THE MUNICIPALITY OF LONDON.
Belfast= 28th June 1868. Sin—It is not to be denied that the Thames needs purifying, and that the Metropolitan Board of Works wants efficiency ; and it appears equally evident to the public mind in general that the admission of these two facts amounts to a confession of the failure of municipal institutions in the Metropolis, and the consequent necessity for a despotic interference of the Central Govern- ment.
Now, this is coming to a conclusion much too hastily. When we see the failure of any scheme that appeared to promise well, it is merely the re- source of mental indolence to utter seine commonplace antithesis between theory and practice, and to accept the failure as final. The first question we ought to ask in such a case is, whether the scheme has met with a perfectly fair trial ; and I am decidedly of opinion that the supposed failure of mum. cipal institutions in the Metropolis is the result of their not having been. fairly tried. The municipal institutions of London were once among the most efficient in the world ; they are now a byword and a laughing-stock for inefficiency. The cause of the change lies on the surface. The municipality of London was formerly coextensive with the Metropolis ; the Metropolis has now far out- grown the municipality, and remains without any real municipal system ; for the various parish vestries and paving boards, the Commissioners of Sewers, the Metropolitan Board of Works, and the Government Board of Works, form a. chaos of concurrent and conflicting authorities, among which it is impossible' to get work done. The remedy is obvious, says the public opinion of the hour : supersede them all by the authority of the Central Government. The remedy is obvious, say constitutional theory and common sense : make the City. of London coextensive with the Metropolitan district ; give it a municipality with the same powers that other civic municipalities possess -, and maks provision for the transfer, with all convenient speed, to the Metropolitan municipality of all local powers and revenues within its district, except those affecting police and the poor. This plan would both preserve the traditions of the City of London, and
save the administration of a district containing two millions of people from being engulphed by centralization. I am no Londoner, but an Irishman by both birth and connexions : but I know enough of history and politics to value municipal institutions, and I know and love England well enough to hope that the most venerable muni- cipality_in the world may not be thrown into the lumber-room.
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