The Press.
London, England, 1854-06-10 00:00:00

THE PRESS.

Secretary of State, they were supposed to be
" notorious to all parliamentary people" ! Far
more severe than the words of the Committee
is the effect left upon the mind on reading the
Lieutenant-Governor's despatch, and thinking
that the Colonial-office had actually to cashier
its appointee.

REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT, &c.,
FOR LONDON.
ON this subject Lord EBRINGTON has published
a thoughtful pamphlet, which well deserves
the consideration of public men. Its author
belongs to a class of politicians unknown ex-
cept in England, and even here not very com-
mon—the unobtrusively useful—those who,
destitute of ambition, and not specially soli-
citous about popularity, content themselves
with assiduous, generally unrewarded, labours
in some department of social progress. Sani-
tary, educational, and poor-law questions are
Lord EBRINGTON'S peculiar field ; and, dry as to
most persons these subjects appear, it is indis-
putable that the habitual study of them has
communicated to his style nothing of statisti-
cal pedantry or dryness. His argument may
be briefly summed up as follows :
London is at present, and long has been,
without a government, its inhabitants living
in a state of theoretical anarchy which only
English good sense prevents from being the
cause of serious evils. London, taking the
area included in the bills of mortality, con-
tains in round numbers 120 square miles, two-
and-a-half million of inhabitants, and property
assessed at more than 12,000,0001. a year. In
other words, the population of London exceeds
that of Scctland, and constitutes one-eighth
part of that of England and Wales ; while the
assessed property amounts to one-eighth of
that similarly assessed in the whole of Great
Britain. The City, on the other hand, con
tains one square mile, and 120,000 inhabitants,
being less than one-twentieth of the area and
less than one-tenth of the population of the
metropolis ; its government is, as all the world
knows, specially provided for—not, perhaps,
in the most satisfactory manner—but still in
a manner preferable to the absence of all ad
ministration, such as prevails elsewhere. The
question now is—how to give to all London,
not merely to that fraction of it which bears
the distinguishing name of " City," self-govern-
ment of the representative kind ?
The necessity which exists for some such
step needs no proof. The local acts regulating
metropolitan concerns are equally innumerable
and unknown. There are eighty distinct local
jurisdictions, " many of which coincide neither
" with parish, nor union, nor police district,
" nor with any other recognised division."
Two sides of the same street are sometimes
under separate paving boards. The local
acts, besides having cost large sums to pass
them through Parliament, are obscure and
prolific of lawsuits. To take one instance out
of many of the effects of this multiplication of
authorities—it is found that seven or eight
distinct bodies, public and private, have legal
power to take up the street pavement. Hence
the perpetual and most inconvenient block-
ades to which metropolitan residents are
liable, involving an enormous waste of money
and much injury to the roadway. Other more
serious evils force themselves daily on our
notice. The state of the Thames is notorious,
and needs no mention. Sanitary precautions
are everywhere neglected ; and the question is,
not how to palliate all this mischief, but how
permanently to remedy it, and prevent its re-
currence ?
The schemes most generally suggested
are—
a. The creation of a Metropolitan Corpora-
tion, including all London.
2. The division of London into a multitude
of separate boroughs, adjoining one another,
but unconnected and independent.
3. The establishment of a governing Board
of Commissioners under the presidency of a
parliamentary Minister.
All these projects Lord Esau-tons reviews
and rejects in turn. Against tho first he

