Joseph Chamberlain is the
embodiment of 19th Century municipalism and his name is often cited as an example to modern
localists. As such he needs no introduction.
In November 1897, at the height of his political career, Chamberlain accepted
the freedom of the city of Glasgow and took the opportunity to set out some of his views on local government. His speech, as reported in the Glasgow
Herald, is provided below in full and underlines, if nothing else, that there
are few debates new in local government.
Perhaps his most interesting comments which have some resonance today reflect on staff pay.
No other commentary is necessary, except to say, by way of context, that
Chamberlain refers to the first elections for the Mayor and Council of the newly amalgamated five Boroughs of
New York City which had taken place the previous week, and which had been a
sweeping victory for the Democratic Party political machine and for the Tammany
Hall candidate for Mayor, Robert A Van Wyck. What followed was a national battle
between the political machine and reforming progressives, fighting for more democratic
values. As to who won that one, as Chou En Lai might have
said, it is too early to say.
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Joseph Chamberlain to the Corporation of the city of Glasgow, City Chambers, 8th November 1897
“My Lord Provost, ladies and gentlemen. I am extremely
grateful to you for the kindly terms in which you have proposed this
toast. It is very easy for me to
repeat once more my deep sense of the compliment that has been paid to me
today, and to thank you and all
concerned for the manner in which it has been carried out. But when you ask me to go further
and ask me to make two non-political speeches on the same day – (laughter)- I am sure I shall have your unfeigned
sympathy. Because, after all, if I
am anything I am a politician, and to ask a politician to speak and to say
nothing about politics is something like asking the Israelites to make bricks
without straw. (Laughter).
However, I am inclined to think that the objection to politics on the
part of the Glasgow Corporation is one that it is difficult to sustain.
(Applause). My learned colleagues of the university will tell you whether I am
right, but I think that it is Aristotle who defines politics to be everything
which concerns the happiness and good government of the City or State. If so I think that it will be very
difficult indeed for the Glasgow Corporation to prove that it is not an
intensely political body.
(Applause).
Sir, I do not think any of us need to be ashamed of being political
in that sense, at any rate, and I entirely sympathise with what has fallen from
the Lord Provost. I believe that
those who desire to do anything to make better and happier the lives of those
around them will find no better opportunity, no better channel through which to
secure this result than municipal and local government. It is through local institutions,- which
themselves, no doubt, have been created and sustained by Parliamentary
legislation- it is through the
operation of these municipal institutions that after all the greatest practical
advantage has accrued to the masses of the people.
Well, we are all well pleased with ourselves in regard to
our local institutions in Great Britain,
and I think we have some right to be conceited. But I ask myself sometimes
whether we are entitled to assume that the present state of things is
permanent, and whether there are any signs of deterioration, whether it is
possible that these institutions may yet be worked to our harm. I am sometimes
inclined to ask a question of that sort when we think of the result of a great
election, an election to a local institution on the other side of the
water. There in the metropolis, as
we may call it, at all events of the greatest city of the United States of
America, full of an educated, cultivated, patriotic people, we find, according
to American evidence, that the government of nearly two millions of people has
been handed over for three years to an institution whose object avowedly is to
get the greatest amount of the spoils.
That is a most terrible result,
and it is worth enquiring whether the possibility exists in regard to
our own institutions and what are the principles we must hold if we desire to
avoid such a result.
Now, I find that the explanations given do not seem to me
altogether satisfactory. It is
said that in New York there is a mixed population. It is quite true that New York, I believe, possesses a
larger German population than exists in any German city, except Berlin; a larger Irish population than exists
in any Irish city except Dublin; a
larger Italian and Scandinavian population than exists in all Scandinavian and
Italian cities except those of the very first importance. But that is not sufficient to account
for the state of things we are considering. Many of these strangers, to which the United States has
opened its arms with so much generosity, welcoming them to the franchise
perhaps a little before they were prepared for it, many of them are not at all likely to lend themselves to
anything of the nature of corrupt administration- the Germans especially. I could give one instance where they
make most admirable citizens.
