THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1907. MUNICIPAL TRADING.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8528, 4 September 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1907. MUNICIPAL TRADING.

It does not at pi'esent seem likely that the United States National Civic Federations extensive investigation into municipal trading will prove of any real guidance to the American public. The second section of the report, which has just been published, is marked, like the first, by extreme diversity of opinion. In the first, Professor Commons and Mr Sullivan differed broadly as to the effects of municipal trading upon labour. In the second report, Mr Walton Clark, Vice-President of the United States Improvement Company, of Philadelphia, and Mr Charles L. Edgar, President of the Edison Electric and Illuminating Company, of Boston, are at equal variance with Professor Frank Parsons, and Mr Edward W. Bemis, superintendent of the Cleveland Municipal Waterworks, on the familiar issues of municipal management of public services. After investigating a number of gas, electric, and water plants in the United States under both private and municipal working, Mr Clark and Mr Edgar agree that "there is little about municipal trading to attract first-class men." They hold that neither the personnel of the Chicago administration during Mayor Dunne's regime nor that of Wheeling at the present date is superior to that of Atlanta or Norfolk, where the public services are in private hands. They also think that both in Great Britain and the United States, especially in the latter, investigation has shown that municipal trading, "once removed from the realms of philosophic discussion, and put to the actual test, has failed ingloriously." They further express fears that the increased numbers of city employees contingent upon the introduction of municipal ownerships would dangerously facili-

tate the formation of political "machines." Professor Parsons, on the contrary, is convinced that municipal trading would develop higherclass administrators. Both he and Mr Bemis assert that the failures of municipal trading are insignificant compared with the failures of private ownership. "Private ownership," says Professor Parsons, "is responsible for our periodical crises and the ruin of our industries." In more than one instance each side seems to have based its conclusions upon data provided by different experts. In the discussion, for instance, on -the Chicago municipal electric plant, Mr Clark and Mr Edgar ciL-e figures to show that it Inu produced a great loss, while Mr Bemis quotes others to prove the contrary. The Commissioners are unable to agree on any one issue.