531

urges the danger of creating an imperium in
imperio—of making London govern England,
as Paris governs (or used to govern) France ;
and the chance of collisions between the im-
perial authority and the chief magistrate of a
municipality so enormously overgrown.
These objections are weighty; and we be-
lieve that they are generally felt to be so. The
plan of a metropolitan mayor ruling over one-
twelfth of the population of these islands is
not supported, so far as we know, by any class
of politicians.
The third plan, that of Commissioners ap-
pointed by the Crown, finds little favour in
Lord Esnmoroa's eyes, and still less in ours.
Sanitarists have for the most part some tinc-
ture of bureaucratic ideas, from which his
lordship is not wholly exempt ; but he ad-
mits that the being taxed by an irrespon-
sible authority would " engender discontent,"
which would most certainly, and most justly,
be the case. This proposition, therefore, is
also set aside.
"But why not divide London into boroughs ?"
A query often put, and not so easily replied to
as the others. There is a good deal to be
said in favour of the idea. It is simple—it
gets rid of the difficulty of enormous num-
oers—it places the metropolis on precisely
the same footing as any provincial town.
Lord EHRINOTON, however, points out, sensibly
enough, the inconvenience arising out of a
divided responsibility, where—as in sanitary
matters—unity of action is the first requisite.
The sewerage of London is actually under
seven independent commissions. And mark
the result. One division has been drained on
a different level from the rest, and to repair
this error a quarter of a million is wanted.
The same objection holds in the case of
thoroughfares, plans for purifying the Thames,
police, and many minor concerns. Even if
there be no jealousy, the division of power
impairs efficiency. Offices are multiplied;
each official has less to do ; salaries are, for
economy's sake, made lower, whereby the best
candidates are prevented from applying, and
persons of inferior skill occupy their place.
An instance of this is supplied in the Con-
solidated Sewers Commission, which (lid more
work, at a lower rate, than all its seven pre-
decessors.
Rejecting, therefore, the three propositions
hitherto discussed for the government of
London, Lord EHRINOTON proceeds to suggest
one of his own, of which we have only space
to insert the leading features. He would
assign the various functions of administration
to different bodies, each having a local
authority extending over the whole metropolis,
but each limited to its own special duty,
and devoid of all other power.
The details of this plan are worked out at
considerable length, and with much suggestive
ingenuity. Without expressing a decisivo
opinion on Lord EBRINOTON'S scheme, we
unhesitatingly say that lie deserves well of
the public for proposing it, and that it merits
a close and careful scrutiny.

JUDICIAL OPINIONS ON AN EX-LORD OF
THE TREASURY.

THE Court of Exchequer in Ireland has, within the
last few days, given an indirect opinion on the dis
cretion shown by the Coalition in its choice of Mr.
JOHN SADLEIR for a Lord of the Treasury. In
another of the interminable phases of the scandalous
case of "Crotty and Dowling," the Lord Chief Baron
(Nom.) stated "that the arrest of the defendant
" was contrary to all conscience, law, and equity,
" and it should be most strongly condemned." lie
was followed by Baron PENNEFATHER, who also re-
ferred to Mr. JOHN SADLEIR in a style that must have
been anything but gratifying to that gentleman,
recording, with minute particularity, certain incidents
in the case that Mr. SADLEIR would willingly have
consigned to oblivion. Baron RICHARDS also chro-
nicled "the misconduct of Mr. Summit," and how
he " had grievously but properly suffered for it." It
is on record that Mr. SADLEIR was the first of " the
Irish party " to hint publicly, in a speech at a Carlow
dinner, upon the feasibility of a Coalition ; and some
Roman Catholic prelate soon after cautioned his flock
against Mr. SADLEIR'S projects. The certificates
given to him by the Barons of the Exchequer at
Dublin will not, we presume, be put into envelopes,
along with other testimonials in his favour from the
Duke of NEwcaeme and the Earl of ABIRDEXN

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VretaVings in arliament.

