ier
to inaugurate, though perhaps more difficult to carry to a successful
conclusion.

But the first popularity of the municipal reform movement, both in Great
Britain and in other countries, has received at least a temporary
setback as the relations between this "municipal Socialism" and taxation
were recognized. Both the non-taxpaying working people and the small
taxpaying middle class saw that the profits of the new municipal
enterprises went to a considerable extent towards decreasing the
taxation of the well-to-do instead of conferring benefits on the
majority. This might appear strange, since under universal suffrage the
non-taxpaying and non-landowning majority would be expected to dominate.
But in Great Britain, as well as elsewhere, central governments, in the
firm control of taxpayers and landowners, exercise a strict control over
the municipalities, so that this kind of reform will prove advantageous
chiefly to the landlords, by enabling them to raise rents in proportion
to the benefits gained by tenants; and to the taxpaying minority, by
making it possible to use the profits of municipal undertakings for the
purpose of reducing taxes.

The tendency toward the extension of municipal enterprises to be noted
in all the important cities of the world, is hastened by the public
belief that there is no other possible means of preventing the
exploitation of all classes, and consequent widespread injury to trade,
building, and industry in general, by public service corporations. But
it must be observed that whatever municipalization there is will
continue to be under the control of the taxpayers, landowners, and
business men and largely in their interest as long as national
governments remain in capitalist hands.

The national social reform administrations that are coming into power in
so many countries are encouraging various forms of taxpayers' "municipal
Socialism." The ultraconservative governments of Germany, Austria, and
Belgium all permit the cities to engage even in the public feeding of
school children, while the reactionary national government of Hungary
has undertaken to provide for the housing of 25,000 working people at
Budapest. The conservative _London Daily Mail_ cries out that the
Hungarian minister, Dr. Wekerle has "stolen a march on the Socialists,"
but that it is the "right sort of Socialism," and that "it has been left
to the leader of the privileged Parliament [the Hungarian Parliament
repre