22 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the city are far greater than they should be, but it is going to be 

 a difficult matter to make even an appreciable beginning in econ- 

 omy so long as the State Legislature is permitted to exercise prac- 

 tically unlimited power to regulate the financial affairs of the 

 municipality. Persons and corporations, be they honest or cor- 

 rupt, when they seek to obtain money from the city treasury for 

 any purpose, are going to proceed along the line of least resistance, 

 and the smooth and open way has long been the Legislature at 

 Albany. Every session of that body adds something to the ex- 

 penses of the city, and it is a short and dull one that does not add 

 many thousands of dollars to the burden of the New York tax- 

 payers. 



The revenues of the municipality are so small in comparison 

 with what they should be that it is a difficult matter to find any 

 excuse for the theory of government that existed in the days when 

 perpetual franchises were given away. It is small consolation that 

 the policy of municipal ownership is at last to prevail after so much 

 of the public property has passed into the possession of private cor- 

 porations. If all the outstanding franchises that were the property 

 of the people had been sold on short terms for percentages even 

 as large as have been fixed in recent cases, the city to-day would 

 drive from that source an annual revenue of more than $5,000,000, 

 instead of the paltry $300,000 now collected. 



The mistakes of the past, however, are beyond undoing, and 

 the taxpayers must look to the future for relief from the burdens 

 they bear. They are paying now $15,000,000 a year for the senti- 

 ment that demanded a city great in all save honesty and political 

 wisdom. Consolidation in fact as well as sentiment must result 

 to prove the material advantage of the arrangement. Public opin- 

 ion and politicians must realize sooner or later that income and 

 expenses are to be adjusted the one to the other upon sound and 

 enduring principles of business, honesty, and intelligence. There 

 must be a union of public and political interests. Every section of 

 the great city must be brought into close touch with every other 

 section by cheap and rapid transit. 



The possibilities of the future are greater than the dreams of 

 to-day, but new policies and new methods must and will prevail. 

 The development of Greater New York must not be hampered by a 

 financial system antiquated and imperfect. The city should have 

 power to develop its material resources into revenue-yielding im- 

 provements, and then, with honest and intelligent government, 

 the burden of taxation will be reduced to a minimum, and the 

 ideal of the grandest municipality in the world will have been 

 achieved. 



