ABSTRACT
Readiness to engage in trading enterprises on a small scale was evidently characteristic of the old German towns. The large extent to which the towns have embarked in trading enterprises has swelled the army of communal workpeople to a force estimated at over 160,000. Many social reformers contend that a municipality should pay better wages than private employers, inasmuch as its trading enterprises are nearly all of a monopolist character and in any case are rarely subject to effectual competition. Municipal authorities there as elsewhere, however, are finding that the larger the profit made the greater become the demands of labour. The larger profits derived by German municipalities from trading undertakings can best be illustrated by the cases of the gas and electricity works and the tramways. The German idea that towns should be managed like business concerns has caused municipal authorities to devote great attention and expenditure to the development of their water communications.
