3 MARCH 1894, Page 7

THE TRUE CITY OF LONDON.

WHEN we talk of the City of Liverpool, the City of Manchester, or the City of Glasgow, we mean what we say. That is, we mean the great concourse of human beings who live at the places named, their govern- ment and their historical associations and traditions,— in a word, a combined civic and geographic entity. When, however, we speak of the City of London, we mean nothing of the kind. Instead of meaning London, or the home of the Londoners, or the capital, or the metropolis, we mean six hundred and seventy-one acres of land in the middle of London, covered with great ware- houses and great public buildings, full of people to over- flowing in the daytime, but a desert at night. The words "the City of London" topographically import not even one of the greatest local areas of the capital, but one of the smallest ; while, politically and municipally considered, the City of London means not only a small portion of London, but a small portion of the persons interested in the six hundred and seventy-one acres that form the City. Curiously enough, the government of the City of London is not in the hands of the great merchants and bankers who do their business in the City. Instead, it is virtually in the hands of the smaller City men, the big tradesmen, not the merchant princes. Look at the list of the Lord Mayors of the last quarter-of-a- century, and you will not find the names of any of the City grandees, but only of men of the second or third rank in the mercantile class. It is, indeed, a recognised fact that the moment a family rises to the front position it severs all connection with the City of London. Hence the City of London is as narrow, morally and politically, as it is geographically, and hence the first thing that a foreigner learns when he comes to London is that the City of London does not mean London; but something very much less. Take this fact by itself, and no reasonable man will fail to regret it. Whether it is avoidable or unavoidable is another question ; but no one can help being sorry that the great civic traditions of London should no longer belong to London, but to six hundred and seventy-one acres of its surface, and that even within these six hundred and seventy-one acres they should have fallen, we do not say into unworthy hands, but into the hands of persons who cannot in any sense be said to be representative. Primit facie, it must be wrong that the City of London should mean a little un- reformed corporation, made up of the smaller men of business in a particular part of London, and not London itself. Any plan, then, by which the City of London can be satisfactorily restored to London as a whole, should command our sympathetic attention.

