Notification of disease is generally compul sory under penalty. Medical practitioners, heads of families and relatives are all liable for neglect. In compulsory notification of pulmon ary tuberculosis (consumption) the state of South Australia has led the way, and the diffi culties and dangers feared by some medical men have been found to be mythical and non existent.
Budget Items and Flotation of Loans.— The chief sources of municipal revenue are income from rates, rents from real estate, mar ket dues, fines, penalties and license fees.
The rates levied in the city of Adelaide may be taken as typical of Australia and are as fol lows: General purposes, rate, one shilling in the pound; street lighting, rate, three pence; parks and gardens, rate, one halfpenny; rate for sinking funds (loans), one halfpenny; rate for police purposes, two pence; and a sanitary rate of three pence. To which must be added a water and sewerage rate of one shilling and six pence in the pound (levied by the state govern ment), making a total of three shillings and three pence to be paid by the citizens, which in comparison with the rates charged in London and most of the large populous cities of Great Britain is an exceedingly light impost.
The expenditure budgets of the cities con tain as principal items: Road and footway maintenance, upkeep of parks and gardens, baths, markets and kindred establishments, sal aries and wages. Day labor invariably obtains except on new construction work. The wage of the ordinary unskilled municipal laborer is on an average of 8/6 per day— in some cities slightly higher.
Loans are mostly raised by the sale of debenture •stock, redeemable at due dates, al: though in some instances the state government advances money and becomes the creditor of the local authority. In Sydney and Melbourne, bills are passed by the state Parliaments author izing those cities to float loans for street con struction work, establishment of electric light, erection of markets, etc. In Victoria, outside the capital, the limit of indebtedness for mu nicipalities is fixed at 10 times the amount of annual income; the establishment of a sinking fund is obligatory with an annual appropriation of not less than 2 per cent of the amount of the debt. A law similar in many respects ex ists in Western Australia. A referendum of any proposed loan may be demanded in Victoria and the consent of the state governor is re quired in Western Australia.
In New South Wales municipalities may borrow on debentures, with the sanction of the state governor, any sum not exceeding the total estimated amount of revenue for an ensuing five years.
In South Australia the consent of the rate payers is required preparatory to floating any loan, the maximum indebtedness of a munici pality is fixed, sinking funds are compulsory, and where the loan is to be applied to works of a non-revenue producing character, a rate must be struck to provide sinking fund and interest.
Statistics of the Metropolitan Cities.— In any survey of the progress of modern civiliza tion the concentration of population in cities is the most startling fact. It is a world-wide movement and is nowhere more strikingly ex emplified than in the cities of Australia. The progress of the chief cities has been remarkable and has no parallel among the cities of the old world. Even in the United States the rise of the great cities has been accompanied by a corresponding increase in the rural population, but in Australia (perhaps for the first time in history) is presented the spectacle of magnifi cent cities growing with marvelous rapidity and embracing within their limits one-third or more of the population of the states of which they are the seat of government.
The population and annual assessment value for rating purposes of the metropolitan areas are illustrated in the following table.
City Functions Controlled by the States. —The police, although supervising traffic and administering city bylaws and regulations, are controlled and paid by the state governments with the one exception of South Australia where the city and all other municipal corporations are compelled to contribute a moiety of the cost in each district. Education is invariably state con trolled although private schools exist. The care of the poor is attended to by the states side by side with religious and philanthropic institu tions. Prisons, asylums and hospitals are under the charge of the central governments, although the local authorities are compelled to pay for the accommodation in some states of indigent cases of infectious disease. The cities generally take no share in the management of public libraries, museums, technical schools and art galleries which exist in every capital. Tele graphs and telephones are entirely controlled by the Federal government. Tramways (street railways) are in the hands of the state govern ment in New South Wales and in the other capitals are owned and operated by private companies, under charters granted by the state Parliament. Provision is, however, made in some states, notably in Melbourne and Perth, for the metropolitan municipalities eventually taking them over. Gas works and supplies are mostly owned and operated by private com panies. Electric lighting is owned and operated municipally in Melbourne and Sydney. In Ade laide the private company's existing rights ex pired in 1908. Fire brigades are managed by boards, with municipal representation upon them. Water and sewerage are managed either by state government departments or quasi government boards.