SMTTEFTF.T,D'S LA ST CHANCE.
Tli most powerful corporation in the world has been beaten by one of the weakest governments in the world. The Ministerial David has whirled a pebble into the forehead of the Goliah nui- sance in the metropolis of the earth : Smithfield, long condemned by national opinion, is now condemned by the vote of the na- tional Legislature ; and if no means be still available to abate the nuisance in the moral sense, it will be abated in the legal sense, by litter removal. What was the missile that penetrated with such fatal effect ?—" The general interest of the community in opposi- tion to the partial interests of the citizens of London": : Smithfield has been mortally wounded by public opinion ; and it is only an antidote of public opinion that can keep it alive. But why prolong its life ?—Because it is a public character that, we believe, the near prospect of death may yet reform and render useful in future.
In November last • we showed that the evil principle of Smith- field Market was its live cattle fair. It needs no professional in- sight to perceive that a cattle-fair of sheep as large as that which occurs at Ilsley, on the Berkshire Downs, once a year, cannot take place with comfort to the animals or convenience to their buyers and sellers, a hundred times a year in the midst of a busy popu- lation of nearly three millions of human beings and their assisting beasts of burden: and the nuisance would of course only be ag- vated by the presence of four or five thousand of saleable beasts in addition to the myriads of sheep. The other feature of Smithfield Market is its meat-bazaar. It is as easy in this case to ace that nowhere in the world could such facilities of orderly and • Spectator, November 10, page 1091: "Principles of the Smithfield Market Question,"
advantageous display and disposal of a mere commodity be made, as in a well-arranged meat-market in the centre of London.
Here was our solution of the question : banish the cattle-fair, and keep the meat-bazaar, reforming and improving the latter by all the means that modern lights enable and demand. We sug- gested that no beast should be sold in market or be slaughtered within ten miles of London. The practical consequence of this veto would be that the excellent live cattle market of Southall on the Western Railway, of Weybridge to the South, Barnet, &c. to the North—not to mention remoter but quite practicable dis- tricts—would, as great expanded ganglia, supply all the functions that are now performed with so much evil circumstance by the monster plexus of Smithfield.. Let the Corporation remember, that the business of the salesman of cattle is not legitimately metro- politan: it belongs more fairly to the provincial salesman or gra- zier. Let them also remember, that it is the revolt of this inte- rest that has, by combination with the Whig Government, wrought the overthrow of the powerful party of Metropolitan Members and their allies. Alderman Sidney knows,- and -has alluded to this important feature : let him remember that it is a natural course of things. Through the railways, the graziers are recovering their rights; it is in vain to struggle against them : let the Corporation be wise in time, and they may yet save the largest share of the enormous traffic for which Smithfield is valuable to the City. That share is legitimately their own : it is just that the metropolitan consumers of meat should supply the metropolitan class of traffickers in meat, and through them should gain the profits. There is yet hope : the Government bill is not yet arrived at the House of Lords ; the Lords have a reverence for vested rights. The Whigs have not yet passed their bill and got their commission ; the Whigs will give a great deal for a commission—they love a compromise : more- over, to this moment they have not bestowed a thought on a prac- tical plan : if they get their commission in peace, they will little care what it has to do : and if you give them a bird of the right sort, one that will lay good golden eggs, they will let the poor creature's pinions be plucked of all feathers likely to encourage too bold or sweeping a flight. Offer them all the three things they lack and love—a commission, a plan, and a compromise—and they cannot resist : thus may the Corporation preserve what otherwise must go with the rest.
Let the Corporation, then, choose better ground, and rightly apply the enormous reserves they can still array in the field. Let them give up the cattle-fair : send it to Southall and elsewhere ; or send it to two nearer centres closer North and South, whither the pecu- liar class of Smithfield bankers t could more easily migrate and re- settle : but at all events let them try to win by bowing to public opinion, rather than by defying it and foolishly attempting to stem it.
t A good deal has been founded on the nearness of Smithfield to the Bank of England and Lombard Street, as an important banking facility. It is not generally known that the enormous money transactions of Smithfielehhave called into existence a peculiar class of bankers, whose houses of business are in Smithfield area itself, who transact the whole business of the capital- ists and dealers using the market, and whose business is confined to that particular connexion. These banking-firms could as readily go to any-new centre or centres of operations as Messrs. Coutts or Drummond could migrate with their aristocratic customers to the farther West of Belgravia.
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