The Nineteenth Century , No 182, Apr 1892 [‎95r] (194/244)

1892
LET LONDON
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inspiration, believe that wliat Glasgow and Birmingham have
achieved London can surely attempt and will speedily accomplish.
Let London live! must henceforth be London's motto; and live it
only can when its monopolies have been absorbed by its municipality
and ' its middlemen have ceased from troubling and the jobber is at
rest.'
Mr. Prothero, after inconsistently advocating the acquisition of
the London water supply, says there is ' no pressure of immediate
necessity' for acquiring the other monopolies. That is merely an
opinion, and as such, against the decisive vote in favour of acquisition,
is valueless.
The most elementary knowledge, and above all experience, of the
bad results of dual control and ownership in a large city makes it
an equally strong and more profitable plea for the Council owning
the gasworks, tramways (already settled), the docks, and markets,
and, after those, others. The probability of electric light taking the
place of gas has not depreciated gas shares ; on the contrary, the.
rivalry has improved both, and even if the Council after twenty years
ownership was left with the property on its hands, its original debt
capital would have been repaid, and the ground, works, and other
property of the Gas Committee could be adapted as electric-light
works or municipal coal depots; and if not for this, the rapidly in
creasing value of the land alone would be an equivalent asset repay
ing all trouble and expenditure.
The charge glibly made that the Progressives ' desire to starve
intellectual labour in order to enrich the labour of bone and muscle '
is another ridiculous cry invariably put forward by people who have
an exaggerated notion of their own genius and ability.
In every case where vacancies have occurred a fixed and handsome
sum has been offered, which officers have accepted with avidity. As
education becomes more general and public spirit increases, the dif
ference between the remuneration of brain and brawn will decrease,
the absurdly high salaries, in the majority of cases decided by
fictitious standards, and too often for meretricious qualifications, will
disappear.
The Council's salaries are now large enough to attract the best
men to our offices, and in several cases a larger salary offered than
the one previously given has only attracted the same men.
The mere effluxion of time, and occasionally the happy accident
of not retiring or dying at the proper time, are not sufficient for
making a glorified clerk into a Carnot of municipal organisation
whose rent of ability would simply have astounded a Watt, a
Stephenson, a Paxton, or a Faraday—and starving the subordinates,
who after all do their share of their work. If ever the people are
face to face with losing the services of some eminent genius, the em
bodiment of all the talents, and suffering an irreparable loss, they