It takes a bold administration in the face of all this to come out with
accounts that represent faithfully what expense the government
has incurred. Practically no such administration has appeared in
any city. It would be hardly fair to say that the failure is due always
to lack of courage: it may be quite as often due to indifference or
to ignorance of the real situation. When, a few years ago, people
began to agitate the question of public as compared with private
gas works, water works, telephone service, etc., they came to see that
statistics are essential; and then they came to see that the figures of
municipal cost accounts are nearly worthless.

What effect has the common practice upon the value of municipal
statistics? Let us take a few examples. We may desire to learn what
is the cost of conducting the public library and to compare it with
some figures for other cities. Perhaps the city owns its own lighting
plant and charges nothing to the library for lights. Perhaps the city
owns its own water supply and furnishes to the library water to run a
motor for its book elevators. Perhaps on duty at the library are
policemen, who serve as watchmen night and day, and their wages
are paid not from library funds, but from police funds. If the library
in the other city with which we are to compare this one has to pay
high lighting charges, water charges, and watchmen's wages, a com-
parison of costs between the two is to great extent worthless. It
would be impossible usually to learn whether in the other city these
costs are met from library funds or from funds of other depart-
ments. Obviously, the trouble does not stop here. Suppose we wish
to compare lighting costs for this city with lighting costs in another
where the library charges are paid independently. Our comparison
is thrown out of balance. The difference will be slight for one build-
ing, but if the same careless accounting prevails throughout the city
departments, in the City Hall, fire stations, police stations, etc., the
difference may be more than the whole difference in cost between
private management and public management. Similarly, the com-
parative cost of water and of police service in the two cities is by
so much thrown out.

The chances of misrepresentation in city affairs are far more
numerous and important than at first sight appear. If the water
department is careless, it may not charge the fire department for
the great consumption of water at fires, and both water cost and fire-

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