Cities feared that they would lose control of their streets; so a law was passed, though not until 1871, laying down the principles of municipal ownership, with short franchises-an undesirable condition, as time showed. The cities could build the roads and grant franchises to companies for twenty-one years, or could leave the companies the right to build, with or without conditions. In either case, the tenure of the private corporations expired automatically after the lapse of twenty-one years from the opening of the track. At that time the House of Commons foresaw the possibility of municipal operation, but was fearful of the result, and passed a Standing Order to prevent it. The city which owned the roads was under no obligation to buy the operating company's rolling stock, depots, etc., but the city which did not begin with municipal ownership was called upon to buy the company's undertaking at its "then value;" that is, after twenty-one years' use, making allowance for depreciation but none for compensation in respect of good will and future profits. Both methods undoubtedly retarded progress. When the franchise period was drawing to a close, there was no desire for improvement, no attempt to introduce electric traction; roads were not extended; rolling stock was allowed to become dilapidated as well as obsolete.

The legislative barrier to prevent municipal operation was not disposed of until 1896. Several towns, notably Huddersfield and Plymouth, had before that date operated lines only on sufferance, because no company had made a reasonable offer. Glasgow discovered that, in taking over the powers which established the company, it had also taken the right to work the tramways, so that it was outside the scope of the Parliamentary prohibition.

It had given a company the franchise for twenty-three years-two years beyond the minimum period-on the following conditions:

1. The company paid all promoting expenses and interest on the money which the city borrowed in making the roads.

2. It paid into a redemption fund three per cent. on the capital expenditure.

3. It paid four per cent. on the cost of construction to form a fund for renewals carried out by itself under supervision of the municipality.

4. It paid $750 per mile for the use of the streets.

These were stringent conditions, but they did not prevent the tramway company from paying fair dividends, and they enabled the city to pay back the whole of the capital expenditure when the franchise expired, and to receive in the form of mileage dues $378,120.

The franchise expired in June, 1894. The situation was similar to the position in Chicago. War was declared between the company interests and the municipality. Municipal elections were fought on the future of the tramways. A spontaneous outburst of civic enthusiasm led to a citizens' victory; municipal ownership was adopted. Defeated in the election field, the company interests then declined to sell their worn-out cars, their old horses, and their depots at a reasonable price. The city's reply was to build new depots, buy new cars, engage and train a new staff. Without the use of the track it could not adopt electricity, but had to begin with horse traction. There was a dramatic change. At midnight the company's cars disappeared from the streets; a few hours later the municipal cars were running. The success was immediate and has been permanent.

It will be interesting to state the effect of municipal ownership, and to explain the policy which guided the City Council. The company-as all private enterprise must do-kept mainly in view immediate profits. Like most British companies, it pursued a narrow policy. The keynote of the municipal system was service, giving the best possible to the citizens. The municipality operated the roads in the interest of all. It greatly lowered the fares, banished all advertisements from the cars, made the names of the routes and destinations conspicuous, opened up new routes and linked up new districts. It also considered its employees. Without a contented staff there cannot be a perfect service. So the drivers and conductors were dressed in new uniforms, their wages were increased,

their hours reduced. The citizens had the feeling of personal possession when they patronized the cars, which display the city's arms and its motto "Let Glasgow Flourish." Civic patriotism asserted itself later on, when the displaced franchise-holders started a competing service of omnibuses, which failed to get support and soon disappeared.

The City Corporation had no sooner completed its horse-car service than it set about investigating electric traction. It sent deputations to America and to Continental Europe. To the disappointment of many, it adopted the overhead instead of the underground trolley."

