The Nineteenth Century , No 182, Apr 1892 [‎93r] (190/244)

1892
LET LONDON
675
it. Without admitting and pointing out the dissimilarity of Paris
to London on physical, military, political, and other grounds, he
immediately assumes that because the debt of Paris is 32^. 5s. Sd.
•and its annual expenditure 61. 4s. per head respectively of the
population, that London with 9£. 3s. per head of debt (none re
munerative) and its 21. 7s. 9cZ. of annual expenditure (with no assets),
must quadruple the first and double the second, in imitation of Paris,
simply because the Council asks for wider powers and increased re
sponsibilities and larger revenues.
What are the facts ? The London County Council asks for powers
to reduce both its debt and the burdens of the people by equalising
the incidence of taxation, increasing its revenues and reducing its
rates by taxing the ground landlords and municipalising monopolies,
a policy which has achieved signal success in the opposite direction
from risk, burden, and bankruptcy for the ratepayers in every town
that has adopted it.
Mr. Prothero, with contemptuous scorn, then asks if ' the
London County Council is to expend upwards of 100,000,000^. in the
purchase of the different businesses, to employ 35,000 electors, and
to spend every year 3,000,000L in wages. Without experience or
aptitude for business, it is to embark in a colossal business speculation
in which every risk is to be borne by the ratepayers.' As to the ex
perience and aptitude of councillors, the electors, the best and only
judges, have decided in our favour, as against Mr. Prothero. It is
necessary, however, now that the question of risk has been raised by
Mr. Prothero and other Moderates, to deal with it, and to prove that
all their vaticinations are groundless.
London has no alternative between taking this much-exaggerated
risk and very imaginary burden of bankruptcy, and being exploited,
.as it is now, by the middleman. London must and will increase its
debt, not by the arbitrary and inflated sum of 100,000,000Z., but to
that amount necessary to give her the power of being released from
^ greater debt in the future, which must be incurred if this course is
mot pursued.
This debt contracted will be disproportionately diminished by
utilising the revenues from her monopolies, which are now in private
hands, to pay off the capital.
The people of London had to choose, and they wisely decided on
the 5th of March to release themselves and their successors from the
load of an ever-increasing financial burden, by affirming the principle
of capitalising the annual revenues from its monopolies, and the inte
rest now paid thereon being used as a Sinking Fund to abolish the
debt in thirty to forty years. If this is done, London's obligations to
private ownership will speedily diminish, and at the end of a few years
she will possess as assets for the debt incurred a greater and more
valuable .property than that now held by private companies, and