Such a plan, a plan for uniting the County Council and the City in one Municipal Corporation, or rather, for ex- tending the City so as to cover the whole of London; while at the same time absorbing the extra powers of the County Council, has just been submitted by the London County Council to Mr. Courtney's Commission,—the Royal Commission at present engaged in considering the pro- posals for the unification of London. The Council's plan is, in our opinion, one which has been on the whole well thought out. It is practical, it is moderate, it is adequate, and it is not marred by that vir of bumptious sophistry which the County Council too often uses as sauce for its schemes. It is indeed the best piece of work which the body that presides over the affairs of the Administrative County of London has yet managed to turn out. The details may, no doubt, here and there require reconsidera- tion, but as a whole it is a grand scheme. What is wanted is a plan which will preserve all that is stately, all that is dignified, all that strikes the imagination, and all that appeals to the local patriotism of the Londoner, in the London Corporation, while making it wide enough to cover the whole of London ; and this the plan does. We keep the Lord Mayor,—we even keep his Show; we keep the civic officers ; and we keep all the personal rights and. privileges of the Lord Mayor. The plan, that is, distinctly lays down that the Lord Mayor shall be the official repre- sentative of the people of London, and shall virtually possess "all the personal rights, offices, dignities, and privileges which now belong to the Lord Mayor of the present City of London by custom, charter, or law." He is to be a Justice of the Peace for the County of London during his year of office, and, if not disqualified, for one year after. His name is to be included among the Commis- sioners of Oyer and Terminer and Gaol Delivery for the district of the Central Criminal Court. Finally, he is, during his term of office, to be tie Lord-Lieutenant and custos rotulorum of the County of London. A note sets forth, with becoming solemnity, what are the personal privileges of the Lord Mayor. "He has the right to maces ; he is summoned to the Privy Council on the demise of the Crown ; he receives a golden tankard, and acts as chief butler, at a coronation banquet ; he is com- municated with by the Home Secretary on the occasion of births, deaths, and other important events in the Royal Family ; he is Coroner, Escheator, and Clerk of the Markets of the City of London, and Admiral of the Port 44 London ; he is chairman of the Thames Conservancy Board ; a trustee of the fabric of St. Paul's Cathedral ; bead of the Royal Hospitals, and a member of the governing bodies of a number of charitable institutions." The form which the constitution of London would assume, were the rights and powers of the City of London and of the County Council merged in a new Corporation com- pounded from them both, are set forth in the plan. Much of this constitution is, as it were, inevitable. The result of the amalgamation would naturally be to place the government of the City in the hands of the Lord Mayor and a Council elected on the present basis. This Council, which, it is proposed, should consist of one hundred and eighteen Councillors and nineteen Aldermen .chosen as now, would elect the Lord Mayor either from among themselves, or from among persons qualified to be .Councillors or Aldermen. At this point the Council's plan makes suggestions which clearly show that their notion is to convert the Lord Mayor into a ceremonial officer,—a 'kind of civic constitutional monarch. For example, "He *Arall be titular chairman of the Council, but he shall not be required to preside at the ordinary business meetings, nor shall it be necessary for him to take the chair when he is present." This means that the Deputy Mayor, who is to have "all the powers of the chairman of a County Council under the Local Government Act, 1888," is to be the real head of the Council, though there is to be a pretence that he is subordinate. This is delightfully characteristic. Englishmen seem to regard it as a law of nature that the man who rules must not wear the lace coat, and are never happy till they have divorced ceremonial and authority. We do not mean to condemn this arrange- ment off-hand. Possibly it is one which suits English- men best, and, at any rate, they always understand it. Still, we are not quite sure whether, in the case of a Mayor, the authority should not be both real and nominal. No doubt in the great provincial towns the Mayor is gradually becoming a constitutional monarch ; but we should like further light before committing ourselves absolutely to this part of the scheme. There is something to be said for the plan directly opposed to that of making a constitutional monarch of the Lord Mayor,—the plan of having him -elected, not by the Council, but by the people at large, that is, of making him an American President. This pro- crosal would have the advantage of giving him great authority, and of making it possible to place the power -,of veto in his hands. Here again, however, we should like snore light, and to see the matter thoroughly discussed in the light of American experience.' Taking everything into consideration, indeed, we should be by no means sur- prised to find that the balance of convenience lay with ..the system which has answered so well in Birmingham and Glasgow, the system under which the Mayor or Provost is chosen by the Council. Only in one particular do we think that the Council's lAan is badly conceived. We cannot help thinking that it 'would have been better to have proposed that the City .csolice should be amalgamated with the Metropolitan police, and not put under the new Corporation. We are lsy no means fanatically opposed to the London police being controlled as they are controlled in Liverpool, and are fully alive to certain advantages derivable from a municipal police even in the capita], but we cannot ignore the gravity of the question. But giving the *City police to the new Corporation can be regarded only as the thin end of the wedge. Hence, this part of the plan will be sure to be fastened on and opposed with the greatest hostility. The Council in the rest of their plan have remembered that the main thing is to ..g,A the amalgamation carried through, and to let all *steeping dogs lie. In the case of the police, they shculd not have forgotten the proverb. They should have avoided all excuse for the cry, They are trying to get hold of the police by a side-wind,"--a cry which is now not unlikely v..-o be raised against them. Taken as a whole, however, and considered on its broad lines, the Council's plan is a good one, and we congratulate them most heartily on so successful an emergence from the slough of municipal jacobinism, in which at one time they seemed deter- mined to wallow. Let us trust that they have really out- lived the notion that paying low salaries to experts, harassing and alarming the rich, flying political kites in the shape of Socialistic Bills on betterment and ground values, and bickering with the judicial officers whose salaries they pay, is the proper way of administering the affairs of the greatest city on the face of the globe.