THE " CITY " AND LONDON.
WE wish our Unionist friends would keep their literary tempers a little better. The Times has plenty of good reasons for being savage with the Irish Revolutionary Party • but what is the use of writing about "Irish hoofs," and the like ? We are not trying to keep animals in the Union, but men, most of them perverse no doubt, and some of them bad, but men often with brilliant parts, and always with something in them when they take service which the Empire would not willingly forego. Nor do we see any gain in blinding ourselves as to the attitude of the Government. It is far too democratic—on points, we should say, dishonestly democratic, for we do not believe that the Whigs in the Cabinet think workmen will make good magistrates—and for its main object, we have nothing but abhorrence, but still it is trying to keep its promises to its own people with unexpected fidelity. The Registration Bill is a fair Bill enough under the conditions, though, of .eourse, it will admit an additional number of incompetent voters • but the Conservatives can educate them as well as the Radicals, and the dive to the bottom, though we object to it for other reasons, will not necessarily bring none but Radicals to the top. It has not, in fact, done so in any country. Then the Government has some courage. Its Welsh Suspensory Bill will rouse deadly hostility in the Church and in all who value Constitutional principle, and they are powerful bodies taken together; while Mr. Fowler's answer about the City on Tuesday will drive one of the most powerful corporations in the world, which has hitherto beaten every Ministry, into fierce antagonism to the Government. Mr. Fowler means, if he can, to transfer the City and its wealth to the County Council, and the City, we may rely on it, will not be transferred without a gallant struggle. So, though the Government are no doubt seeking popularity with the masses—as, indeed, they consider it their first business to do—they are, in order to keep their pledges, waking up powerful opponents. That is to their credit.
We regard Mr. Fowler's proposal as hopelessly bad in form, not because we expect the Commission of Five to be presided over by another Mr. Justice Mathew, but because, as Mr. Fowler explained, it is to devise a good plan of amalgamation between the City and the Council. It will not be a Commission of Inquiry at all, but a Commission in search of a plan, and it is the business of responsible Ministers to find plans for themselves. They may consult whom they like, but they have no right to shuffle off responsibility on to other and irresponsible shoulders. If Mr. Fowler desires the great change he proposes, let him bring in his scheme for effecting it, not set five other men, none of whom will be Ministers, to hunt for one with a candle. That is not statesmanship, but very nearly the "Government by blindman's-buff " which Carlyle used to denounce. It is a confession of incom- petence which no Ministry should make, and especially no Ministry which, in the view of its devotees, is going to con- struct for us new heavens and, a new earth. They should consult the astronomers and the geologists, not hand ova to them the making of the improved universe. We write without prejudice, for we have small admiration for the City, which has governed itself very well, but very waste- fully,—which has not cared as it should for the Metropolis of which it is the heart, and which has a function to per- form inside London that it cannot perform while it remains outside. We want to see the capital well governed by a representative, but continuous, strong, and highly dignified municipal body ; and it is impossible to attain that end while its wealthiest and most experienced section, the only one with ancient traditions and historic pride, keeps itself aloof from the work in haughty exclu- siveness. The County Council is what it is, that ie, a faddy and vainglorious, though efficient and, as yet, uncorrupt body, because it is without traditions, without habitual guides, without, in fact, big men of any kind, and, owing to its dangerous system of governing through Committees, without individual responsibility. Part of this evil is due, no doubt, to the shameful reluctance of eminent citizens to take part in municipal work, which they foolishly think " low-caste " work ; and this is in- curable, except by the growth of a healthier opinion ; but part might be removed by the inclusion of the great money-making centre, to whose opinion Parliament and the Government cannot refuse to attend. When the great banks and companies and traders feel that they themselves are affected by the blunders of the Council, they will exert themselves to control it in a way they do not now, if it be only by appeals from the Council to the Legislature, and by insisting that when great things are done, the citizens shall know what is going on. We rely, too, greatly on the influ- enee of antiquity and tradition which will come in with the City magnates. That Corporation has stood a thousand years, while the County Council is the rawest of bodies, hardly trained to debate, unaccustomed. to govern, and, except when it does something foolish, so entirely outside the attention. of its tax-payers that the newspapers say little e.bout it, and its personages are as utterly un- known to the four millions of their subjects as the faces of " variety" performers to the Episcopal Bench. Not one man in ten thousand could repeat six names from the County Council. That is a great misfortune for good repre- sentative government, anywhere, and especially in London, whose vast wealth tempts the obscure men who rule it to indulge in peculiarly grandiose ideas ; for example, that they can compel Parliament to adopt new principles of taxation by refusing to widen streets till they are adopted. The kind of men who govern the City are incapable of that sort of braggadocio ; and a considerable infusion of them will give a much required weight and seriousness to the Council's decisions. It is solidity which the Council requires, and solidity which it should gain from the amalgamation. If it should also put on dignity from the acquisition of a fresh representative character, from dwell- ing in historic buildings, and from spending a large income not derived from taxation, that would certainly be no loss. External dignity is highly valuable to any municipality, if only to preserve it from that abyss of vulgarity, or rather, commonness, to which, in modern times, all such bodies seem to tend ; probably, if we may judge by the few excep- tions in Italy and Belgium, from the want of elevating traditions. The City Deputies are not exactly Chesterfields, any more than the County Councillors ; but when the City acts as a Corporation, its action is seldom either undignified or unwise.
The chance of an accretion of dignity to the County Council will be greatly increased if the Lord Mayor is made its executive head, elected by direct vote of the people, for three years, and entrusted, as in America, with a veto upon the Council's proceedings. It is not probable that even a Radical Government will abolish the Lord Mayor—they will lose every London seat if they do—and the opportunity might easily be taken to render him much more useful than he is at present. The Council will not like it, because it believes overmuch in its "mission ;" but if the amalgamation is to be peaceably arranged, the Council must give as well as take, and the thing it can give up best is a little of the uncon- stitutional independence in which, owing to the unfortu- nate absence of any power of dissolution, it surpasses the Imperial Parliament itself. It needs a check operating from within upon the vagaries of its haphazard majorities, and there could be none so little injurious as a veto from its own executive chief, himself directly representing the whole population. We trust the Commission will see the prudence of aggrandising rather than vulgarising the Lord Mayor, and will make his position so powerful and so visible that the post will be sought by distinguished men, and London will be always worthily represented by her chief. The amalgamated body is sure to tax us all pretty sharply, say, in ten years, at the rate of ten shillings in the pound ; and we ought, at least, in return, to enjoy the con- sciousness of a dignified and effective municipal life, such a life as has been enjoyed for brief periods by most of the capitals of the Continent. We want London to be a living entity of the statelier and more impressive kind, fulfilling all duties, but also exacting and receiving all respect. The County Council is a most hardworking body, but no one has as yet thought of respecting it,
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