ANOTHER LESSON FROM NEW YORK.
AVERY curious and noteworthy argument in favour of the English method of governing municipalities comes to us this week from America. The Nation, perhaps the ablest, and certainly the most independent journal in the Union, has re- commenced its strictures on the City Government of New York, by an article in which it states distinctly that the over- throw of Tweed, the democratic ruler of the New York Muni- cipality, who was recently sent to prison for peculation, has produced no radical change in the administration of the City. Stealing has ended, but corruption has not. " Boss " Tweed, as he was called—" boss" is, we believe, American slang for ganger or overseer—has been deposed and punished, and is still in prison ; but another " Boss " has arisen, in one Kelly, and he was, till November 4th, nearly as absolute master of New York as ever Tweed was. He was defeated then by an accident, but, the Nation argues, in his defeat very little will have been accomplished towards good government. Another "Boss" will arise who may be just as dangerous, and not as free from personal peculations. The truth is, that a clear half of the voting electors—not of the body of electors, but of those who vote, that is, of 120,000 adult men—are influenced, or can be influenced by those who have the control of the City government. They are interested in contracts, or employment under contracts, or in public works, or in liquor licences, or in avoiding the full execution of the laws, or in supporting the publicans, to whom they are under obligations for credit, or loans, or obtaining work, or not unfrequently for political advice. These men care little or nothing about the fortunes of the City. They are indifferent to the taxes, which they either do not pay or fancy they do not not pay, and they are entirely incapable of controlling the excessively complex machine under which New York is locally administered. Their test of fitness for office is the " liberality " of the office- bearers—that is, the amount of benefit they can themselves obtain from employments, contracts, relaxations of law, and actual benefactions out of the City funds—and they always select one man who, by nominating colleagues and dictating " tickets " to be voted for, can secure for them the advantages they desire. They cannot understand even the functions of all the Boards and officers they have to elect, but they can understand that if they vote "Boss" Nemo's tickets, things will go the way they like, and accordingly they vote them. Nemo therefore rules, and whether he plunders for himself and friends, as "Boss" Tweed did, or only governs the City in the interests of its lowest class, as "Boss " Kelly is said to have done, is mainly a.question of his own discretion, temperament, and character. If he Iles to risk an uprising of the alarmed property- holders, such as uhseated Tweed, he can risk it, or if he prefers to keep power by pandering to the self-interests of a mob, anxious, first of all, about its daily dinner, he can do that instead. And, continues the Nation—not in a spirit of cynicism, but in a hope of reform under the present organisa- tion—the "Boss" always will retain this power. Kelly may follow Tweed, or Nemo supersede Kelly, but while the
reputable citizens cannot engage in city Affairs without neglecting their own business, and the Havenots distribute the taxes of the Haves, the needy section of the prole- tariat will always and can always elect a " Boss "— that is, a man who will control all local elections in their immediate pecuniary interest. It is useless to hope that they will accept other guides, or exchange the publicans for city missionaries, or Fifth-Avenue gentlemen • they know exactly what they want without guidance, and they will get it, let the Respectables advise them with over so much of righteousness or eloquence.
