LONDON VESTRIES.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Srn,—There seems to be a strange consensus of opinion that parish vestries need strengthening with new power and in- fluence. I confess that, as a friend to London reforms for some years past, this attitude of mind on the part of reformers seems to me most inexplicable, and in the leaders of Liberal opinion a most startling change. The one conviction which seemed to have been deeply rooted in London reformers, was that the evils of London government had been due primarily to the smallness of the area for which the representatives had been chosen, and which had prevented men of high capacity and honourable ambition from caring to legislate for such petty interests.
Yet now, when a Conservative Government has offered to place local self-government on a wider basis, we are startled by an outcry from well-known Liberals that the vestries are being hardly treated, and that we need a revival and strengthening of local vestry government. I think that the reformers in question can hardly realise how much the petty and jarring interests of vestries have hindered the good government of London. I have the good fortune to live in a district which is represented by the best vestry in London; and yet it was not so long since that this vestry rejected a reform of sewage recommended by all the sanitary authorities ; and the only explanation which I have been able to obtain, is that the majority considered that either the Metropolitan Board or some other vestry had not done their part in the matter, and therefore the Hampstead Vestry would not do theirs.
The local narrowness naturally grows in pettiness, till a representative of one ward can actually boast to his approving constituents that he has voted against every measure on the vestry which could not be shown to benefit specially and hn- mediately his own ward. Surely we should hear some reason why reformers who have spent their life in attacking vestry government have now become its champions. Of course, the vestries of other towns or of country districts may be more enlightened than the Metropolitan vestries ; but probability at least is against that supposition.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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