With ourselves, in many of our larger towns, we have a mixed
population, and therefore there is
nothing sufficiently distinctive in regard to the rest to justify us in coming
to the conclusion that that is the cause of that great difficulty.
Then it is said that
politics are introduced into American corporate life. That is true, but it requires some
explanation. In the ordinary sense
of the word that would not in the least account for what we are
discussing, because politics do
not enter in the usual sense of the word into municipal elections in any of the
American cities. This last
election was conducted by what may be considered as an independent political
organisation existing outside the regular parties in the State. As you know, in many of our great
cities – Birmingham and Liverpool – their municipal elections are conducted
upon political issues. But I
believe that the whole source of the weakness lies in the state of things, in
the system of administration,
rather than with anything connected with outside political
considerations, and also in a
public opinion which tolerates that system of administration.
I believe that the success of our system
here and the failure of the American system is to be found in the different
ways in which we treat officials. Now, by officials I mean
everyone who is employed by a Corporation. There are, in the first place, the higher officials. When Corporations undertake such
business as is now conducted by the great municipalities of England and
Scotland, their higher officials,
men [sic] who are entrusted with the management of departments, with the control of great manufacturing
concerns, or with complicated systems of finance, they must be men of special
capacity, special ability, or else
there will be inefficient administration and great waste of public money. You must have, and you can afford to
have, the very best men in their respective capacities. (Hear, hear). But if
you have such men, three things are necessary. They must be irremovable, except for some gross and proved
offence; in the next place, they
must be selected originally for their merits, absolutely without regard to
their political opinions -(hear, hear) – and in the third place, they must be
paid the market price for their services.
Now, I myself believe that
as regards the two first of these conditions they would be universally agreed
to; but I have seen in some quarters – notably I recollect a speech made by Mr
Burns, the very able and estimable
Labour representative for the Battersea Division - I believe it was Mr Burns, but at any rate it was a Labour
representative- in which he said nobody was worth more than £500 a year. Well, if any idea of that kind ever
prevails in the administration of our great Corporations, I warn those who are
most interested in their success, and that is the working classes of the
country, that inevitably they will fail.
(Applause). It may perhaps
be a natural thing for the working man who is the employer to say that he
cannot understand why his servants get a higher rate of payment than he gets
himself. But he should remember
that he is not only an employer, but he is shareholder, and that if we wants a dividend he had
better take care that the manager is well paid.
There is another danger
which, I think, is even more serious than any want of consideration for the higher
officials and that is, if the higher officials may occasionally be paid less
than the market wages, there is a
great fear that the lower officials should be paid more than the market value. (Applause). Now, that is a real danger. There is an idea growing up in the minds of a certain
section of the working class of this country that when a man becomes a public
servant – a workman, that is to say, employed by a public Corporation – he is
to have better pay than his fellow-workman doing precisely the same work under
a private individual. I protest
against that doctrine. (Loud
applause). I say, speaking
with all my experience, it is
fatal to good municipal government, fatal to efficiency, fatal to the ultimate success of the
institution which we now regard with so much pride. What will be the result of the adoption of any such
proposal? I agree that a
Corporation, a public body, should behave at least as well as the most liberal
of private employers – (hear, hear) – but not one whit better; because if it does behave better, then
what it is doing is to create a privileged class of workmen – (hear, hear) – to
whom public office is in itself a distinct advantage, and in that case there
would be an inevitable temptation – a temptation to which all the American
municipalities have fallen a victim – to make these privileged posts the reward
of political service (Applause).
What happens then? In the first place, a man who gets a
post of this kind thinks that he has done all that ought to be expected of him,
and the last thing he expects to do then is to give fair value for the money he
receives. (Laughter). In the second place, when you have
privileged posts of this kind,
going at the will of a political party, there naturally arises a demand
for them, and as the number of political posts will never equal the
demand, the next thing is to put
two men in to do the work of one. (Loud laughter). Now, if you consider for a moment the effect of this
you will find, I firmly believe,
the whole secret of the failure of American local institutions, and you
will see that if we are ever so foolish
as to abandon the business-like and honourable system upon which our
public work is now conducted, we
may fall at last as low as our cousins unfortunately have done.
