MR CHAMBERLAIN AND LORD ROSEBERY.

Evening Star, Issue 11610, 21 June 1902, Page 2

MR CHAMBERLAIN AND LORD ROSEBERY.

HOW THEY WORKED ON TOWN

COUNCILS.

In Corporation street, when Mr Chamberlain became Mayor of .Birmingham, flourished slums unsurpassed for dirt and wretchedness anywhere in the. Midlands. Corporation street and the district around it, in Mr Chamberlain's words, wae at that time “ One of the worst districts in the town, both, socially and considered from a sanitary point of view. The streets themselves were badly paved; they were imperfectly lighted; they were only partially drained. The foot-walks were worse than tho streets. You had to proceed either in several inches of mud, or iu favored localities you might go upon cobble stones, on which it was a penance to walk.” Such, when Mr Chamberlain found it, was the famous thoroughfare all the world knows to-day, hardly less renowned than Regent street in London or Princes street in Edinburgh. Mr Chamberlain' was loading Birmingham along the path of social and municipal reform at such a rate that the builders bill was £50,000 for every week ha was mayor; and with such a spirit abroad it was easy to buy up the slums. There were drags on the wheels, of course. There were murmurings that Mr Chamberlain was fast becoming. “ Mayor and Town <|ouncil too,” and in some quarters Mr Chamberlain's municipalism aroused feelings akin to those which his Imperialism inspires in his enemies to-day. “You are known as tbo Mad Mayor of Birmingham.” wrote a ratepayer, “ and very appropriately too. You certainly can’t, have common sense. You are going on involving the town in expense just to please your own fancies and a lot of addle-headed town councillors that, like a flock of sheep, will agree to anything. The Englishman’s house used to be his caetlo; now it is tiled with fpies on the plea of sanitary inspection. It is a disgrace to them who call themselves rulers of this scandalous town.''

Such incidents were cojnmon in Birmingham's reforming days, but Mr Chamberlain went on in spite of them. The gasworks had been bought up, the waterworks had teen purchased, ami a magnificent sewage farm had been laid out for the ratepayers ; and the “ I.lad Mayor of Birmingham” did not stop. He persuaded the Corporation to sweep away the slums from the centre of the town. More than a million and a-haif of money was wanted, and ill ere seemed ut first some reluctance to spend it. But Mr Chamberlain had his own way of meeting this mood of the ratepayers. In asking the Corporation to buy up the gasworks he had offered to rent the works himself for £20,000 a year, and had promised to make a snug fortune in fourteen years of £200,000. The money oame in, and when, in urging the purchase of the alums, Mr Chamberlain ouered to advance £IO,OOO until the necessary Act could lie obtained Birmingham hesitated no longer. The slums went the way of all B.nningham's social evils,-' and to-day in their place stands Corporation street,. the most magnificent main street perhaps in the Midlands, and one of tho richest. In fifty, years, when the leasee fall in, Corporation street will revert to the Corporation, and Birmingham will be among the richest municipalities in the world. Wo may be sure that Mr Chamberlain, when the street

has received its final touches will be pleased to give it hi* htounsg. .Be has never ceftsed to be proud of his municipal achievements; he had ssen a new d*y rtie in his path, and no mao bad ever a finer monument of three years’ work than he. Mr Chamberlain has bad the opportunity of tostmg Lord Rosebery’s theory of we Happy Town CommOfar, who is usually according to the ex-Premier, a much more happy man than an M.P. a* far a« hia happiness depends on the contemplation of duty done. “Ho sees hia pnmp,” says Lord ROsebety of the Happy Town Councillor, “he sees the water flow j and he sees the monument of what he has done, and know he baa contributed to the health, welfare, and, possibly, the sanitation of bis neighbors. Bat at the end of the parliamentary session what has the ordinary member of the Boose of Commons got to look at th» can be compared with that?” Perhaps the Happy M.P. will answer. Lord Rosebery has known aouvethmg of both careers. He ha*.been Prime Minister and District Councillor, and we may accept hia remarks on the Happy Town Conmm* lor as meaning that the Urban District Council at Epsom has brought him mem happiness than the House of Lords and the Foreign Office. Though he waa " only a pupil ” on the Epsom Council, tho ez>rra» mier appears to have . drawn ooasidbrable enjoyment from the meetings, and to have thrown all his seal and energy into them. He wae all for F.flbgstxy...ewi of the last things he said at the Council wae that “it was a perfect scandal that a WI had been left unpaid for three years. ” In private life, the ex-Premier told the Council, such action would mean rain. Lord Rosebery baa come to like Epsom sad tha Epsom people more than ever atnoa ha came into direct touch with their affain at the Council table, and his buying up of a crockery dealer’s wares on a recent Satorday night, and his distribution ct them among the people, is an evidence of the pleasure he derives in being among hia country neighbors.—“ A.M.,’* in the ‘ St. James’s Gazette.’