The Express.
London, England, 1847-09-01 00:00:00

Wit eppregg.

WAIL&
Theo Wed India milk trisillikig Um fir Mike, Maeoar, and
the Haveneah, will be meo ep ea the =dog a( the bed Ilealember.
The meted artle the 1011l*M
tit=ttaille mamba ehte eatabaseptea,
The =We der BO* Nora Awe" leseleos. and the United
easy Ida be mods who oftmleir erilopligllanear.
Me Mai bet the the Leer Vilbe. Firma-
=l,lVailker Aro, be ma. tit'
elhlheNeeber.
The .ea. tor abeek Open* Labor; Medebre, Cod* sad Gibraltar
ell le iamb ea ba the bales et the Ith leatesabse.
Ile ereetiletilleal mak Ifeewnea te the nediterreacea,
1117/de ea" aPplis. Wk. M" twidlia. Ida besiege up ea the
'waft WU fat lepearaber.
The role Oar New South Irift- Yu Diemen's lead. end Nee
&Weed will be made up on the et the lOth September.

VAbyriburbetinelba =ray,
kilos Oilbe by

MOH WATER AS LONDOI9-1111DOL
121.:.% DAT—Mende& 9 lola. Not :11199ruces. LI Wu. 9919 e
oralag. 57 Wm. past Andra.% 211 al. 999 t 7. •

LONDON, WEDNESDAY, SEP. 1.
IF anything is to be done neat session towards in-
troducing an efficient system of sanitary police in the
metropolis—and no part of the kingdom needs it
more—it is high time that a beginning were made.
The amount of thought and inquiry that went to the
framing of the Reform Bill, and the enthusiastic con-
tinuous efforts required to bear down the host of
sinister individual and combined interests opposed to
its becoming law, were scarcely greater than will be
required for the accomplishing of sanitary reform in
London.

London, including under this designation the city
within and without the walls Westminster, South-
wark,
the out-parishes within the bills of mor-
tality, and the out-parishes not within the bills
of mortality, contained in 1841 a population of
1,873,676. Adding to this the population of the
parishes of Battersea and Wandsworth, unaccount-1
ably omitted in the list of out-parishes, and making
allowance for the increase which must have taken
place in six years, the whole inhabitants of the me-
tropolis
cannot at present be much, if anything, under
two millions. The population of London is on a par
with that of some not unimportant independent states
—of Denmark, Sardinia, Tuscany, Hanover, Wm-
temberg, and Saxony.
And the complication of social and political inter-
ests, which must be taken into account in calculating
the resistance a comprehensive legislative measure for
the whole of London ie likely to meet with, is scarcely
less than it would be in any of the states we
have named. There are the great proprietors—the
nobility and gentry, and the city companies • there
innumerable
are the knots of concurring and indepen- '
dent authorities—corporations, boards of poor-law
guardians, justices of the peace, vestries, commis-
sioners of metropolitan improvements, commissioners
of police and sewers, road trusts, paving boards, &c.
Wealthy proprietors, and speculators in building
leases, will oppose any general system that threatens
to prevent the immunity they enjoy from an
equitable share of rates levied and regulations
enforced, with a view to the preservation of public
health. Noble lords will regard with horror a metro-
politan constitution which might defeat the restric-
tive clauses in building leases, imparting to certain
districts a semi-public, semi-private, character, with a
view to increased fines on renewals. The Mercers'
Company, and others similarly circumstanced in other
districts, will view with jealousy a measure to compel
the making of efficient drains in Long-acre. All the
little great men of local authority, from members of
the corporation down to members of the paving-
boards, will be up in arms against a reform which 0021
only be thoroughly carried into effect by restoring
one and all of them to their natural insignificance.
These interested malcontents will be backed by the
selfishness of all the more ignorant class of rate-
payers, who cannot perceive that health and cleanli-
ness are true economy, and that a better system of
local administration would render it possible to do
more for the public safety and comfort at less ex-
pense, than with our present complication of indepen-
dent and mutually neutralisingjurisdictions.
The promoters of sanitary reform in the metropolis
have not only to arouse the apathetio—they have to ,
overcome the formidable phalanx of bigoted and in-
veterate opponents we have been passing in review.
A sanitary police, to be worth anything, must have the
power to remove mummies, to regulate the sewerage,
direction and width of public streets, to enforce an
efficient system of superficial drainage and the
regular periodical removal of refuse and garbage,
and to take measures for ensuring a sufficient
supply. of water for potato purposes, at the public
expenae. Thole things cannot be adequately accom-
plished by means of the present imperfect ma-
chinery of local government. In one district of
one of the metropolitan out-parishes alone, there are
some twenty paving boards under as many acts of
parliament. How are these little independent re-
publics to be compelled by cemmiseioners of health
to act harmoniously to one general end ?
maz.. 7.1 :72:: of I.oidoo-117i—,;;;
it be expected that mere mortal commissioners can
ever accomplish its removal by the instrumentality of
the corporation, which has a pecuniary interest in
keeping it up? The rate-payers of St. George the
Martyr and St. Andrew's, Holborn above the bars,
have power to keep their narrow purlieus an muds of
dirt amid surrounding cleanliness, until our whole
system of metropolitan local government is revolu-
tronised.
As indispensable prerequisite of any efficient
sanitary police for Loudon is a new system of local

