THE LONDON ELECTIONS.
THE Standard has uttered a wild shriek of delight over the prospects of what it grotesquely delights to term the Constitutional party in the metropolitan boroughs ;—and with some reason. Excepting Southwark, for which at present Mr. Locke's seat and Mr. Layard's are not contested, there is not a single London borough in which Conservatives have not appeared on the field,—Mr. W. H. Smith for Westminster ; Mr. Stanford (it is said) for Marylebone; Mr. O'Malley, Q.C., for Finsbury ; Mr. Coope (with considerable prospects of success) for the Tower Hamlets; Mr. Howard Morgan for Lambeth ; Dr. Russell and Mr. Freake for Chelsea; Capt. Story and Col. Thomp- son for Hackney; while for the City three Conservatives are en- tered, faintly hoping that one of them may by the help of the minority principle displace Mr. Lawrence. It is obvious enough why the Conservatives are so bold. In all these metropolitan iboroughs, the City and Westminster excepted, at the time the Conservatives first came forward,—and in all but the City, West- minster, and Lambeth still,—the Liberals arevehemently divided .amongst themselves, so that the Conservatives, not altogether 'guiltless, it is believed, of some of the Liberal divisions, have hoped for success on the old principle Divide et impera. But why are the Liberals thus divided ? Simply because London does not use its privilege as a capital to put forward true lead- ing men, or when it does use that privilege, shrinks back from the first act of moral and intellectual independence by which they prove their fitness. Of course we except the City, which has reallychosenfour representative men—three representatives of financial intelligence or power, and one of City interests. But take the case of Mr. Hughes, who retrieved the character of Lam- beth for returning rich nobodies, or rich somebodies whose repu- tation was not of a kind to be coveted, at the last election. One of the first proofs Mr. Hughes gave of his moral calibre was his ;denunciation of the growing dishonesty of the small traders of our great towns, as shown by the number of convictions for false weights and measures, a sin which had been shown to be but too common in Lambeth itself. Of course, his reward was a deadly hatred on the part of many of the class impugned,—a hatred which certainly endangered his elec- tion, especially as there were two other competitors for the second seat, and doubtless contributed largely to his flight to Frome. Thus London has lost a member of the highest calibre, and Lambeth is driven back on two Liberal aldermen, whose prestige cannot be of a character to put any special difficulties in the way of Mr. Morgan Howard's *Conservative canvas. If Mr. Hughes had been supported by a second candidate of his own calibre whose reputation would have kept men of another order out of the field, he need not have retired, in spite of his unpopularity amongst trades- men more sensitive to the criticism of others' consciences than to that of their own. But with two Liberal rivals, neither of them outshining the other, in the field, and the responsibility for a courageous and bitterly resented rebuke upon his shoulders, he apparently thought it prudent to fly. Perhaps it was ; but the fault is with London for not nomi- nating men considerable enough to prevent these multiplied Liberal candidatures, which threaten the success even of the few really strong candidates wherever, as in Mr. Hughes's case, they have given any handle to their enemies. Even Mr. Locke, Q.C., and Mr. Layard have been formidable enough to discourage opposition in Southwark. If Mr. Hughes had had one colleague, and only one, of his own calibre assigned him, his seat would have been safe.
Evidently the metropolis shows, out of the City, but little trace of anything like a metropolitan mind. No doubt Mr. J. S. Mill is, whatever opinion may be held of his philo- sophy, an adequate representative of the highest and clearest reason of the day ; Mr. McCullagh Torrens is a fair repre- sentative of its social reformers, Mr. Ayrton of its wide politi- cal information and acuteness, Captain Grosvenor indirectly of its rent-roll, Mr. Layard of its adventurous travel, Mr. Locke of its legal politicians. Let so much be granted, though only Mr. J. S. Mill can be deemed to be in the first rank. But what are we to say of the two Lambeth aldermen, of the Finsbury alderman and his rival, of the five Liberal competitors at Hackney, of the three who are competing with Mr. Ayrton for the Tower Hamlets, of the five Liberal competitors for Maryle- bone, of the three Liberal competitors at Chelsea? Here are no less than twenty names of metropolitan candidates, none of which are names that any man could call of metropolitan note,—many of them respectable names enough, many of them names of men who ought to have seats in the House as admir- able class-representatives, some of them names which may earn a future reputation, but not one of them names of the sort which London would seize on if she wished to set to the country the example of aiming high,—not one of them names of such mark as the Paris Liberals select for their members, not one of them names that raise a standard, like the names of Jules Fevre or Emile 011ivier. Mr. Newton, who is contesting the Tower Hamlets, and Mr. Odger, who is con- testing Chelsea, are both men who could serve a great cause well. Mr. Reed, at Hackney, leaves the impression of a con- siderable ability and a high tone of mind on those who know him ; the Common Serjeant at Marylebone is an admirably representative " Philistine ;" Dr. Sandwith might introduce some fresh ideas into the House ; Mr. C. W. Dilke is believed to be able in his way ; Mr. Butler is a good, steady, silent vote, the Lord Mayor elect is an energetic alderman of some repute in the City ; in fact, with few exceptions, the mass of the can- didates are highly respectable medocrities ; but as for expect- ing that London, if it selects from amongst them, will give in any sense the cue to the country, or stand fore- most among the great cities either in the character, or the expression, of its political aspirations, it is impossible to suppose so for a moment. At the last election there did appear to be some dawning hope of this. Mr. Mill, Mr. Hughes, Mr. McCullagh Torrens were all newly chosen, and all of them of the right class. But now one of them has vanished, and not one has appeared in his place. There is, indeed, at Hackney, a Mr. Homer, whose probable claim to the authorship of " the lost Iliad" was gravely canvassed by one literary elector ; but even if he had been what this gentle- man surmised, his metropolitan type of mind would not have been asserted in any place more modern than the Smyrna of near three thousand years ago ; and, as it is, the only metro- politan type he is supposed to be at all likely to represent, epically or otherwise, is that of the licensed victuallers. Lon- don has, apparently, either little wish or little power to send men of the order especially suitable to a metropolis to Parliament.
