ments; and they are, within the next few weeks, to be lit by electricity. No details of revenue and expenditure are yet forthcoming, but from time to time the citizens are assured officially that the returns are "satisfactory."

The lighting of the city is in the hands of the Committee on Gas and Electric Lighting. It is twenty-five years since this supply was taken over from private companies, and it is one of the two undertakings on the success of which there is no difference of opinion. As regards gas, the candle-power is at present 21.3, thus sharing with Liverpool the honor of being the highest illuminating power in the kingdom. The price per one thousand cubic feet is 2s. 6d., including meters, being the fourth lowest price in the kingdom. The capitalization is 68. per one thousand feet; and this is, I think, the lowest on record. The policy of the trust is to make the price as low as possible consistent with quality. If there is a chance surplus in any year, it goes either to reduce price or improve supply. No part of it goes in aid of other rates. As regards electric lighting, this is yet in its infancy in Glasgow. Only a few streets and public buildings are supplied, but there is immediate prospect of its general extension. The deficit on last year's working was no more than £607, and will probably be wiped out by another year.

Everybody has heard of the Glasgow water supply. Providence was kind enough to place Loch Katrine, the "silver wave" known to all the world through the Lady of the Lake, within thirty-five miles of Glasgow; and the proprietors were kind enough to let us have free access and use of twelve feet of its surface for some £15,000, plus compensation for disturbance, the smallness of this sum showing that Highland landlords are not so rapacious as Highland innkeepers. The loch covers an area of three thousand acres, and is famous for the peculiar softness and purity of its water. Since 1855, when the parliamentary bill was obtained, over £3,000,000 has been expended on the water-works. The present daily supply is thirty-seven million gallons; but for some time extensions have been in process which will increase this to seventy millions without, it is said, increasing the rate. This is the second undertaking on the success of which there is no differ

ence of opinion. The price is 6d. per pound rental of occupiers, as compared with 14d. when the supply was in private hands, being the third lowest in the kingdom. This price, however, covers an unlimited supply to each house. There are no restrictions whatever as to number of taps, baths, or other conveniences. The rate for trade purposes, where the water passes through meters, is 4d. per one thousand gallons.

A fourth industry is the supply and supervision of public markets, controlled by the Markets and Slaughter Houses Trust. This gives the usual municipal provision to the traders in living horses and cattle, dead meat and fish. Investigations are now being made with a view to a great extension of this work on the more thorough lines of continental markets. In this case the rates and dues, of course, pay for the expenditure; and the economic working of this trust is not questioned.

The most interesting experiment of all, in modern circumstances, remains to be mentioned,- that of providing houses for the poor. It cannot, however, be explained without some reference to municipal history. In 1866 it had become evident that some drastic means must be taken to deal with certain slums in the heart of the city, of which Dr. Russell, the health officer, used the striking words, "It would be safer to fall asleep at the foot of a tree in Central Africa than at the foot of a lamp-post in the Bridgegate."

In that year a bill was obtained empowering a body, to be called the City Improvement Trust, to purchase compulsorily certain properties, to "enter upon, take, and use" certain streets and houses scheduled, and for this purpose to impose on occupiers a rate of 6d. per pound rental for five years, and threepence per pound for ten years thereafter. Although the rate-payers grumbled, the work of the trust was popular; and in the next twelve years most of the worst houses in the city were demolished, streets opened up, and over half the property acquired reformed and sold at good prices. But, with the disaster of the City of Glasgow Bank, deep depression fell upon the property market. The time limit of the trust was removed on an "honorable understanding" not to extend its existence longer than necessary. But still the position is that large areas of ground, cleared and ready for building, can find

no buyers; there is an annual deficit in the revenue, which is met by an assessment of one halfpenny; the assets come short of the liabilities by some £129,000; and the winding up of the trust is still far in the future. In these circumstances, and with the ostensible purpose of improving their financial position as well as providing for the tenants dispossessed, the trust has considered itself justified in attempting what was never contemplated in the scheme,- the building and management of house property on its own ground.

