A great controversy has been raging this week as to
how the County Aldermen should be chosen,—from amongst the members popularly elected, or from outside. Our own view is very clear that the object should be to find upright men who can supply qualities which the Council greatly needs and in which the elected members are least strong, and therefore that they should be chosen generally from outside, but that all questions of politics should be ignored altogether. We see with- great satisfaction that this is also Lord Thring's view, as expressed at the first meeting of the Surrey County Council. Some of the advocates of choosing from outside have advocated that proposal on the utterly immoral ground that in that way the majority of the Council could best strengthen its own party predominance, while, if elected members were made Aldermen, new elections must take place, and then the opposite party might regain the seat. If party politics are to be pushed in this way to the worst extreme, we despair of local government in England.. It will yield nothing but strife and corruption. But we can see no reason at all for the ridiculous constitutional superstition that since co-opted members have not the sanction of the people, all the Aldermen should be chosen from the elected members, and the elections taken over again. That principle is as pedantic in its exalta- tion of the absolute infallibility of popular choice as the pro- posal to pack the Council with men of the party of the majority is impudently unprincipled.
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