MEETING OF THE WATERS—KILLARNEY
CHAPTER XLIX.
GROWTH OF MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP.
Carved in the mantel of the library which adjoins the reception room of the lord provost of Glasgow is the motto, "Truth will prevail," and the triumph of truth is illustrated in the development of municipal ownership in the British Isles.
Probably no city in the world has extended the sphere of municipal activity further than the metropolis of Scotland—Glasgow. By the courtesy of the present lord provost, Sir James Ure Primrose, I learned something of the manner in which the city of Glasgow is administering the work that in most of our American cities has been left to private corporations. It goes without saying that Glasgow owns and operates its water system, for that is usually the first public work upon which a city enters. In this case, however, the water instead of being furnished to the citizens at so much per thousand gallons or at fixed hydrant rates, is paid for by a tax upon the value of the property. The city's water supply is brought from Lake Katrine, forty miles away, and a second pipe line has recently been laid to the lake.
Glasgow also owns the gas plant and furnishes gas to consumers at about 50 cents per thousand cubic feet. More recently the city has entered upon the work of supplying electricity, both to the city and to private houses. The tramways, too, are owned and operated by the municipality. The service is excellent and the fare depends upon the distance traveled, 2d (4 cents) being the rate for a long ride and 1d (2 cents) for shorter distances. At certain hours in the day there are work trams that carry the laboring man from one end of the city to the other for 1⁄2d or 1 cent. The lord provost informed me that it was the settled policy of the city to use all the income from public service corporations in improving the service and lessening the charge. In some places the surplus, as will be shown hereafter, is turned into the city fund and to that extent lessens the taxes (or rates as city taxes are called in Great Britain). The municipal authorities in Glasgow have, from the beginning, opposed this form of indirect taxation and insisted that the service should be rendered to the public at absolute cost, leaving the people to support the city government by direct taxation.
Not only does Glasgow furnish water, gas, electricity and street car service to its people at cost, but it has undertaken other work still further in advance of American cities. It has built a number of model tenement houses for the poor and rents them at something less than the rate private individuals charge for similar quarters. These buildings have had for their primary object the improvement of the sanitary condition of the city. Slums in which disease was rife have been bought, cleansed and built up, with the result that the death rate has been reduced in those localities. These tenement houses are rented by the week or month and the charge for those that I visited was about $36 per year, this covering taxes and water. The rooms are commodious and well lighted and each suite contains a cooking range fitted into the chimney place.