Public Ownership That Is Public Ownership

PUBLIC OWNERSHIP THAT IS PUBLIC OWNERSHIP

Apart from the special attractions of this year, Duessendorf is always an exhibition in itself.  It has been well described as "the garden city of the Rhine," and no town has carried municipal housekeeping to a greater extent or into more varied fields.  One gets about the maximum of government which it is possible to obtain in Duesseldorf, also the extreme amount of restrictive action and control which it seems possible even for Germans to live under.  To enter or leave the city the visitor must travel on the state railway, and is put down at a handsome station.  He will find that all the public service monopolies are managed by the city council, beginning with the water supply.  He will have the choice between gas or electricity for light, but in each case he will have to patronize the municipality.  He will ride on a splendidly equipped electric street railway, which serves not only the city but runs into the suburbs, and is owned and operated directly by the municipality.  He will have to go to the state for his telephones, and the post office will deliver his parcels as well as his letters.  He will find an up-to-date harbor and docks on the Rhine, and warehouses and elevators alongside with the latest electrically driven appliances-all in the possession of the municipal authorities.  All the markets are owned by the city, which also owns model municipal slaughter-houses.

There are several sets of municipal baths, including Turkish and Russian and a free bathing station on the Rhine.  There are no slums in the city, and not likely to be, as the city council has adopted a progressive housing policy.  It builds municipal dwellings; a rich citizen left it money to build what are known as foundation dwellings, let at low rentals, and money is lent on easy terms from the social insurance funds to help workmen build their own houses.  There is a municipal savings bank, ready to receive the savings of the thrifty; another municipal bank, in which are deposited the floating balances and profits of the public services, lends money on mortgages; and there is the poor man's bank in the municipal pawnshop, ready to advance money on personal property and goods at something like twelve per cent.  There are beautiful parks; a people's garden in the suburbs; a botanical garden; a zoological garden; and ten miles away, on the slopes of the Grafenberg hills, is a municipal forest-the furthest terminus of the street railway service.  A number of the parks contain municipal restaurants.  In the educational field the city has, of course, its art galleries, museums of natural history and antiquities, arts and crafts; also its municipal theatre where good companies play nine months of the year and give a Shakespeare season every year.

In the sphere of education of the municipality does everything-runs common schools, colleges, gynmasia, technical schools, libraries, etc.  There is a state system of insurance against old age and sickness, universal pensions for workmen, and a provincial fire insurance system i which the municipality take part.  When one is disabled or stricken with disease, there is a municipal hospital awaiting him; when he is old and impoverished, there is the municipal nursing home ready to receive him.  It is conceivable that, notwithstanding all these municipal benefits, he might die; but even in death he does not escape the omniscient municipality to patronize the municipal undertaker-the only one-and be buried in the municipal cemetery-there is no other.

The government of the city is in the hands of a benevolent oligarchy.  The voting lists exclude the poorest, as voters must pay taxes up to a certain amount, and no one under twenty-five can vote.  Voters are divided into three lists according to their wealth, the first section consisting of the wealthier members of the community, the next of the middle classes, shop-keepers, and professional men, and the third of the great mass of the working classes and the poorer people.  Each section elects one-third of the members of the city council, placing the power entirely in the hands of the members of the city council, placing the power entirely in the hands of the propertied classes.-Robert Donald in The Outlook.