MANNHEIM. 
343 
case, companies and private persons build for gain the town sells the land outright 
but constructs the streets, stipulating that the dwellings shall not be altered in 
character and requiring sureties that the conditions of the subsidy shall be duly 
complied with. As yet this scheme cannot be said to have realised the hopes 
which were built upon it. Only one building society and several private 
persons have taken advantage of the town’s offer. The municipal authority has 
not been more successful in its efforts to call into being a society with ample 
resources for the purpose of undertaking building operations on a large scale on 
“ public utility ” lines. Meantime, the policy of the Mayor and Municipal 
Executive on the housing question is expressed in the following principle, 
which was laid down by them many years ago :— 
“ The town should gradually provide according to its financial power dwellings 
for its permanent workpeople and lower employees, and should act on the rule of not 
executing any large undertaking without at the same time providing for the erection 
of dwellings for all or a part of the servants and workpeople therein to be employed.” 
On two occasions the town has put this principle into practice. When in 
1896 the “ Public Utility ” Building Society already mentioned liquidated, the 
town bought its house property in the Kleinfeld district for £9,000, and after 
spending nearly £1,000 more on repairs it let the dwellings to municipal work 
people, so far as these wished to become tenants, and has done so ever since. 
There are now 58 dwellings of two or three rooms with kitchen, and the rent 
varies from 12s. to 28s. per month. The property is to a large extent of an 
inferior kind and unsuited to modern requirements, nor is it in high repute 
amongst house-seekers. In 1900 the municipality built four blocks of dwellings 
for its employees at the Public Abattoir. These dwellings consist likewise of 
two and three rooms with kitchen, corridor, and part of cellar and attic, with 
use of common wash-houses. Each block contains six dwellings, two on a 
floor, and the rents range from los. to 20s, per month for two-room tenements, 
and from 17s. to 25s. for three-room tenements. Many of these rents, however, 
are much below the market price and must in part be regarded as payment in 
kind. As an investment the project cannot be regarded as a financial success. 
The total cost of the property was £8,850 and the cost of upkeep is about £80 
a year, while the gross rentals yield £278, which represents a return upon 
capital of about 2J per cent. 
In 1895 a second building society, known as the Savings and Building 
Association, entered the field of housing reform, but its work has so far been 
restricted to the erection of five blocks of houses in different parts of the town, 
containing altogether 49 dwellings. Of these dwellings three now consist of one 
room and a kitchen, 26 of two rooms and a kitchen, and 20 of three rooms and a 
kitchen, with share of cellar and attic in most cases. The single room 
dwellings are let at 15s., 16s., and 19s. per month, the two room dwellings at 
from 18s. to 27s., and the three-room dwellings at from 23s. to 35s., with 
water rate and sewerage due extra. The dividend paid to the members of the 
Association is 3^ per cent. 
The fact that much of Mannheim’s industry and most of its large factories 
lie on the periphery of the town has necessitated the erection by employers of 
workmen’s dwellings on a large scale. The oldest of such dwellings are those 
of the Plate Glass Manufactory at Waldhof, a branch of a large French under 
taking which has been established at Mannheim since the middle of the 
19th century. The factory and its dependent colony of single and double-family 
houses constitute a distinct French settlement ; and the streets and terraces 
still bear French names. The housing arrangements are hardly in keeping 
with modern requirements, but the colonists live under the easiest possible 
conditions of tenure, and dwellings pass from father to son by natural 
succession. There are over 300 tenements, of two, three, and four rooms and 
kitchen, each with garden, stall, and cellar, and no direct rent is charged, 
though the rentable value is assessed by the State for purposes of taxation at 
£6 per house per annum and the market value is probably much greater. The 
paper-pulp and jute factories and several of the engineering works in the 
Waldhof district have also built houses for a portion of their workpeople, the 
rents, where charged, being considerably below those usual in the town for 
tenements of equaf size. Garden ground is generally attached to the dwellings 
or is available in the immediate neighbourhood. Several of these works also