A British "Boom City."

Taranaki Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 11612, 21 November 1900, Page 1

A British "Boom City."

« OUR MOST PROSPEROUS METROPOLIS. In most districts in the North they are expecting a bad time this winter. Men are quietly preparing for what they believe will be a period of real depression. The coal pine owner pockets his 50 per cent, dividend with a sigh and a mournful declaration that this day next year he will be losing money. Cotton mill proprietors have stopped their orders for new goods, and are rarely running their factories more than a few days a week. The woollen manufacturers have their warehouses stocked with goods that they cannot dispose of, save at ruinous rates. Even the iron trade is trying to frighten itself with the bogey of American competition. In Lancashire and in Yorkshire almost every business man is to-day a pessimist. In Glasgow, on' the contrary, optimism is in the air. , Glasgow is in good spirits, and not without cause, for the commercial capital of Scotland has been going ahead recently in a way that beats all northern records. THE SORT OF BOOM IT IS. There is a boom in Glasgow, a boom founded not on feverish speculation, but on solid business. In the suburbs you see the lines of new houses being stretched out in all directions. In the heart of the city old buildings are being pulled down on a gigantic scale, and elaborate and costly modern premises put in their place. About twenty years ago Glasgow had a great land boom; In this city the rule runs that, whenever a purchase of real estate is concluded, payment is only made on the half-year day. For some time anyone could buy a block of real estate, and bo morally certain, if he used reasonable care, of selling again at a fair profit before pay-day came round. Jn one case a firm of lawyers bought a block of buildings for LIO,OOO. Within a week a client cameoffering to buy the block for L 13,500. Very shortly after he sold it in turn for LIB.OOO. , ' The boom of to-day is of quite a different kind. It is not speculative. Business firms are buying land in the heart of the city for trading purposes. The great insurance companies are erecting monster office blocks on every side. In the centre of Glasgow land has increased in value about fifty per cent, in ten years. One set of corner premises could be had ten years ago for L 22,000, which- was then a fair price. To-day the owtfers are asking and getting L 3 6,000. TIIC WORKING MAN'S PARADISE. Glasgow to-day is the working man's paradise, if good wages, plenty of work, and cheap living can make a paradise. The engineering works and ship-building yards right down the Clyde are straining every nerve to keep pace with the business that is forced on them. The naval activity of the Government, the demand for cruisers and transportships, the steady growth of the sea transit trade, have set the dockyards hungering for more men, extending their accommodation, bringing in new machinery, working overtime. "No matter what Government is elected," say the men of the Clyde, (l we x .are safe. Neither Radical nor Unionist dare to cripple, the navy, and while naval work continues we are all right." Doubtless the unskilled labourer, the man only worth from 18s to 25s a week, is not earning much more to-day in Glasgow than anywhere else. But when we come to the intelligent and trained mechanics a different, state of affairs is found. The bricklayers are getting their lid an hour, and are working their 56 hours a week. The stonemasons get only id an hour less. The quarrymen have forced their wages so high, and have so increased tho cost of stone, that men are muttering that they will kill the goose which lays the golden egg if they do not stop. WHERE WAGES ARE ONE POUND A DAY. In thti"printing trade he is a poor linotypist who in a union house is not earning £5 a week. Tho masters wisely cnoourage this. They may think the rate rather high, but while the rate of piecework remains what it is, they would rather have expert operators who earned their £1 a day than others who only gob 10s. You need only to rent one machine for the man making £1. You need two machines for the two men who only make £1 between them. In the steol and shipping trades, the skilled men are finding all the work they want at top rates. The Glasgow workman finds that high wages go with cheap living. Rents in this northern metropolis would be counted by the London labourer as exceedingly low. Most of the families ha.ye an exceedingly poor standard of household requirements. The rule in Glasgow is to live in blocks of dwellings, four families to each floor for one staircase. The usual home consists of top j rooms and a little scullery, and the Glasgow mechanic looks at you in cold Scottish surprise if you dare to suggest that his family require more accommodation than that. " I've known very good men brought up in a 'but and a ben.! " he says stolidly. " It was good enough for my father ; its good enough for me. Rents are high about here." By "high" he means about £18 a year, not including taxes. I suppose the fair average rent for the respectable Glasgow working man is £15 a year. To a Clerkenvsell mechanic, who pays 12s 6d a week for a few rooms in a noißy block, this will seem outrageously cheap. WHEN A MAN'S SINGLE. But it is when he is single that the ' Glasgow working man" need spend little on the necessaries of life. The corporation has devised enormous common lodging houses, at varying prices, but much cheaper than corresponding places in London. Private enterprise has followed tho municipal example. Tho man can for from 3£d to 6d a night obtain , accommodation of the most comfortable Kind. With a little cubicle to himself, j and with abundant common rooms, every- j thing he wants is at hand. There aro fires and cooking utensils for him, with attendants to clean up after he has done. ■ Ho can buy raw food at cost price and ( cook it himself ; or he can if ho prefers, i buy cookedjstuff at low rates. i If the Glasgow workman is left a widower, he can go into the Municipal Family Home, where each of his children will be cared for by trairied nurses, fed and tended while the father is earning living, for Is lOd a week. If the man dies, the wife can earn her living while finding food and shelter for herself and her children in the home at even lower rates. THE PLAGUE PANIC. The prosperity of Glasgow has been even strong enough to stand the rumours of the plague. These ridiculous plaguo stories have undoubtedly done harm. They have stopped much shipping, and have made Glasgow a name of dread in Europe. In Paris and in Berlin they swallow storios that Glasgow hospitals are full of men in dying agony, that folks drop dowu in the street gripped by death, i and that tho city is a place of mcurning, desolation, and woo. Really, nothing could be mora nonI sensical. In a few weeks Glasgow will doubtless live down the plague panic. \ There is going to be no dull winter for ' Glasgow if its people oan help, Next

spring comes their great international exhibition, which is going to draw the world there, to see the " best-governed city in the world." If one weie to believe the gentle hints of the people, Paris ! will be quite out of it when Glasgow steps in. — Daily Mail.