In the early stages this was looked on with indifference and even with complacency, as an interesting experiment; but, as time goes on and the trust is seen continuing and extending this work, the rate-payers have become restive and not a little critical. To one part of its operations, indeed, no objection is taken, the building and running of the seven Model Lodging Houses, which house very poor persons from 3d. to 4d. per night. The return on these is, on the average, 43 per cent., even when judged with all the strictness of a commercial valuation. In this case the "model" has been followed with the happiest results, in that a large private undertaking, providing similar lodgings, now competes actively and successfully with the trust.

But, as regards the building of ordinary tenement houses, in which as much as £100,000 will shortly be sunk, the objection is taken that the trust is building regardless of the needs of the tenants dispossessed, and regardless, too, of expense. The houses are certainly models of comfort, sound building, and sanitation; but they are not models in the suggested sense, - that is to say, the rents are much above the standard of the very poor, while they are not high enough to make the property pay, and encourage the private builder to follow the example. The returns on two properties, the rent of which is largely made up from the more remunerative property of basement shops, are £3 188. 10d. and £3 11s. 7d. per cent.; while the returns from a third, which alone consists of one-roomed houses, rented from 11s. 4d. to 13s. 4d. per month, is only £2 17s. 4d. per cent.

It is quite clear now that this disputed question of the right of the trust to go further on these lines must come up soon

for settlement, and that the Corporation will practically have to put the question to the citizens whether it has a mandate to house the poor and subsidize the undertaking from the rates or not. If the answer to this is in the affirmative, Glasgow, I imagine, will have made the furthest step towards municipal socialism yet taken by any city. But it is exceedingly doubtful if this mandate will be given.

In conclusion, it has been suggested to me, while writing this article, that the example of Glasgow has not much application to America, as no large city in the United States has a government that can be trusted with the management of municipal industries, the prior problem there being to purify local government. If this is so, there is assuredly a fundamental difference in the conditions of American and British cities. Corruption, in any grave sense, is a phenomenon which has not yet emerged in Glasgow. The title of Councillor, and the possibility of rising to the dignity of Bailie, and so spending one's forenoons in judging "drunks and disorderlies," certainly does tempt some men to enter the Town Council who would be more usefully employed in attending to their private businesses; but it is very seldom that even the suspicion of any more unworthy motive than this ambition is levelled at our city fathers. It is some slight satisfaction to think that there is at least one sphere in which the great democracy is not ahead of the olderfashioned world.

UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW.

WILLIAM SMART.

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC LEGISLATION OF THE

STATES IN 1894.

In the following States regular legislative sessions were held and concluded during the year: Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Virginia. The Territorial legislature of Utah was also in session, and the Colorado legislature was convened in an extraordinary session. The legislatures of Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina, met so late in the year that a review of their proceedings at this time is impossible. Wherever mention is made, in the course of this article, of Georgia or South Carolina, it will be understood that reference is made to the sessions of 1893 in those States.*

The Massachusetts "act regulating employment of labor” is worthy of attention, since it embodies nearly all the important legislation of that State directly concerned with the relations between employers and employed. Much of this has been discussed in preceding reports to this Journal, and a mere recapitulation of the main provisions is perhaps all that is required here. The employer who, by contract with his employees, requires the latter to forfeit a penalty for quitting his service without notice, is himself made liable to a like forfeiture in case he discharges the employee without notice. There are special provisions against intimidation and against the conditioning of employment on agreements not to join labor organizations. Time to vote at every State election must be allowed all employees, and any attempt to influence their votes is strictly prohibited. The employer is debarred from making any contract with his employee exempting himself from liabil ity for injury to such employee. The hours of labor in various callings are limited: for labor on State, municipal, or county public works the nine-hour day is established; the day's work

The writer of this report is under special obligations to Mr. Milton Reizenstein, of the Johns Hopkins University, and Mr. G. P. Wyckoff, of Iowa College, Grinnell, Iowa, for valued aid in the procuring and digesting of materials.