On reassembling after Easter, Parliament found that much of its
most interesting discussion was cut away by the conclusion of the peace, and further suspended by the suspense in the publica- tion of the treaty. We can have no effectual interpellations be- fore the illuminations ; so both Houses have turned themselves to questions of practical improvement. The Commons began with Sir George Grey's Bill for the reform of the City of London Cor- poration,—an poration —an entirely new scheme : it is simple and ingenious and seems likely to be carried. The measure may be described su- perficially as a compromise between the conservation and the en- tire abolition of the old Corporation. One course might have been to abolish the Lord Mayor, Aldermen; Common Council, and the whole aristocracy of the City, and to make the region within the walls only one of the Metropolitan districts. Another course might have been, to preserve the Mayoralty as it was, with much of its ancient machinery ; to substitute for its anti- quated courts, without any modern function, fresh duties that have been committed to the Board of Works ; to extend the Cor- poration to the whole of the Metropolis, and so to give a modern reality, a useful working, to the ancient form. The course taken is between those two, in the sense that. neither one is red* followed. London City is not merged in the rest of the Metro- politan districts, but is kept. as a distinct Ctsporatien. The number of its Aldermen and Common Councillors, however, is rea- dueed until it is about fifty per cent larger than the number of the same officers in the provincial boroughs. In like manner, the position of the Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors, is assi- milated to that of their provincial brethren ; only the Recorder is retained, with other officers and their old titles ; and the Corpo- ration continues until 1862 trustee for the expenditure of the coal-duties. But the street-duties, the exclusive right of trading for Liverymen, other privileges of the liveried Companies, and some of the City courts, are abolished. The Lord Mayor and Aldermen will no longer take their seats on the bench of the Central Criminal Court ; they become but the chiefs of a borough corporation, established as it were by accident in the midst of the Bri n'sh metropolis,—a new corporation on an old site, iso- lated, and more modern than the modern Board. of Works. It would seem from the introduction of this measure, that there is jealousy in the Houses of Parliament, and in the public depart- ments of Westminster, against establishing an incorporation for the whole Metropolis. There is a fear that it should become an Empire city—a municipal state whose Lord Mayor and Common Council might almost rival Sovereign and Parliament. The Cor- poration of this great city, therefore, has, taking all the new ar- rangements together, been divided between several bodies : the City Corporation retains the Mansionhouse and some of the old jurisdiction within a narrow circle ; the Board of Works has the lighting and paving jurisdiction ; the Police Commissioners have the police jurisdiction. So the Metropolis is still an aggregate of separate parts and isolated powers.
Mr. Headlam's Medical Reform Bill encounters formidable op- position. The qualification for the Council, it is said, is not high enough ; and the central assembly, which would represent the existing bodies and the profession at large, is suspected as likely to include men that would lower the standard of acquire- ment in the profession. Such is the main complaint advanced against it. Now, in the medical profession, of all others, it may be said that no separate section of it, nor the most distinguished individual professors, can possess that knowledge and that judg- ment which reside in the entire mass of the profession. The magnates study parts of a vast subject, but the whole body of English medical men knows as much as is to be known in medi- cine. It is a body composed of persons who are upon the whole very far above the average in understanding and acquirements. It happens that they are lively in their jealousies, and much ac- tuated by what we may call party feeling. They will necessarily be divided ; each party will strive to put forward the best can- didates that it can find ; and in the competition of parties, we are persuaded, the very highest of the members of the profession would be advanced and elected as its representatives. There is, however, a less distinctly avowed reason for the opposition. The profession at large wishes some such measure, and likes the scheme in its general characteristics ; but each section, with its central head in London, Edinburgh, or elsewhere, desires to retain its own special privileges, such as it wishes other sections of the profession to waive in order to obtain greater uniformity and freedom. All desire the scheme in general, but each part in turn wishes some part of it excluded ; so that the result would be the expunging of the parts by all the sections in turn. Now, a whole consists of its parts ; and Mr. Headlam is called upon to solve the problem, how he is to carry a bill consisting entirely of omitted clauses.
Colonel Wilson Patten's bill to place running gear in the same relation to compulsory fencing as the standing machinery of factories, appears to us to be a sensible emendation of the statute- book. We do not side with those who would leave the fencing of the machinery to the voluntary action of the millowners. Interference may be vexatious ; but we know that a petty par- simony will permit men to indulge in wicked negligence. The accidents which occui in factories are so shocking, that even if they happen seldom, they ought to be rendered impossible. Circumstances, however, ought to be considered in compelling a millowner to apply fences ; for no general rule can define the exact necessity or expediency of each case. Nor is there any distinction between the running gear and the standing machinery which should subject standing machinery to arbitration and running gear to inflexible rule. Mr. Wilson Patten would ren- der the running gear equally open to arbitration ; and in the refusal, by a large majority, to adjourn the second reading of his measure, the House of Commons affirmed the common sense of the proposition.
Mr. Roebuck has brought forward two complaints against the working of the existing County Courts Ad with reference to the salary of the Judges. He complains that the Executive is left
to detexarine whether the salary, of each Judge shall be 1200/. or 1n year ; and that, his brather-in-devr, Mr. Falconer, had bseir-deprived of the increased salary until a motion of Mr. Roe- bud' had been withdrann. from- the notice-paper of the House of Commons. A clear case of corruption—of coercing Judges through Parliamentary cooperation ! The personal charge, how- ever, failea. Mr. Roebuck's notice announced a motion upon the very subject; and there is much force in the reply of Minis- ters, that they hesitated to disclose their previous determination in favour of Mr. Falconer while Mr. Roebuck's motion hung over their heads. The arrangement which left the determink, don of salaries to the Executive is very bad. They found no proper test for determining the ratio, for the accidental amount of gross work performed is a very indifferent test, and all meddling of the Executive with such a mat- ter is most objectionable. A bill to correct the error is in progress through Parliament.. In the course of the debate, however, it came out that the new system of County Courts, first proposed by Lord Brougham more than twenty years ago, has had a complete, large, and still increasing success. The new Courts, with their cheap forms, accessibility, and prompt justice, are gradually taking away the civil business from the Judges of Assize. Handsome salaries for the Judges who fulfil duties so important and so constantly increasing are an essential ; and the Executive ought to be entirely exonerated from any responsibility in the payment of Judges' salaries.
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