Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/807

 PUBLIC OWNERSHIP VERSUS PUBLIC CONTROL 791

opened in 1898, and in the following year a complete change to the electric system was voted. The last horse-car was withdrawn from service in 1901.

There is a conflict of testimony also with regard to the finan- cial results of the Glasgow undertaking. It appears that in the twenty-three years of the lease to the private company nearly $1,700,000 had been expended on capital construction account, of which upward of $980,000 had been paid off by the tramway com- pany, which also had expended some $617,000 on renewal of permanent way, and contributed about $309,000 in clear cash profit to the city. Statements of percentages of profit made by the municipality since 1894 make a considerably better showing when the capital basis upon which they are computed includes (in addition, of course, to later expenditures) only the net debt upon the system at the time of the transfer, than when it includes, as it should, the total investment up to that time, of which almost two- thirds had been contributed free and clear by the operating company.

Another easy way of getting an erroneous impression of finan- cial results is to compare the average annual payments to the "Common Good," or net profit fund, during the whole twenty- three years of the lease with the annual payments into that fund since 1894. By this method it appears that only about $13,500 per year went to the city's profit account prior to municipal man- agement, while in the first year after the change, 1894-95, the amount so paid was $40,193; in the four succeeding years, $43,794 each; in the next three, $60,825; in 1902-3, $121,650; and Mr. John Young, the general manager of the system, informs the writer that " it has been decided that this sum shall be paid over to the Common Good annually in future."

But the $13,500 average for the twenty-three years before 1894 of course includes all the meager early years, from the time when the total capital investment of the system was less than $17,000. If, instead of stating the payments to the "Common Good " as an average for the whole period, the figures are given year by year, as is done for the period since the lease, it appears that the amounts increased steadily prior to 1894 as well as since,