On Friday, July 13th, the last of the Metropolitan clauses
of the Local Government Bill were agreed to, a very important amendment transferring the appointment of the Recorder, Common Serjeant, and Judge of the City of London Court from the Corporation to the Crown, pro- posed by Mr. Pickersgill, being accepted on behalf of the Government. The reform is in itself a very necessary and useful one, for the election of the- City Judges was often attended • with grave scandals. What, however, is more im- portant still is the fact that the leaders of the more extreme section of the Gladstonians stand committed against anything like the election of Judges. If the English democracy is early taught to see that voting, though the right and necessary mode of choosing representatives to rule, is by no means the right way of selecting executive officers, we shall avoid the risk of scandals like those which have disgraced New York. The antiquarian, however, may well be allowed a regret for the disappearance of the best surviving example of local autonomy allowed by the jealous legal centralisation of the mediaeval Monarchy. The only other important points settled on Friday night were the special treatment accorded to the Staffordshire Potteries, the division of Sussex and Cambridge each into two administrative counties, and the striking out of all the clauses dealing with the temporarily abandoned District Councils.
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