KNOWLEDGE ct SCIENTIFIC NEWS. 



203 



problem of the extent to which the municipality was justified 

 in itself building and owning houses for certain of the poorer 

 classes. Professor Smart's address considered mainly tlic 

 building and owning of houses as a branch of municipal 

 activity, and examined the particular circiimstancos which 



Photo, bij T. it R. Annan, d- .Sun..] 



PROF. WILLIAM SMART. 



might suggest a revision or relaxation of existing principles. 

 Taking the question of principles first, he pointed out that for 

 a municipality to add a new competitive industry to its activi- 

 ties was a serious matter from three points of view. In the 

 first place, house-owning was a business of a special kind and 

 one in which success was not certain. In the second place 

 the municipalit\' entered into direct competition with its own 

 ratepayers, and that in a way quite distinct from the case in 

 which a municipality might provide all the water, gas, elec- 

 tricity, or tramway service which its citizens might demand. 

 In the third place, the municipality, by pledging the public 

 credit for a new debt, was probably preventing, immediately, 

 or in the future, the expansion of municipal activity in other 

 directions. These considerations were not decisive against 

 municipal housing, which in some respects was as necessary 

 for the protection and encouragement of the community as the 

 provision of gas or water. For example, a sanitary and com- 

 fortable house among quiet neighbours was a direct condition 

 of the efficiency of labour and was quite definitely one of the 

 factors of wage-earning. In other words, a good house, as 

 compared with lodging in a slum, brought with it the possi- 

 bility of paying for it. The point which especially suggested 

 municipal house-owning was that municipal control over 

 certain classes of houses was necessary in wage-earners' 

 interests. But while the attractiveness of a clean city, to 

 be by these means secured, was one thing, the attrac- 

 tiveness of low rents, which to the poor man's mind was 

 an equally large consideration, was quite another. Was a 

 municipality, in its desire to provide a clean city, to provide 

 also low rents at the expense of the general ratepayer ? Pro- 

 fessor Smart drew attention at this point to the two proposi- 

 tions usually made on this head : the first, that there was a 

 class which could not afford to pay the higher rent ; and the 

 second, that that was a valid reason for the municipality 



providing them with a lower one. With regard to some people 

 alleged to be unable to pay the higher rent, he ;igain urged 

 that the improvement in their surroundings would make them 

 better wage-earners; with regmd to other people, to whom 

 this view could not be held to apply, .1 municipality which 

 propped them up by giving them lodgings at less than the 

 market rate was supporting the employer in lowering the 

 mininuim wage, and was aiding in tlic undesirable object of 

 attracting more and more unskilled labour, and hopeless, 

 helpless people into tlie towns. These, then, were ihe general 

 arguments against nnmicipal building on a large se.ile, or, as 

 one might say, "on principle." There remained the s])cci;d 

 circumstances in which a Cnrpnralion like (Glasgow was 

 justified in building municipal dwelling-houses or lodgiri^-' 

 houses. The first case was that in which the Corpor;ition, in 

 order to benefit the city as a whole, was pulling down ins.ini- 

 tary or crowded areas, and dispossessing working pcojjle r>f 

 their homes; and the second case was that in which, in order 

 to fulfil modern hygienic rcquiremt nts, a kind of house was 

 being made necessary by municipal regulations, which could 

 not be let at the old and cheaper rents. The chief tiling that 

 ;i numicipality had now to do was to see that the old prob- 

 lems of insanitary and overcrowded houses, whicli its own 

 in.action had allowed to come into exisleiiee, should not 

 recin\ 



Section G.— Engineering. — Discovery and 

 Invention. 



Thk Hon. Chakles Parsons, D.Sc, F.R.S., fourtli son of 

 the third Earl of Rosse. Educated — PrivateTuilion, St. John's 

 College, Cambridge. Scholar, 187^. Eleventh Wr.ingler, 

 1876. Elected E.R.S., 189S. Rowed "in L.U.B.C ist Boat and 



hii liiliot d- Fri/.l 



THE HON. CHARLES PARSONS. 



won the College Pairs, 1876. Is proprietor of the engineering 

 works, C. A. Parsons and Co., and Managing Director of the 

 Parsons Marine Steam Turbine Company. He has developed 

 the steam turbine and made it suitable for the generation of 

 electricity and the propulsion of war and mercantile vessels. 



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