THE WAR MINISTER.
The House of Commons reassembled on Thursday,
after the brief Whitsuntide recess. Supply was set
down as the business of the night, the miscella-
neous votes out of the civil service estimates being
appointed for discussion and grant. Before the
house resolved itself into committee for this purpose,
however, Lord J. RUSSELL took the opportunity of
stating the decision which the Government had
reached with respect to the new arrangement of the
War Department and the appointment of a special
War Minister. The noble lord said, after some pre-
fatory remarks :
" I imagine that there are two questions upon this sub-
ject which engage the attention of the house—the one is
the question of giving more immediate vigour and effi-
ciency to the War Department, and the other relates to the
arrangements to be made respecting the administration of
all the various departments connected with military affairs.
With regard to the first point, it is,l think, to be collected
from the general feeling, and it is the opinion of her Ma-
jesty's Government, that a Minister having the charge of
the Colonial Department, bearing in mind the manner in
which the business of that department has increased since
the last war, is both physically and morally unable to give
to the affairs of the War Department that great amount of
attention, time, and labour which those affairs in time of
war absolutely require. (Hear, hear.) It is, therefore,
the opinion of her Majesty's Government that the affairs
of the War Department, instead of being united to the
administration of the Colonies, as they at present are,
should be separated from it. The next question regards
the administration of the various departments which are
connected with military affairs. The house is aware that
these departments are several in number, and it knows,
likewise, that one of the principal Secretaries of State, as
Secretary of State for the War Department, takes the
Queen's pleasure with respect to the amount of forces to
be kept up for the year—takes the Queen's pleasure, also,
with regard to any considerable augmentation to be made,
and generally takes from her Majesty those directions by
which the military of of this country are regulated.
The Secretary-at-War administers the financial affairs of
the army ; the Board of Ordnance has, in the first place,
the management of the artillery and the engineers, but it
has likewise various other duties to perform which from
time to time have been added to it ; the Commissariat is a
department by itself, and its duties are well known; and
there are various other departments which are more or
less concerned in the military affairs of the country.
Reviewing the plans proposed for the concentra-
tion of these departments by the Duke of Richmond's
committee of 1831-2, and Earl Grey's commission
-

subsequently, by one of which the powers of the
Secretary•at-War were to be enlarged, and by the
other a general Army Board established for the
administration of military affairs, the noble lord pro-
ceeded
Her Majesty's Government are of opinion that the best
thing to be done for the present would be to confine our-
selves to the change of making a separate Secretary of
State for the War Department, confiding to him a superin-
tendence over all those matters which fall under the
administration of military affairs in time of war. Having
been a member of both commissions, I have no hesitation
in saying that I was not at all satisfied, after hearing the
objections of Earl Grey and the Duke of Wellington, that
either of the proposed plans would have ensured the effi-
cient and complete working of all the various departments
connected with military affairs in this country. But a
Secretary of State would have these departments under
his immediate superintendence. He would have the con-
trol of the whole of them, and could say from time to time
what improvements ought to be introduced, and could
either introduce these improvements singly, or prepare
some plan to be afterwards submitted to the consideration
of the Government as a more general reform of the various
military departments. This, 1 think, is all that it would
be advisable at the present moment to attempt. To intro-
duce greater changes—to derange and put into a state of
confusion all those various departments at a time when we
have but lately entered into a war—would, in my opinion,
be a very rash and dangerous undertaking. I have been
told, with respect to the most beneficial change which was
made by the present First Lord of the Admiralty, when he
abolished the Navy Board more than twenty years ago,
that it took upwards of two years before that alteration
could be made so as to ensure the harmonious working of
the new system. If that be so, it is obvious you cannot
adopt in the first instance an entire plan without the risk
of producing probably a great deal more confusion than at
the present time, instead of ensuring that harmony and
unity which are so much desired. There are certain prin-
ciples which I think should guide us with respect to this
subject. It is easy to say, Unite the various depart-
ments.' But, while there is the greatest benefit in having
one head which can control departments and branches of
the same kind of service, there very often will be very great
disadvantage in uniting in one department what ought to
be divided amongst several. With respeetto certain things
unity is desirable. With respect to others, separation is the
best way of attaining that end. It appears to the Govern-
ment better to allow the Secretary of State who is placed
at the head of this department to consider from time to
time what is the best arrangement, and how improvements
can be introduced. It certainly appears that there are de-
fects, which have been pointed out in the other as well as
in this house, and no doubt very considerable improve-
ments can be made (Hear, hear.) There is one chan e,
however, which I Ma say I do not Visa vss