In reconstructing its system, the City Corporation adopted the system carried out in other departments. It dispensed with contractors as much as possible. It built the new depots and the electricity generating station, laid down the extensions, and, after the first set of cars, built all others in the department's workshops. The Glasgow tramways extend beyond the city boundaries by agreement with suburban municipalities, and serve a population of a million. Since the tramways were municipalized, the roads have increased from sixty-four to one hundred and fifty miles. This extent of road is small in comparison with the Chicago street railways, or of the systems in less populous American cities. The area of Glasgow is small-12,688 acresfor a city of its population, 790,000. Many streets are too narrow for tramways. Suburban districts still maintain a lingering but dying prejudice against the democratic street-car. Glasgow is a busy center for a British city, but its bustle cannot be compared with the feverish activity of Chicago. There is far greater mobility among the people in American than in British cities.

There are interesting differences in the methods of operating the car service. There are no transfers in Glasgow, as in American and Continental cities. The city is divided into routes, and fares are regulated according to distance. The policy is to carry the greatest possible number of people at the lowest possible rate, and to make every route independent and self-supporting, except in the case of new roads which are being developed.

British people have not yet acquired the traveling habit to the same extent as Americans. A larger number of people want to travel a mile than to go five miles; but, unless the fares were low for short distances, British people would not take the cars.

The fares in Glasgow are one cent for a stage of a little over half a mile, and over 30 per cent. of the passengers travel this short distance, and bring in nearly 17 per cent. of the receipts. For an average of two and a third miles the fares are two cents, and close on 61 per cent. of the passengers travel this distance and contribute 66% per cent. of the receipts, so that 91 per cent. of the total number carried pay two-cent or onecent fares. Only 6.31 per cent. travel for three cents, bringing 10.38 per cent. of the receipts; 1.62 pay four cents, and bring 3.54 per cent. of the receipts. Less than one per cent. of the 189,000,000 passengers last year paid five cents or more. It is obvious that the long-distance passengers contribute an undue share of the profits, while in American cities the policy is to overcharge the short-distance traveler.

Glasgow tramways differ in other respects from the American cars. The conductor, instead of ringing up the fare, gives passengers tickets which they punch, and the discs punched out of the tickets are the means of checking the receipts. Then the cars are double-deckers. Leaving out of account overcrowding, which is not permitted in Glasgow, the doubledecker will carry nearly double the number of passengers of the ordinary American car. Stoppages are more frequent, however, and fares are more difficult to collect. There are regular stoppingplaces, about the width of a block apart, for taking up and setting down passengers.

The Glasgow tramways are managed by a Committee of the City Corporation, which holds frequent meetings and reports regularly to the City Council. It consists of twenty-eight members, who appoint sub-committees for supervising different departments. It obtains the sanction of the Council for its actions. The Council might be regarded as the legislative authority, and the Committee as the executive.

From a financial point of view the Glasgow undertaking has been remarkably successful. A cautious policy has been adopted. As I have pointed out, the original capital for constructing the roads was paid off when the municipality obtained possession. More capital was borrowed, on the credit of the city, to start the horse traction system, and the city has been continually borrowing to meet additional capital expenditure, until the capital now stands at over $12,000,000. The Council pays a little over three per cent. interest on the capital, which is borrowed for a period of thirty years. It has adopted the policy of practically renewing the permanent way out of revenue, depreciating heavily, and building up revenues in order to keep down capital expenditure. Unlike other British cities, Glasgow does not use its surplus profits for the relief of local taxation. It pays a mileage rate on the same basis as the old company did into what is known as the Common Good Fund of the City-a general fund which can be. applied to any purpose for increasing the amenities of the city and the welfare of the people. This mileage rate amounts to $125,000 a year. The result of pursuing this cautious policy as to capital expenditure, and carrying out repairs and renewals from revenue, was that, by the time the whole system was converted to electric traction, the whole capital incurred four or five years previously for equipping the horse system had been entirely extinguished.

