On Friday, June 14th, Lord Rosebery, in opening the new
Clerkenwell Town Hall, declared that among the many castles in the air which he builds for that day when he shall be released from office—" a day which, if I may listen to prophecies daily uttered to me, is not altogether remote, but as to which I think the nearness is somewhat ever-estimated " —was the hope that some day he might, by East Finsbury or some other means, return to the Council. In dealing with the question of Unification, Lord Rosebery pointed out very truly that the Unification proposed was not a piece of crashing centralisation which should destroy the local spirit. " We desire to see London united, but not London a unit." The powers that are best not discharged through local bodies should, indeed, be discharged by a central body, but that central body should be " a tree under whose shadow local development may be free and fostered,—not a tree under whose shadow such development may be stunted or killed." That is sound sense, as was also Lord Rosebery's reference to the inevitableness of Unification. " It is not a matter of party clamour ; it is a great natural force."
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