13 APRIL 1889, Page 3

The London County Council has talked a great deal this

week, having, indeed, held an extra meeting to get rid of its overplus of words, many of which were expended on the grand question whether it should contract for the right to sell re- freshments in Battersea Park, or should be its own Spiers and Pond. It was necessary to apply the closure, and even then the Council only referred the question back to the Committee by a majority of one. The great debate, however, was on the control of the Police ; and the Council, by a majority of 64 to 31, agreed on Thursday to a resolution, proposed by Sir T. Farrer, that the present state of things is " anomalous, unjust, and unworthy of the finest city of the Empire; that the Council cannot, there- fore, doubt that Parliament will take an early opportunity of supplementing its scheme of municipal government for London by transferring the management of the civic police to the Council." Fortunately, the decision of this question requires a statute, and therefore rests with Parliament, which has also power, if the Council becomes too much of a debating club, to supersede it by a Board of Commissioners. Congress had to do that in Washington.