Mr. James, Member for Gateshead, moved on Tuesday for an
inquiry into the condition and revenues of the Eighty-nine Compa. nies in the City of London. His case was that these Companies enjoyed revenues of unknown amount, with which they did very little except give extravagant dinners and keep up a few schools. Mr. Pease, who followed him, accentuated this charge by affirming that the Companies received £500,000 a year in London alone, and expended £47,000 only on education ; while their members occupied 212 out of 232 seats in the Common Council, which ought to control them. These Companies were "the only unreformed corporations in the kingdom." The motion was resisted by Mr. Isaac, Alderman Cotton, and others, in rather feeble speeches, and by Sir Hardinge Gifford, the Solicitor-General, in a very strong one, on which we have commented else- where. He maintained broadly the doctrine that Parliament had no business with the Companies, which had a right to waste their revenues, not being trust-revenues, like private individuals, and had even a right to divide their property among themselves. He considered the motion for inquiry "communistic," and defended the rights of property so violently as to delight the majority with his maiden speech, and raise in sensible men the impression that City Corporations with such pretensions ought to be controlled. at once by statute. Mr. James, who did not give. any hint as to. his idea of the proper destination of the Companies' funds, was- beaten by 168 to 72.
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