People's Pilot, Volume 5, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1896 — Public Ownership in N. S. W. [ARTICLE]

Public Ownership in N. S. W.

Here government owns and operates the railroad, street railways, waterworks, docks, telegraphs, telephones, etc. There are 2577 miles of railroad in the colony, of which but thirty-four miles are owned by private parties. In 1894 there were 17,000, 000 passengers carried at 1 2-10 cents per mile. Total earnings in 1894, £3,813,841; total working expenses in 1894, £2,591,742; net earnings, £1,221,599, All government mail and freight- is carried free. All employes work eight hours per day. Engineers receive $3.50 and common laborers *1.90 per day. As a consequence, by defying theory of socialism the government saved 12,000,000 acres of valuable land and borrowed money to build the roads at 4 per cent, and to-day the land which the government would have had to give the corporations to build the roads, is worth more than the total cost of the system. New South Wales owes £230,000 000, but the utilities built bv this debt yield £2,500,000 annually more than the interest on the debt. —Report of U, S. Consul at Sidney.

In a recent issue of the Chicago Tribune is the following: “The Rev. R. A. White said in his sermon last Sunday that it is reported 10,000 more families in this city have applied for aid from public sources than for the corresponding period of last year, and in the Journal of last Saturday the secretary of the County agent’s office was quoted as saying ‘this is probably the worst year on record.’ The secretary added that the condition of things will be frightful when cold weather season sets in. He said: ‘At the present time we are sending each month about 300 persons to the poor farm, 100 to hospitals, and at least twenty - five to dispensaries.’ Every morning the office of the County agent is beset by a motley throng laden with baskets and bags, and police intervention is necessary to prevent the crowds from trampling many under foot in the effort to be first served. Big, rough men crowd against weak women and many of the unfortunates are almost starving. “The statements are astonish-

ing. There never was a year since Chicago became a great city that it did not contain a large rrumber of poor people, mostly and in this respg(?f Chicago is no exception to the rule with all our great cities. But it is hard to understand that conditions for the struggle for existence here are worse than those of a year ago. when all the people were in the trough of the depression caused by the double panic of 1893.”