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ments, for he didn't see that there were any amendments to be made. Of metropolitan or national duties we have no recognition; of great metropolitan or national benefits no record. Some small improvements have taken place, some practical amendments in management and as to the sale of offices have been introduced, which it would be unfair altogether to pretermit; but of a really great and liberal policy, of conceptions adequate to what their position might be, and what their revenues are, there is not the faintest trace. Something has been done for the City school, which under its present master maintains a very good reputation; something, we believe, for the livings of the Irish Society in the North of Ireland; but neither as Church patrons nor as promoters of education have the Corporation ever done anything at all answerable to the great means and opportunities at their command. No great and ancient body ever passed away, as they are about to do, with so few regrets, and so little sympathy.

We have said they are about to pass away, because we cannot doubt that such a Report as that, which has been presented to Her Majesty by Mr. Labouchere, Sir John Patteson and Mr. Cornewall Lewis, will before long, in its general features, be carried into effect by legislation. The Commissioners, at the conclusion of their Report, conveniently recapitulate the heads of their recommendations, and their summary we here subjoin:

1. That a new charter be issued, containing all such provisions in existing charters of the Corporation of London, and all such customs of the City, as it may be deemed expedient to preserve.

2. That the Lord Mayor be elected by the Common Council, from the Common Councillors, or from persons qualified to be Common Councillors. 3. That the Aldermen be elected by the burgesses of the wards for six years, and be re-eligible; that they be justices of the peace during their term of office.

4. That the powers of the Municipal Corporations Act with respect to the appointment of stipendiary magistrates be extended to the Corporation of London.

5. That the Court of Aldermen be abolished, and that its functions be transferred to the Common Council.

6. That the number of wards be reduced to some number not less than twelve, nor greater than sixteen; and that their area and population be, as far as possible, made equal.

7. That each ward return one alderman and five common councilmen to the Common Council; and that their qualification be that prescribed by the Municipal Corporations Act for the larger class of boroughs; namely, the possession of real or personal estate of 1,000l., or being rated on an annual value of at least 30%.

8. That the voters in the wardmote elections be the occupiers of premises in the ward rated to the amount of 107. per annum, without any additional qualification.

9. That the elections in Common Hall be abolished.

10. That the sheriffs be elected by the Common Council.

11. That the Lord Mayor's Court and the Sheriff's Court be consoli

dated, and that an appeal be given from such court to one of the superior courts at Westminster.

12. That the Court of Hustings be abolished.

13. That the Court at St. Martin's-le-Grand be abolished.

14. That all regulations prohibiting persons not free of the City from carrying on any trade, or using any handicraft within the City, be abolished. 15. That the metage of grain, fruit, and other measurable goods, be no longer compulsory.

16. That the Fellowship of Porters be dissolved; and that other privileges of porters be abolished.

17. That the admission of brokers by the Court of Aldermen be abolished.

18. That the street toll on carts not the property of freemen be abolished.

19. That the City police be incorporated with the Metropolitan police. 20. That the conservancy of the River Thames be transferred to a Board consisting of the Lord Mayor, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the President of the Board of Trade, the Deputy Master of the Trinity House, and the First Commissioner of Woods.

21. That the exclusive privileges of the Company of Watermen and Lightermen on the River Thames be abolished.

22. That the accounts of the revenue and expenditure of the Corporation be consolidated.

23. That the money and securities of the Corporation be lodged in the Bank of England.

24. That the election of Auditors be amended.

25. That the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Acts, with respect to the mortgaging of lands, and the making of an annual return of revenue and expenditure to the Secretary of State, be extended to the Corporation of London.

26. That the Irish Society be dissolved, that its trusts be declared by Act of Parliament; and that new trustees be appointed by the Lord Chancellor of Ireland.

27. That the external boundaries of the City remain unchanged; but that the municipal connexion between the Corporation of London and a part of the borough of Southwark be abolished.

28. That the rest of the metropolis be divided into districts for municipal purposes.

29. That in the event of such division being made, a Metropolitan Board of Works be created, composed of members deputed to it from the Council of each metropolitan municipal body, including the Common Council of the City.

30. That the coal duties now collected by the Corporation of London, so long as they remain in force, be under the administration of this Board; and that in case the coal duties, which expire in 1862, should not be renewed, the 4d. duty now levied on behalf of the City should cease at the same time.

31. That this Board be empowered to levy a rate, limited to a fixed poundage, for public works of general metropolitan utility, over the metropolitan district.

32. That no works be executed by this Board unless the plans have been approved by a Committee of the Privy Council.'

It will be seen that in our view of the unsatisfactory nature of the defence of the Corporation, we have at least the support of the Commissioners. Most of the points on which they were

