done again. Results shown by such an imperfect system of accounting are offered to the public as a guide for its public policy. If the information is incorrect a policy that follows its guidance must be incorrect. One thing is certain: No private corporation can procure funds for the extension of its service without having a charge for the amount appear in its construction or expense accounts and as a debt to the source from which the money was obtained. Until the accounts of municipally owned and operated industries are kept by a uniform system and carefully audited by authority of the state the people will never know whether or not they are securing economic gains by making such ventures.

MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP A PROTEST.

The demand for municipal ownership and operation of public service industries derives much of its popularity from its acceptance as a protes: against real or feared acts of injustice, perpetrated by corporations. When honest, intelligent persons who advocate municipal ownership for this reason are shown that the evils of corporate ownership can be entirely overcome and all the advantages of municipal ownership can be secured by a proper system of public regulation, they readily drop the municipal ownership idea and become advocates for a scientific system of regulation. They recognize the fact that such a system of regulation is as essential to success

ful municipal ownership as it is to satisfactory corporate ownership.

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In New York City Controller Coler has illogically recommended established municipal ice plants overcome the evils created by an ice trust. In Boston the municipal ice plant has been abandoned, because the ice it produces costs the city about $60 per ton, while ice supplied by private contract costs only $3 to $4 per ton.

In New York, again, the Central Federated Union seeks to head off the raising of the price of gas, after a gas war, to the legal price established by the state Legislature, by petitioning the city authorities to establish a municipal gas plant. The union illogically assumes that the price at which gas was sold under pressure of a gas war is a price at which gas can be sold from a municipal plant, although the city of Philadelphia, when operating its own gas plant, never sold gas at less than $1.00 per 1,000. The price in New York, established by the state Legislature, is now $1.05 per 1,000.

In Baltimore an agitation has been started to establish a public lighting plant, as a protest against a supposed exorbitant price demanded by the lighting corporations, although no evidence has been produced by the lighting commission to show that a public lighting plant would be a good investment.

In dozens of places throughout the country this controversy is being blindly carried on by those who

speak for the public and those whose duty it is to safeguard the interests of corporations. If both parties. will join forces to secure a scientific system of regulation, municipal ownership will cease to be advocated as a protest against corporate extortion.

ANOTHER MUNICIPAL OWNERSHIP

THEORY DEMOLISHED.

Advocates of municipal ownership have found support for their cause on the theory that by such means the public would cease to pay the enormous salaries drawn by corporation managers, while workingmen would benefit by an increase in wages. Their representation has been that municipal ownership would decrease the cost of management and increase the cost of wages, and that, as a final result, there would be an economic saving.

The United States Department of Labor has made a careful investigation of this subject, the results of which are given to the public in its fourteenth annual report. A total of 952 private and municipal electric lighting plants were investigated. Separate figures for salaries and wages were not secured for all of these plants, as in many of the accounts salaries and wages were so mingled as to render this impossible. The report states that "for 576 private plants and 245 municipal plants the accounts were kept separately and accurate data were obtained."

These data are published in a series of 15 tables, in

which private and municipal plants are grouped according to the horsepower capacity of their engines. The report states that:

"It has been charged on the one hand that the cost of administration in private plants largely exceeds that in municipal plants, while on the other hand it has been stated that the wage cost in municipal plants is in excess of that in private plants." This statement is followed by a table which includes 576 private plants and 245 municipal plants, giving the average cost for salaries and wages of all the plants in each group. The results of this comparison are stated in the text, as follows:

"In the above table it is seen that so far as salaries are concerned the average cost in municipal plants is smaller in every group presented, in some cases being less than half the average cost in private plants. As regards wage cost, it is seen that in seven of the groups shown the average cost in municipal plants exceeds that in the private plants, while in eight of the groups this cost in private plants is greater than in those municipally owned and controlled." From this statement the inference is liable to be drawn that the aggregate of salaries and wages in the case of municipal plants is less than for private plants, and that, therefore, municipal operation is the more economical.

To test this point we have gone through these tables and selected every municipal plant for which salaries and wages are stated without any reference to an ex

planatory footnote. We have taken from each group the same number of private plants as there are municipal plants contained in the group, taking, in every instance, the first plants in the list. The tables constructed on this basis contain 244 municipal and 244 private plants. We find that 73 out of the 244, almost one-third of the municipal plants, report a total annual expense for salaries of $300 or less, 25 of the 73 reporting less than $100 per annum on this account. Notwithstanding this questionably low statement of the cost of salaries, the total paid for salaries and wages as shown for 244 municipal plants is $797,518, while the total for the 244 private plants is $782,484. The excess of municipal over private salaries and wages is $15,034. This demolishes the theory of an economic gain being effected by municipal ownership and operation on account of salaries and wages. This showing is simply on the face of the returns. If the inquiry is carried further to show the actual amount of service received for payments made, the efficiency of private management will be far ahead.

A MONOPOLIST'S TRICK.

Politicians are greedy to make money for their own pockets, and they are greedy to get votes, so they may have power and opportunity to make money. Every politician regards an increased expenditure a source of power, because it enables the party in power to give employment to those who suppose they pay no taxes.