The old world and its ways

by William Jennings Bryan

THE BROOMELAW BRIDGE AT GLASGOW

The city has also established a number of lodging houses for single men and here lodgings can be obtained ranging from 3¹⁄₂d (7 cents) to 4¹⁄₂d (9 cents) per night. The lodger has the privilege, and most of them take advantage of it, of cooking his meals in a large kitchen connected with the building, and also has the use of the dining room and reading room. One lodging house is set apart for widowers with children and is, I am informed, the only one of its kind in the world. About one hundred families, including in all 300 persons, have rooms here. Attendants are on duty to look after the children during the day while the fathers are at work, and meals are furnished to such as desire at a minimum rate.

The reading public is already familiar with the public baths which have for a number of years been in operation in Glasgow, and to these baths have been added public washhouses where women can bring the family linen and at the rate of 2d per hour make use of the tubs and drying room. I visited one of these wash-rooms and found that the number of people taking advantage of it during the first year was, in round numbers, 33,000, in the second year 34,000, in the third year 35,000, and in the fourth year 37,000.

London is also making progress in the work of municipalizing its public service. The city proper covers a very small territory; in fact, but a mile square, the greater part of the city being under the control of what is called the London county council. The London city council has recently obtained from parliament the right to deal with the water problem and a commission has been created for this purpose and is now at work appraising the value of the different water companies which are to be taken over by the said council. The enormous price demanded by these companies gives overwhelming proof of London's folly in having so long delayed the undertaking of this public work. As there are no surface street cars in the city of London, the city council has not had the tramway question to deal with. The London county council has moved much more rapidly than the city council, and I am indebted to Mr. John Burns, M. P., also councilman for the district of Battersea, for much valuable information on this subject, he and Mr. A. J. Shepheard, with whom I crossed the ocean, being kind enough to introduce me to the members of the county council and to place before me the statistics in possession of the officials. The county council, besides taking over the water service, is also furnishing to some extent electricity. Just now the county council is putting down tramways and preparing to follow in the footsteps of Glasgow in the matter of furnishing transit for its citizens. Like Glasgow, the county council is also furnishing lodging houses for the poorer classes and by so doing is improving the sanitary conditions of the city. In some portions the council is erecting tenement houses; here, as in Glasgow, the council selected the worst portions of the city and substituting modern and well-equipped houses for the unsightly and unhealthy tenement houses that formerly occupied the ground. Mr. Burns took me through one of these sections where about four thousand people are being provided with homes with every modern improvement and at very low rental. Finding that the death rate among the children of the poor was alarmingly great, the county council established a sterilized milk station and the death rate among the children has been very materially decreased.

Nottingham, England, was visited on the invitation of Mr. A. W. Black, until recently mayor. I became acquainted with him on the passage across the Atlantic, and found that he had interested himself in the work of extending the municipal control of public utilities. From him and the town clerk, Sir Samuel Johnson, I learned that the city had been furnishing water to its citizens for about thirty years and gas for a still longer time. The price of gas has been reduced from time to time until it is now about 50 cents per thousand for private citizens, and even at this low rate the gas plant pays into the city treasury a net profit of about $120,000 a year. It is only about five years since the city entered upon the work of furnishing electricity, but the profit from that source is now nearly $45,000 annually. The city has recently taken over the tramways, and notwithstanding that it has raised the wages of the employes, shortened their hours of labor, improved the service, extended the lines and reduced the fares, it has now derived about $90,000 profit from the earnings of the tramways. This has been the rule wherever private services have been undertaken by the municipalities. Nottingham has a population of about 250,000.

I have taken these cities as an illustration, they being the ones concerning which I have investigated most carefully.

Birmingham furnishes water and light to its people, and has just decided to take charge of the tramway service. It already owns the tracks, but has been allowing private corporations to run the cars. The people have decided to operate the lines in the future.

In Belfast I found that the city had decided to take charge of the tramway tracks, the only disputed question being whether the city would pledge itself to the permanent operation of the lines, or reserve the right to permit private corporations to use the tracks.