Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/875

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 859

inaugurate a similar relationship between the municipality and the street-railway company, then the municipality of Rome should also receive 20 per cent, of the gross receipts.

It is frequently repeated that the fares are higher in Rome than in mny other Italian city ; that the number of cars is insufficient for the needs of the people, who are often kept waiting at the stopping-places, and not infrequently are left standing there ; and that the cars themselves are not properly cared for, and are not suited to the needs of the capital city.

Today the street-railway service, especially in large cities, is a public service, in the real sense of the term ; and since we should insist on excluding from this category those functions which frequently are mistakenly included, so we should likewise insist on the most careful oversight by the municipality in those cases in which, as in the present one, the character of a public service is plainly recog- nizable. The council ought to provide for the functioning of the tramway service in such way as to make it serve the needs of the citizens. For this result no con- trol would be too strict.

However, as we have already said, it is not at all necessary, in order to accomplish this purpose, to municipalize the service. Municipal ownership would not be certainly harmful, but it could permit the continuance of the inconveniences which we now suffer, unless the administration holds by the firm intention of attaining, at all costs, the public welfare.

Without municipalizing the service, a new form of control could be introduced ; such, for example, as the issue of tickets to the street-railway company by the municipality, as is done in Milan. We ought, also, to develop the suburbs, extend- ing the lines to the city limits (le barriere daziarie), and reducing the fares dur- ing the morning and evening hours for the accommodation of workingmen.

Conditions can be secured without upsetting present arrangements with the company. To maintain that municipal ownership is the only means of effecting an improvement is to interfere with a condition of affairs that can be bettered with the greatest facility. For there are contracts with the street-railway company which are to conserve the interests of the citizens, and it is the duty of the muni- cipal government to enforce them ; or, if there are no such contracts, it is the duty of the municipality to insist upon the company's making them.

Semi-municipalization, under such conditions as are found in Milan, would yield to the municipality the sum of 611,600 lire; whereas complete municipal ownership would yield 20,470 lire more. Without claiming absolute exactness in these figures, it is, nevertheless, evident that a municipalized tramway service would yield to the municipality a very slightly greater profit than would a semi- municipalized service patterned after that of Milan.

It seems evident from this discussion that, financially speaking, the advan- tages of an eventual municipalization granting that there are advantages are not great enough to make immediate municipal ownership an indispensable neces- sity. Before such action it is possible to try other expedients which; will, in the meantime, serve to show the exact earnipg power of the street railways and which, nevertheless, will not prevent subsequent municipalization at any time that it may appear advisable. Such an experiment as semi-municipalization [i. e., muni- cipal ownership, but not municipal operation, as in Milan], or else municipal regulation, as advocated in this paper, would not, by any means, be kicking in instructive value. Luigi Nina, " La municipalizzazione del servizio tramviario nella Capitale," Giornale degli Economist, September, 1905. H. W.

The Ethics of Corporal Punishment. For an exposure of the futility of " flogging " the reader is referred to Mr. Collinson's pamphlet Facts About Flogging. The theme of this article is the immorality of flogging as a means of punishing offenders.

What explains the intense dislike of this practice, which in some quarters if still lauded ? It is degrading to those who administer it and to those who receive it. It is the substance of personal tyranny. The ethical objection is that such punishment is supreme negation of free thinking the symbol of the slavery of