BERLIN.
31
Metropolitan and Suburban Railway, which is a State enterprise. The “ Great
Berlin ” Tramway Company issues four classes of tickets, each offering special
advantages :—(1) Tickets at §d. per week for one journey one way per day,
and at Is. for the double journey ; such tickets must be used before 7 a.in. and
after 5 p.m. (2) Return tickets at Is. available six times a week for an
uninterrupted journey on any line. A journey of 20 kilometres (about
12\ miles), occupying an hour, may be travelled twice a day for this price,
subject to the foregoing condition as to hours. (3) Monthly tickets available
at any time over one line only at a charge of 7 s. 6d. (4) The “ West Suburban”
system issues weekly half-price tickets at 7d., 9d., and Is. 2^d., available for
there-and-back journeys over one line without limitation as to hours. The
cheaper tickets are largely used by women who take their husbands’ dinners out
to the suburbs. Un the two systems nearly 2,000 workmen’s tickets are issued
weekly, half being 7d. tickets of class No. 4. Workmen’s weekly tickets are
also available on the Metropolitan and Suburban Railway, and 2,174,475 were
issued in 1903. The tickets, as a rule, cover 12 journeys per week (six each
way), and the cost is 3^., 7d., 11 d., and Is. 2^d., according to the distance.
For many years earnest efforts have been made by “ public utility ” and
similar building societies, not working for gain, to alleviate the housing
difficulty in Berlin. One of the most active of these societies is the " Savings
and Building Society,” which builds and lets houses of an improved type,
without selling them. At the same time fixity of tenure and also of rent is
guaranteed to a tenant so long as he meets his obligations. Only members
are accepted as tenants, and in order to be a member it is necessary to take at
least one share, of the value of £15, though as many as ten shares may be
taken at option. The members are admitted to a large share in the administration
of the Society’s affairs, and each block of dwellings constitutes a self-governing
colony. Up to the present the Society has erected seven blocks of houses
containing 725 dwellings, made up as follows':—
237 dwellings of one room and kitchen, with cellar and attic.
446 dwellings of two rooms and kitchen, with cellar and attic.
42 dwellings of three rooms and kitchen, with cellar and attic.
The rents range according to type of house and situation from £21 to £31 10s.
per annum for dwellings of three rooms and kitchen, £12 18s. to £27 for two
rooms and kitchen, and £10 10s. to £16 Is. for one room and kitchen. The
best of the dwellings, though also the dearest, are a new group forming the
Nord-Ufer colony. They are 185 in number, 98 consisting of two rooms and a
kitchen, and 72 of one room and kitchen, and they accommodate in the aggregate
nearly 800 persons. The Society not only pays its way, but after meeting
all liabilities is able each year to devote a considerable sum to purposes of
common benefit, such as libraries, kindergartens, lectures, concerts and festivals.
It is not claimed that the Society is able to supply dwellings that can compete
in cheapness with those of private owners, but its dwellings are marked
by a superiority of structure and arrangement, which suggests rather a middle
than a working class clientele. Its houses are primarily intended, indeed, to serve
as models, and to set a standard of excellence for private builders to imitate.
An important work in the same direction is also done by the Association
for the Improvement of Small Dwellings. It is the object of this society to
meet the case of persons of very limited income who are of necessity compelled
to inhabit small dwellings of one or at most two rooms and a kitchen. The
society has confined its operations to the east of the city, where the pressure
is always greatest, and in the "VVeisbachstrasse and neighbourhood it has built
a colony of dwellings of a plain yet substantial character. The site was
largely the gift of Herr Weisbach, while of the capital required the shareholders
subscribed £25,000 and the remaining and larger portion took the form of
mortgages' and a loan from the Berlin Central Insurance Board. The buildings
are of four stories, and they contain 410 dwellings of one and two rooms with
kitchen and small larder, though there is great variety in the size of the rooms.
The dwellings and their rents are grouped as follows 160 dwellings of one
room with kitchen, let at rents ranging from 20s. 6d. to 23s. 6d. per month ;
228 dwellings of two rooms (mostly one double-window and one single-window