Last year's accounts indicate the healthy financial condition of the tramways. The total receipts, for instance, amounted to £724,857 ($3,624,255), the operating expenses to £356,820 ($1,684,100)-49 per cent. of the rev

The net receipts showed a gross return on the capital outlay of 17.46 per cent. The interest and franchise charges to other municipalities amounted to £64,376 ($321,880). The payment into a sinking fund for redemption of capital at the rate of two per cent. was £45,553 ($227,765). There still remained the huge surplus of £258,102 ($1,290,510), which was allocated to depreciation and reserve fund, and the payment of $125,000 in mileage dues to the Common Good

Fund. The ordinary depreciation on equipment, power stations, cars, etc., amounted to $393,095. There was a special depreciation for cables, overhead wires, buildings, etc., of $310,000. There was carried to a general reserve fund $93,950, and to a permanent way renewal fund $300,135. This fund now stands at $965,025. The tramways undertaking makes the same contribution to local taxation as if it were under private enterprise. The amount which it paid in taxes in the last financial year was $174,580. The accounts of the department are examined and audited by independent professional accountants. The accounts are published with elaborate detail, showing the smallest item of expenditure worked out to percentages and comparisons with previous years.

The Tramway Department, as I have indicated, generates its Own electric power, the total cost of which is less than one cent per kilowatt, hour.

The Tramways Committee delegates considerable power to its general manager, who is responsible for the staff who form part of the permanent civil service in the city. Politics does not influence appointments, and promotion is by merit.

In conclusion, I would like to point out that the Glasgow tramways system has not by any means reached its highwater mark of efficiency. With its cautious financial policy, the Tramways Department could in a few years accumulate reserves which would enable it to introduce the underground trolley without adding greatly to its capital, and further swell its earning powers. With liberal depreciation and reserve funds to meet renewals and obsolescence, with a redemption fund which liquidates the original capital of the undertaking in thirty years, which is at the same time maintained in an efficient condition out of revenue, the City Corporation is more than doing its duty to the next generation. Lower fares for long distances should be easily possible in the near future, and there is a prospect that the average fare will come down to one cent. A universal one-cent fare irrespective of distance could then be adopted.

B

upon American

Such

ECAUSE democracy aims at so high a standard and is so essentially a spiritual principle, it has been charged against it that it "lays too great a strain on human nature." a complaint forms part of the credentials which all idealism is proud to carry, the Christian religion first and foremost. And democracy is the principle of Christian brotherhood applied to government, whether in a constitutional monarchy like that of England or in a republican system of rule like our own.

Probably no American would admit that our ideal of democracy is visionary or that we ought to strike some compromise that would be more in tune with the limitations and defects of average human nature; but, owing to the inert ness and apathy, from whatsoever cause, of at any rate a large minority of citizens, methods contradictory and subversive of democracy have been allowed to creep into our system of government and abide there unmolested. Machine politics and "bossism are usurping the field that should be controlled by forces of less selfish and more moral character, and the highest interests of the many are daily being sacrificed to the cupidity and lust for power of the few.

It is for the coming generation, the youth of to-day who are clothed with unprecedented privilege, to cure some of the excesses of liberty which mar our civilization. Let them stoop their shoulders to the burden in the prime of their young manhood and strike across the problems of the Nation the fire of their strength. The first lesson that a young man should learn in the principles of government is that National problems and public questions are his own personal concern and responsibility, and that he will have to answer for his conduct toward them as exactly as for his individual moral behavior. Such a lesson well learned issues in something more than

an occasional jeremiad from the sheltered cloisters of cultured ease, or the acid shriek of negative criticism. It burns itself into the flesh and blood, the nerves and muscle, until the flame of patriotism is kindled in the soul and a citizen worthy the name moves out into the Nation's need equipped to wrestle with its problems and overthrow its enemies. Of course this will mean selfsacrifice always, and oftentimes as complete and bold an adventure of faith as signalized the departure of Abraham from Ur, the enterprise of Cavour, the revolt of Washington. The spirit of adventure, with its bosom stored with those rich compensations which men who have surrendered to it for some worthy end know full well, seizes the life and swings it up to a new level of courage, to a sphere where the atmosphere is rare and the power of spiritual vision quick, to a realm of freedom where whatever gifts one possesses have their fullest exercise. American life has a faculty for adventure. Its main distraction is found in the amazing risks we run to secure wealth by a coup de main. This faculty stands in need of redemption by being shot into a new channel whose lining is unselfishness and a nation's good. We are the sons of adventurers, and our lives stand so close to our pioneer fathers that we feel their heated breath upon us as they conquer the forests and enslave the rivers. None of us is true to his heritage who is not taking some considerable risk for the common weal. Young life cannot reach normal development if it is not somewhere in the heat of a battle for others. It must be occupied on at least one common problem if it is to win its citizenship.

