A USEFUL ATLAS.*
THERE are some compilations which take rank as original creations, and are even greater contributions to the stock of knowledge than an original creation. Such a book is the com- bination of map and gazetteer which Mr. Stanford has presented to us in his Parliamentary County Atlas. The title is so modest as almost to be a misleading misnomer. It is called a Parliamentary County Atlas, because the bulk of the book is • Stanfcres Parliamentary County Atlas of England and Wale,. London: Z. Stanford. 18M.
taken up with county maps showing the new. Parliamentary divisions. But it contains a good deal more than this. It has maps of England and Wales, showing the rainfall and barometrical statistics of the country for every month in the year. It contains orographical and hydrographical charts ; or, to speak English, maps showing monntain-ranges and watersheds, and a geological map showing the geological formation. It has maps which show the distribution of population, the distribution of industries, and the distri- bution of Bishops, as well as the distribution of Parlia- mentary representation. In all the maps the searcher after facts can get a bird's-eye view of the matter by a judicious pictorial arrangement of colour. The British paterfamilias in search of a holiday may find himself warned off the Lakes in August, or Snowdon in July, by finding terribly dark-blue blots on the map over those districts ; or he may be encouraged to try Scarborough or Sussex by the cerulean Cambridge hue which shines over those favoured localities. The Londoner, while he will be affected at finding London marked by a black blot, rivalled only by Lancashire in the death-rate map, showing a mortality of 21 per 1,000, may be consoled by reflecting that if his chance of death is greater, his chance of enjoying life before death reaches him is greater also than in most other places in England, since the mean temperature of London is, in most months of the year, higher than that of any part of England save Cornwall and the Isle of Wight, and the rainfall is lower than almost anywhere else. It is also consoling to everyone to observe that no district of England but has its peculiar advantages in one map or the other. If the rainfall is higher in the Lakes, the mountains are higher also. If the East Coast is terribly cold under the affliction of east winds, it is also re- markably dry. If the Isle of Wight is hardly treated in the proportion of Parliamentary representation to population, its grievances are mitigated by seeing that the clerk of the weather has devoted his kindest consideration to it, and while endowing- it with a climate like Devon and Cornwall, has sprinkled it with a rainfall no greater than London. One remarkable characteristic- which comes to view on a study of these parti-coloured maps, is that the deep shades of one colour in one map have the smallest possible coincidence with those in another. The death-rate, indeed,. is more or less clearly seen to vary with the density of population or the nature of the industry ; but the black spots on the death- rate maps have no sort of agreement with the dark-blue spots on the rain maps, the blue and yellow of the geological forma- tions, the light-green or pink of height above the sea, or the- green or yellow of the pastoral or agricultural districts. It would appear, therefore, most emphatically that as regards matters of life and death things are in our own hands. It is man, not Nature, that has determined the death-rate. It lies,. therefore, in the hands of man to alter it.
And the significance of the Parliamentary maps then becomes apparent. The representation now follows in the main the density of the population, as the death-rate does. Clearly it behoves the- electors of populous districts to choose Members who will pledge themselves to measures calculated to diminish this death-rate,- that is, to improve the condition of those who really suffer from the density of the population, the overcrowded poor. But when we turn to the political maps, it appears that there is still a good deal to be done before population and representation vary directly with each other. There is plenty of scope for another Redistribution Bill in due time; and the Liberal Party of the future will find that it will have to direct its attention to- political machinery, as well as to political products. While the Isle of Wight, with a growing population of 73,633, is only given one Member, and in the same county Christchurch with 28,535 of the same kind of population, and Winchester with only 17,780, each return a Member apiece, it cannot be said that we have yet attained to a very near realisa- tion of equal electoral districts. If we take the cathedral towns generally, and compare the representation of Gloucester,. Winchester, Hereford, Durham, Salisbury, York, with that of the neighbouring divisions of their own counties, or with that of the populous and increasing divisions of London or Lan- cashire, it is clear that the mirror of Parliament will still need a good deal of polishing before it will give a faithful reflection of the majority of the people of England. Even within the bounds of London itself it does not seem in accordance with the principles of representation that 50,000 caretakers in the City of London, reinforced by the fancy phalanx of 7,000 liverymen, should enjoy the privilege of two Members, or that 60,00C people in Westminster should have a single Member all to themselves, while 89,000 people of the richest constituency in England, of St. George's, Hanover Square, and 88,000 of the elite of the artisans in Chelsea, have only one Member each. Every county can show similar anomalies. It may no longer be true that a minority of the population return a majority of Members, but it is far from being quite true that the first element of proportional representation—the adequate representation of the majority—has been reached.
The separate map of London reveals another defect in the present scheme of redistribution, though we believe it is only in London that the defect is found, and it is one which would never have been permitted if London were in enjoyment of responsible government. In the London boroughs it will be seen that part of the borough of Woolwich, in Kent, is on the north side of the Thames, in the county of Essex ; part of the borough of Westminster, including the whole of Kensington Gardens and Hyde Park, and half of Knightsbridge, is separated from the bulk of the borough of Westminster, or the Abbey division, by the huge borough of St. George's, Hanover Square ; part of the borough of Chelsea is separated from the rest of the borough along one route by the two divisions of Kensington, and along another by the detached piece of Westminster and North and South Paddington ; part of the borough of Wandsworth is separated from the rest by the whole breadth of the borough of Lambeth. It is discreditable alike to the municipal and the political genius and fame of London that these parochial accidents should still be per- mitted to continue, and even more discreditable that they should now have been stereotyped and accentuated by being made part of its political system. One may hope that the fifty-nine Members of London boroughs, or including, as we may fairly include, the suburban Members, the seventy Members for London, will insist on making their voices heard in the London Government Bill for a rectification of frontiers in these cases, which aggravate the inequality of political representation, and are serious hindrances to municipal good government.
It must not be supposed that because we have dwelt chiefly on the maps that the book consists of maps and nothing more. On the contrary, there is a vast deal of information as to population, electoral, administrative, and other divisions in the letterpress. Owing to the numbers of the new electorates not having been made up in time to appear here—if, indeed, they are yet known
--therbook will require a good deal of "noting up " on this point to form a complete Parliamentary guide. But as it
stands, it will be invaluable to the student of local govern- ment, and to every one who wishes to follow the details of the promised Local Government Bill. The popula- tions of every sort of area of government and their contents are given us. Dioceses, petty-sessional divisions, registration districts, unions, parishes, are all set out in as great detail as the Parliamentary divisions. The letter- press is a perfect object-lesson in the cross and conflicting divisions of the country for local government purposes, which make the subject of Local Government such a dismal science and such a practical puzzle and muddle. Mr. Stanford's book will be a weapon in the hand of the reformer. Altogether the book is one of the most useful and interesting of its kind. We hope that it will be followed by similar works for Scotland and Ireland, and we trust that a new edition will be called for in the course of next year by the passing of Local Government Reform Bills for London and the counties.
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