It seems to us a great loss every way to the character of our Parliaments that this is so. If London could exercise anything like the influence on England at large which Paris exercises over France at large, we should have not only far more select, but far more truly representative, Parliaments, since not only would London itself be far more powerful, but the provinces would have a standard before them by which to measure the qualities they desired to see in their own representatives. What London should aim at is at least one member for each borough as distinctly of that comprehensive and accomplished order of mind which only a great capital can mature, as Sir Roundell Palmer, or Mr. Goschen, or Mr. Coleridge, or Mr. Kinglake, or Mr. Stansfeld ; or, to take examples from candidates not yet elected to Parliament, Sir John Lubbock, the candidate for West Kent, or Mr. Fowler, the candidate for Cambridge, or Mr. W. C. Cartwright, the candidate for Oxfordshire. All these men, whom we have taken pretty much at random, have the stamp of a certain universality of feeling, a wide apprehensive- ness, a tone of thought and insight characteristic of a great centre where all the interests of the world meet together and leave their mark. Of course, it would be easy to give a simi- lar list of Conservatives distinguished by the same characteristic, but such a list would comprise not a single one, as far as we know, of the candidates who are offering themselves in the various boroughs, unless it may be Dr. Russell, at Chelsea. The only difficulty that is not caused by the apathy of these unwieldy boroughs themselves, is the difficulty of the local business, which is often so great that only a comparatively obscure man would be willing to undertake it. And this it is, perhaps, which so often drives away the more true represen- tatives of metropolitan intelligence and feeling from the metropolis, and makes them take refuge in small boroughs or counties. But nothing can be more hurtful to London itself than to be under a special and very serious disability in con- sequence of its greatness and of its nearness to the place where Parliament meets. The remedy would he for the constituencies themselves to do what has enabled West- minster to secure Mr. J. S. Mill, i.e., delegate all the local detail to a junior member, and select each of them at least one member for his general political ability and distinc- tion. The influence of London would be more-than doubled if the other boroughs of which it consists could match, or something like match, Mr. Goschen, Mr. J. S. Mill, and Mr. Ayrton ; if one of them could produce a jurist with as much grasp as Mr. Maine, for example, or Mr. FitzJames Stephen ; another an ex-administrator of as much mark as Mr. Herman Merivale or Mr. Scudamore, if either of these had left the Civil Service ; a third, a great retired ruler like Sir H. Mont- gomery, or ex-diplomatist like Sir James Hudson ; a fourth, an original reformer of the calibre of Sir Walter Crofton, the reformer of our convict system, or Mr. Mun- della, the reformer of the relations between capital and labour ; a fifth an architect, engineer, or builder, or all in one,—an in short, of whom we can think of no better example than Sir J. Thwaites ; and a sixth, some eminent student of Con- tinental politics and social arrangements, who could give us the fullest criticism of foreign systems of education and of government, of the calibre of Mr. J. M. Ludlow or Mr. Matthew Arnold. With at least one representative of each of the various metropolitan boroughs of this class, what power would not London exert for good on the whole electoral system of the country ? and combined, as they would often be, on questions where wide knowledge of life under very various aspects is alone needful to lead to a right conclusion, what power would they not have to inflence the opinion of Parliament ! With such a representation, the metropolis would really become the political as well as social centre of the nation, which at present it certainly is not. How can it be, while Mr. Harvey Lewis, and Mr. ex-Sheriff McArthur, and Mr. Morgan Howard, and Mr. Alderman Lusk, and Mr. Beales, and Mr. Freake, and Mr. Homer, and men of the same calibre, have as good chances of election for London boroughs as any men of the stamp we have pointed out, and are far more likely to offer them- selves ?
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