To-day the undeveloped or half-developed West is calling to the privileged youth to come to its aid. It is easy to succumb to the allurements of the older

civilization and choose bondage with ease under the shadow of settled conditions rather than strenuous liberty in unbeaten tracks. I am thinking now chiefly of those many young men of greater or lesser wealth upon whom first of all the demand of the Nation for a large measure of self-sacrifice falls. But how fine it is when a richly endowed nature, after scrutinizing the field, picks out as its sphere of service the center of some grave perplexity, the hardest spot, perhaps, on the ramparts! It is doubly fine, for it both administers succor where succor is needed, and weaves new stuff into American manhood.

In our protest against militarism we must not lose sight of a still graver peril-" Corinthianism," or the moral enervation and decadence that is born of the soft uses of prosperity. However bad militarism may be, history teaches us that the military nation may live and flourish in health and manners, but the end of the self-indulgent nation is inevitably corruption and death. I say this not to defend militarism, but to indicate wherein the greater danger lies to-day, and to make a plea for that hardihood which enables a man sometimes to flip his fingers in the face of a risk. Though I would add that if we deprecate war and its concomitants merely because it disturbs our ease and offends our æsthetic sense, we confess ourselves in need at least of the discipline and hardship of military life. A few days ago, in England, a lady spoke to me of an American book she had been reading which pictured school life. The hero was forbidden by his mother to play football. 66 "Why," said my friend, "if an English boy were forbidden by his mother to play football, he wouldn't own her!" It was strong language to use, but the point underlying the exaggeration was that true boyhood requires peril for its development. And no one's life is secure unless it is dropped daily between a hope and a fear, a possibility and a risk. Years ago, when I was a student, two of my comrades drowned while trying to sail a boat across a dangerous piece of water in a storm. The instinctive ejaculation from most lips was, "Foolhardiness !" until

were

one of our professors said, "Courageous! It is readiness to dare a hard thing that makes heroes," or words to that effect.

But, to return to our original thought, the young men of to-day, both for their own and the Nation's good, must be stirred to adventure. If they will but listen to the just claims of the country, they will find inspiration and opportunity. A lawyer in a dreary Western town will have a dull time of it merely as a lawyer; but if he embraces and adheres to the ideals of Lincoln, the briefless barrister, if he studies his townspeople through the glasses of sympathy, if he fastens himself on some one municipal or State problem, he may never ride in an automobile or dazzle the habitués of a New York social club, but his name will be worn in the hearts of his fellows, and the Nation will be the richer because he lived. A physician going to Porto Rico or the Philippines merely to make a fortune through the instrumentality of his profession would be a man to be avoided by natives and foreigners. But if he were to elect to go because of the depth of native need, the wide scope for research in unexplored diseases, the consciousness of the country's responsibility to the inhabitants of our island possessions, even though he were in the end to succumb to tropical conditions, his adventure would be nearer noble than

imprudent, a success rather than a failure.

In this attempt to emphasize a single phase of life I do not wish to seem to ignore other aspects at least as important, as, for example, the glory of abiding in the conditions into which a man has been born, the quelling of the spirit of adventure far afield because conscience requires it, the plunging into the old, time-worn, humdrum tasks of the older civilization with its painful and seemingly insoluble problems. Both in these latter as well as in our more recent and novel responsibilities, the demand the country is making upon young men is as great as when the bugle sounds reveillé in the early dawn to summon the army to order of the day. And I believe there will be a response worthy alike of our ideals and of our manhood.