The picture is a dark one, but it has been so often placed before the eyes of Eng]ishmen, that if this were all, we should not trouble ourselves to reproduce it ; but the Nation proceeds to suggest remedies which deserve con- sideration. The best remedy, it says, would be to turn the "municipality into a business,"—that is, to trust City adminis- tration only to those who pay its taxes, or believe they pay them, and who would, therefore, administer in the interest of those who were similarly situated,—that is, would try to secure cheap and honest government. Of this remedy, however, the Nation despairs. "The plan is at present impracticable, and very likely always will be so." In other words, universal suffrage cannot be upset, and still less upset in favour of those who pay the tax on realised property, which in New York, as in most cities of the Union, is the sheet - anchor of municipal finance. But the Nation believes that there is a second remedy which is practicable, and that is, "the simplification of the governmental machinery to such an extent that it will not need professional manipula- tors, and that attention to its working will not interfere with that close attention to his private affairs which is each citizen's first duty. Such a simplification would render possible and easy the union of the industrious and intelligent classes against the mere proletariat, of which New York is becoming the favourite resort, and it would involve, of course, very great concentration of power and responsibility. Since Tweed's overthrow, some approach has been made to it, but very little. Virtually, the City government is, in its main features, what Tweed left it,—a mass of complexity, in which it is impossible to tell who is to blame for anything that goes wrong, the un- derstanding of which requires the study of a life-time and the management of which necessarily falls into the hands of one man, but without making him amenable in any way to the best public opinion." Now it is remarkable that under the much-abused Municipal system of Great Britain both these securities for good government exist, and one of them in so stringent a form, that philanthropists are always tempted to attack it, and that both parties in the State seem in- clined most seriously to modify its stringency. An English municipality of the complete kind is, outside London, always a "business corporation," always under the control of those who supply its funds. The ratepayers can and do seat the Councilors, and owing to our system of levying municipal taxa- tion on the basis of rental, the taxpayers and the ratepayers are nearly identical, so much so, that our difficulty is to make the municipal electors "liberal" enough, to restrain their determination to "keep down rates" within reasonable limits. They feel the municipal taxes, which are direct pay- ments of specie, and they hate them, and if they could once be convinced that any "Boss" Tweed was making a fortune out of rates they would make his life insupportable, even if they did not threaten it with direct violence. Some cities have estates, and those estates may be jobbed, and other cities are acquiring profitable monopolies, like gas and water, and we have yet to watch the administration of those funds, but the bulk of the municipal revenue still comes direct from the pockets of those who elect the men who are to distribute the money. If the Town Council of Birmingham waste a million, the ratepayers who elect that Council will have to pay an extra £40,000 a year, and will all in their degrees feel the burden. This system does not, of course, necessarily secure good government, the ratepayers when not animated by local pride, being often pen- urious, but it does prevent abuses like those of New York, and it is worth considering whether, considering the special temptation that seems to beset English-speaking democracies, the present tendency to relieve the rates by State grants, by pennies from the income-tax, and by gifts of valuable monopolies is altogether sound. We are not denying it, for the strain on the rates has become great, but still there is evidently another side to be thought out. We may find that if London gets a million or so from State taxes, the ratepayers may feel as if they were not spending their own money, as, for example, they do feel
about City extravagances. So also with respect to the distri- bution of power. The New York thinker calls, and wisely calls, for simplicity of organisation, and nothing can be so simple as a perfect English municipality. It is a con- stitutional zoophyte. All power over everything is entrusted to a Council, without a Second Chamber, without a President possessing a veto, and without an irremovable Audit Board ; votes are taken by mere majority, and every office-holder can be removed by vote after one year. It is democracy in its extreme form, and yet the exact end desired by the New York journalist is attained, for any citizen can rise to effective power in his city without abandoning his own business,—can, if he perceives an abuse, rouse the whole city to abolish it, and then sink back into his former quiescence. That power, while the Council is open and the ratepayers the electors, is fatal to robbery on any great scale, and is, perhaps, the strongest safeguard now in existence of municipal purity. The jobbers would have unhappy times, even if they could always secure election. It is for this reason, among many others, that we contend for concentrating muni- cipal authority in the Councils, and dislike to hear of separate School Boards, Dock Boards, or Boards of Works, and for this reason, that we hesitate, in spite of the success attained by the present scheme of administering London—a success which, in spite of many failures, is really unprecedented—to oppose schemes for the creation of a Metropolitan Parliament. It might be too strong. It might be too ambitious. It would be too much influenced by passing outcries. But still it would be a less complex form of administration, and therefore more under the influence of sound opinion. Our House of Representatives is still beyond corruption and beyond disobedience, but if its power decayed, we might very soon find London and its property virtually at the mercy of a "Ring" intent, first of all, on conciliating voters who regarded metropolitan pay as a pleasant alternative to poor-relief. Even as it is, there are men embedded, so to speak, in our Metropolitan system, who, if they did sell a contract, would be nearly beyond control except from the House of Commons. The citizens would never know clearly what they were at or how to attack them, and are secured mainly by their personal probity and honour.
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