The Opposition to Municipal Socialism in England
DURING recent years local authorities in England have been rapidly and widely extending their sphere of operations in various industrial undertakings. This enlargement of the business of town and borough beyond those purely governmnental functions which they have enjoyed for centuries, involving as it does active participation in industries formerly owned and managed altogether by private enterprise, has been called municipal socialismli. In cases where the avowed object of the promoters is to reap profits which may be devoted either to the improverment of the industry in which they are gained, or to the building up of some other, the term "imunicipal trading" is applied. Tahough there is considerable confusion of terms, it is this phase of m-iunicipal growth which has provoked the strongest opposition. The closing decade of the nineteenth century witnessed a phenomenal growth of this policy, both as regards the number of municipalities adopting it anid the assumption of novel undertakings by those already engaged in furthering public enterprise. Consequently animated discussions have arisen over the limnits of public and l)rivate enterprise. The question of what is a universal user, and whether only suclh industries as fall under that category ought to be publicly owned or controlled, have been commented on in many different ways, and with widely divergent results. Majority and mninority users have been debated upon in the same way. Profit making; the application of profits to different purposes, such as decreasing rates, supporting other inddustries, or general improvements in machinery or managemiient; the manufacture and sale of by-products; and the manufacture and sale of instruinents for using the ordinary products, for example, stoves and gas fixtures, are all unsettled questions confronting the governnment and the opponents and advocates of municipal socialism.