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attacked, their brokers' rents, their metage, their coal-tax, their tolls, their vague and unchecked accounts, their enormous expenses of management, their secrecy and obscurity as to their charters, these and a number of other points are all decided against them by the Report; in courteous and guarded language, no doubt, as befits the station and character of the Commissioners, but in terms clear and unmistakeable. The remedies, though searching and comprehensive, have been applied in a conservative spirit. There has been, we observe, no doctrinaire feeling at work to suggest the reforming of London according to some theory of perfection; but the Corporation has been taken as it stands, it has been preserved wherever it was possible or reasonable, and all the changes which are suggested are almost always in accordance with the enactments of the general Municipal Reform Act, which has been proved by experience to work well upon the whole throughout the country. No suggestions are made in detail as to the establishments and expenses of the Corporation, but it is proposed to curtail their funds, to apply an efficient audit to their accounts, to give the great body of citizens at least the opportunity of taking an interest in the working of the system, and to leave to the combined operation of time, general opinion, and good sense, to infuse a better spirit, and limit useless and foolish expenditure. In many particulars the Commissioners have merely confirmed the conclusions of the most intelligent members of the Corporation; with regard to others, such as especially subjecting the aldermen to re-election, abolishing all their tolls and taxes, and dissolving the Irish Society, we fully expect that great opposition will be made to any attempt to put their advice into practice; but their scheme, or something very like it, must be carried, or the whole work will have to be done over again. For in truth the Commissioners have, by the careful and authentic statements of their Report, reduced within more reasonable limits, the extreme pretensions habitually put forward by the Corporation of London, and have shown the little ground there is for submitting to be obstructed by them. These pretensions can hardly survive undiminished the effect of the tabular statement of the population, area, number of houses, and assessed value of the property in the city, compared with that of the rest of the metropolis given by the Commissioners in the course of their Report. A good map of London would perhaps answer the

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same end. It would then be seen how complete a delusion it is to suppose that the commerce and the city of London are identical, that there is not vast wealth and commerce beyond the narrow bounds within which the authority of the Corporation is confined. It is plain that some of the metropolitan districts are equal, some even superior to the city in importance, and that it is only its greater antiquity and familiar tradition that maintains it in a predominance to which it has no sufficient claim.

This predominance will be still further diminished if Parliament should sanction the erection of municipalities throughout the metropolis, with a central Board deputed from them for the control of matters of general concern. This is perhaps the most important of the Commissioners' suggestions, and we earnestly hope it will be adopted, for we are sure there is no chance of London being made a fine, convenient, or healthy city till something of this sort is effected for its social government. In practical England, the state of its metropolis, in all that regards its material government and welfare, is a shame and disgrace. There is no cooperation, no unity of purpose or action, no system, no principle. Everything is left to the chance working of individual speculation, and to the powers of multitudes of Boards entirely independent of, and sometimes hostile to, one another. There are, we believe, above seven hundred local Acts of Parliament in force in different parts of London. In one parish, S. Pancras, it appears from the evidence before us that there are seventeen different Paving Boards, which after all do not comprise the whole parish within the limits of their powers. And the want of union between Gas Companies, and Water Companies, and Paving Boards, and Commissioners of Sewers, has become a proverb and a standing nuisance. So certainly as a street is beautifully paved and smoothly laid down, it is torn up to dig a sewer or lay gaspipes. And so if a street is begun in one part of London which it would be desirable to connect with a street in another, it is absolutely certain that the desired connexion will not take place; it is probable that some peculiarly ugly and inconvenient obstruction will be built exactly where it ought not. Within the last year the front view of S. Paul's has been seriously damaged by a monster warehouse: and at this very time Mr. Hickson, in his evidence before the Commission, informs the good people of Marylebone that their sewers are about to be entirely deranged by a subterranean railway. The truth is, that except in the City, and there but imperfectly, the inhabitants of the metropolis have no means of expressing their opinion collectively or of being collectively consulted about matters which most intimately concern their social comfort and health. Whether the appointment of municipalities would afford a sufficient remedy

for the evils at present so obvious and so discreditable to our taste and practical sagacity, may be fair matter of doubt. They are certainly less rife in all places where a Corporation is entrusted with the care of the town, and with some superintendence over its buildings and architectural arrangements. We can only say that the plan of the Commissioners affords so reasonable a prospect of success that we are very anxious to see it tried. We give it in the words of the Commissioners themselves :

With the single exception of London, the local government of every considerable town in the United Kingdom is vested in a municipal corporation. This government is not confined to a portion of the town, but, since the recent statutory reforms, comprehends its entire circuit. In London, however, as we have already seen, the municipal government extends over only a small portion of the entire town, whether measured by area or by population. If it were held that municipal institutions were not suited to a metropolitan city, no reason could be found, except its antiquity and existence, for maintaining the Corporation of London, even with its present limited area. It appears to us, however, that a metropolitan city requires, for its own local purposes, municipal institutions not less than other towns. We believe indeed that the utility of municipal institutions is greater, and their want more felt, in a large, populous, opulent, and crowded metropolis, than in a country town of less size, population, and wealth. Those functions of local government, moreover, which in other towns are performed by the municipal authorities, are, in the metropolis, actually discharged by parochial functionaries, or by boards created by local acts, though they may be discharged in a less uniform and efficient manner. In some cases, indeed, in the parishes on the outskirts of the metropolis, they may, from a want of powers in the general law, be left for a time altogether unprovided for, to the serious inconvenience of the inhabitants, and to the permanent injury of the owners of property within the district. We may refer to the evidence of a deputation of the vestry of S. Pancras, appended to our Report, as illustrating the evils which now arise in large parishes where new building is in progress on a large scale, from the absence of an efficient municipal organization, applicable to new portions of the town as they successively spring into existence.

Although the City of London is the only part of the metropolis which possesses a municipal organization, there are at present within the metropolitan district seven Parliamentary boroughs, each of which, with the exception of Greenwich, contains a larger number of inhabited houses, and a larger population, than the City, as appears from the subjoined statement:— HOUSES AND POPULATION IN 1851 IN THE METROPOLITAN

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