I said just now, and I wish
to emphasise the idea, that the working classes are the people who are most
interested in this business.
After all the worst that can happen to the richer class in a town is that
they have to pay a little more in the way of rates and taxes. Although that may be very objectionable
to them, still it is never likely to ruin them. What happens to the working man is that what he wants done
is not done – that his health, his life, his enjoyment, his education all
suffers, because the business that is being carried on, principally for his
benefit, is being neglected by the
persons whom he has placed over it.
I compared local institutions just now with co-operative
associations. That is the true
comparison. The Corporations are,
if you please, trustees or directors, but the shareholder are every ratepayer
in the city, and the dividends are what return is made to them in the shape
of those improvements and reforms
which conduce to their comfort and their happiness. If they want to have good dividends they must see that the
majority of votes is with them.
Then they should elect directors to control the administration. If they want to have good dividends,
let them see that they put the right men in the directorate, and that the
administration is thoroughly honest and thoroughly business-like.
(Applause).
My Lord Provost, if there is one thing more, if our local institutions are to
continue to be a subject of universal satisfaction, there should continue to be amongst all classes a spirit of
devotion and self-sacrifice which will lead them when they are called upon to
take their fair share in municipal duty.
I can remember well the
time when people despised municipal and local work. I myself have been accused of being a parochial
statesman. I accept the charge, if
it be a charge, as a compliment,
and I am really not certain as to whether I do not value it more highly than the other compliment which is now
frequently addressed to me of being an Imperial statesman. But to be both is possible, and both of them are worthy of
regard; and, after all, I am
sometimes very doubtful whether any man can be an Imperial statesman who has
not learned in the first place to take an interest in that which comes nearest
to him, and which some people consider as parochial. But, this low
view of duty and dignity in
municipal life has, I am happy to say, very largely disappeared. No intelligent person would, I
think, any longer sneer at parochial statesmen. I hope that feeling may continue, because if it should
ever be that those who are best qualified to serve should also be too idle or
too apathetic to serve, of course
it would be ill in their mouths to complain if the administration were to fall
into bad hands.
My Lord Provost, as your
youngest burgess, I ought to
apologise for having been so
presumptuous as to offer these suggestions on municipal government. But, although I am a young
burgess of the city of Glasgow, I am a much older freeman or burgess of some
other municipal cities. By the
way, I am disappointed to hear that
the freedom of Glasgow carries with it no privileges. I remember that in the old days
it certainly carried with it a Parliamentary vote, which I am bound to say I should be most happy to exercise
here in a close election and on the right side. (Hear, hear). I
am a burgess, I am proud to say,
of several other Scottish burghs.
I remember, among others,
that I share with Mr Gladstone the distinction of being a burgess of the
royal burgh of Dingwall. There I
have a very distinct privilege,
because by my parchment certificate, I am entitled to haunt the
precincts of the burgh. (A
laugh). I do not know if
that would be much use to me in the present life, but I might find it a most agreeable change hereafter when
my wraith is perceived in the precincts of the ancient burgh of Dingwall. (Renewed laughter.) Whether with these privileges or
without them, I am very proud of
being a burgess of Glasgow, and I am glad to say that I am prepared at any rate to take this opportunity of
proposing the health of the Corporation.
It is something to be a member of a Corporation which controls such an
enormous interest as that of the city of Glasgow. It is, as I said today, the Second City in the empire, and
for a long time past, not in this country alone, not in the United Kingdom
alone, but in foreign countries also,
I know that the Corporation of the city of Glasgow has a reputation which is only equalled by that of my
own city, Birmingham. (Hear, hear.)
But there is no doubt that this Corporation has, and deservedly has, a
reputation for energy and enterprise and successful administration, and shares
with all other Corporations of the country in the reputation for the personal integrity of its members. I hope that they may long continue to
hold that honourable position, and
I most heartily give you “The health of the Corporation”.” (Applause)
