, Absence of, in city 
 elections, p. 33; comparison 
 of American and British, p. 
 274. 
 
 Private bill legislation, p. 148. 
 
 Privileges, Struggle of Lon- 
 don County Council with, p. 
 
 221 ; and corruption in Eng- 
 land, p. 229; prevalence of, 
 p. 300; emphasis on, in 
 England and America, p. 
 348. 
 
 Programme of cities, pp. 57, 
 65. 
 
 Purchase of franchise cor- 
 porations, Method of, p. 86. 
 
 R 
 
 Railways, Method of incor- 
 poration and capitalization, 
 p. 287 ; landlords and rights- 
 of-way, p. 288. 
 
 Rate-paying class in control 
 of cities, p. xiv; explains 
 many excellencies of cities, 
 p. 41; attitude towards city, 
 pp. 60, 82; influence on life 
 of city, p. 240. 
 
 Rent, its effect on the life of 
 the people, p. 313; amount 
 paid to the aristocracy, p. 
 312; is paid out of the la- 
 bor of the nation, p. 324. 
 
 Rome and England, a com- 
 parison, p. 300. 
 
 Self-government beginning in 
 
 cities, p. 6. 
 Suffrage, a property right, p. 
 
 43; evil effects of, 240; 
 
 woman, p. 361. 
 Spoils system, none under 
 
 municipal ownership, p. 135. 
 
 Taxation, how adjusted in the 
 American city, p. 42; relief 
 of, through municipal own-
 
 370 
 
 INDEX 
 
 ership, p. 77; relief of, by 
 tramways, p. 97; effect on 
 political and social life of, 
 p. 245; evil effects of local 
 taxes, p. 261; distribution 
 of Imperial, p. 298; of land 
 values, p. 325; effect of on 
 agriculture and town life, 
 pp. 325-329; measures intro- 
 duced into Parliament for, 
 p. 331. 
 
 Tenancy, Effect of, on voter, 
 p. 43. 
 
 Tenements, Control of Parlia- 
 ment over, p. 156. 
 
 Tenure, Methods of land, p. 
 312. 
 
 Town Council; see Council. 
 
 Towns in Middle Ages, p. 253. 
 
 To-morrow, City of, pp. 337- 
 363. 
 
 Trading enterprises; see mu- 
 nicipal ownership. 
 
 Tramways, an essentially pub- 
 lic service, p. 83; Act of 
 1870, p. 84; experience of 
 Glasgow, p. 87; financial 
 
 showing of public and pri- 
 vate, p. 88; Zone system, p. 
 91; rates of fare, p. 91; 
 earnings of, p. 92; Glasgow 
 experiences, p. 95; relief of 
 taxation, p. 97; real gains 
 from ownership, p. 98; in 
 Glasgow, p. 184. 
 Transit, necessary for city to, 
 means of, p. 346. 
 
 Villages, Condition of, p. 307. 
 
 W 
 
 Wages, fair scale fixed by 
 
 Council, p. 138. 
 Woman suffrage, p. 361. 
 Workingmen, entrance into 
 
 city politics, p. 35. 
 Works Department of cities, 
 
 pp. 138, 216. 
 
 Z 
 
 Zone system, p. 91.
 
 THE CITY 
 
 The Hope of Democracy 
 
 By 
 
 FREDERIC C. HOWE, Ph.D. 
 
 , $1.50 net 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Introductory 
 
 The New Civilization 
 
 The Profit Account 
 
 The Loss Account 
 
 The American City at Work 
 
 The Source of Corruption 
 
 The Boss, the Party and the System 
 
 The Way Out Municipal Ownership 
 
 Does Municipal Ownership Pay ? 
 
 The City Republic 
 
 The City Charter 
 
 The Cost of the Slum 
 
 The City's Homes 
 
 The City's Wreckage 
 
 The Wards of the City 
 
 The City Beautiful 
 
 The City's Treasure 
 
 The Revenues of the City 
 
 The City for the People 
 
 The Hope of Democracy 
 
 Index 
 
 " Here is a book that should challenge universal 
 attention. Students and practical workers in munic- 
 ipal politics should find it one of the most illuminat- 
 ing studies that has come to us in book form for 
 many a day. His discussion is vigorous, optimistic 
 and impressive, and whether or not the reader accepts 
 the author's views, the view taken is one that should 
 not, and will not, be ignored." Cleveland News.
 
 THE CITY: THE HOPE 
 OF DEMOCRACY 
 
 FROM A LETTER FROM JOHN URE PRIMROSE, LORD 
 
 PROVOST OF GLASGOW : 
 
 11 The subject is a most suggestive one, and in his 
 analysis of the present political and municipal systems, 
 the author shows not only a profound knowledge of 
 his theme, but an enlightened and constructive con- 
 ception of the remedies which will require to be 
 employed in the rectification of existing abuses." 
 
 41 Suggestive and is certainly a valuable contribu- 
 tion to the solution of many vexatious municipal 
 problems." Memphis Commercial Appeal. 
 
 " A frank discussion of municipal problems as 
 they are actually encountered in the more typical of 
 our American cities. The prevailing note is one of 
 optimism." The Review of Reviews. 
 
 " Mr. Howe . . . has here produced a strong 
 and detailed analysis of evils at the root of municipal 
 misgovernment. His work is commended to thought- 
 ful men." Boston Advertiser. 
 
 " A notable contribution to an important branch 
 of political science." Chicago Record- Her aid. 
 
 " Every leader in city politics will find facts and 
 arguments in this book to stimulate his hope and pilot 
 his activities." The Independent.
 
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