government. This meat be the groundwork of complete
sanitary reform. The patriots and orators of the vestry
school will cry out that this is an attack upon e
government. It is not : it is a call for real se -
government in our local affairs, of which we have at
present a mere delusive show. The corporation o.
London was once a system of organised self-govern-
ment within the City walls, very respectable for the
age in which it originated. But the complete change
of social and political relations has rendered it insuffi-
cient even within these narrow limits. While the me-
tropolis has been extending in all directions till the
original city has become little more than a mere point
within it, no systematic arrangements have been
made for the local government of the accretions to
the town. The old pariah and county institutions
have been retained, although quite inadequate to the
necessities of a dense urban population. Special
administrative hoards and jurisdictions have been
added from time to time as their inadequacy was felt.
Everywhere we find dozens of boards for special
purposes to do what one could accomplish more
efficiently and economically. Elections of officials,
with limited ranges of duty, excite no attention. and
become wearisome from their frequency. Amid
general apathy and disgust, knots of pragmatical,
forward busybodies engross public offices, squabble
with each other about the limits of their re-
spective fields of action, impose and levy rates, and
leave the public interests uncared for. Let us have
the metropolis portioned out into districts of manage-
able extent, containing each a due admixture of rich
and poor quarters ; let each have its municipal council
for imposing and levying all the local rates required
within it; let each council be organised into com-
mittees for special departments of local administration,
with adequate staffs of officers ; let the members of
these councils be elected at stated intervals by all the
rate-payers or all the householders; and let a certain
amount of general control be invested in the aggre-
gate assembly of all the municipal councils, under
the presidency of one chief magistrate. The metro-
politan public would thus be enabled to know what
they really pay for purposes of local government,
and whether they enjoy, in return for their money,
all the advantages (a sanitary police inclusive) which
local government ought to bestow.
An entire remodelling of metropolitan local govern-
ment, such as we have indicated, including an effi-
cient system of sanitary police, would encounter
little more hostility, and might receive more cordial
and general support, than a sanitary system, however
pod, adapted to the wretched existing machinery.
Either way, the struggle for reform will be an arduoiia
one, and will teak the utmost efforts of government
and the people. It is for government to mature and
submit to parliament a measure worthy of acceptance.
It is for the people, for all intelligent men not tainted
with the esprit de corps of our miserable make-shift
substitutes for local administrations, to be organising
themselves without delay to promote such a measure
against the combined opposition of London landlordism
and London Bumbleism.

IN the charges brought against the English railway
system in various quarters, continual reference Is
made to certain topics, imposing enough in appear-
ance, but never exactly defined, the bearing of which
upon the matters in question is assumed as a thing of
course. Of these, " the claims of the nation," and the
" efficacy of state control," are the most prominent as
well as the least determined; yet the necessity of
clearly fixing what is avant by such terms, before
proceeding to argue—still more, to draw impeach-
ments upon them—seems to be evaded altogether. To
us it appears not only that this process is an uidispea-
, sable preliminary to any discussion of the railway
question, bat that the whole question itself is mainly
Included in it; that the right understanding of these
points is all that is of much consequence m the de-
bate; and that on wilful or ignorant perversions of
them, all the fallacies on the subject have been railed.
As some notable instances of the kind have lately
been forcing themselves on public notice, it may be
useful to make some inquiry into the significance of
these terms, and to seswhat deductions can be fairly
♦rawn from the matters of fact to which they refer.
Ott•the present occasion we shall examine the case as
tween " the4ablic" and the railways.
... When " rights" are insisted upon, it is needful in
thefirst place to ascertain what species of rights are
meant. In the true sense of the word, nothing can be
right but what is just; bat in the practice of men this
correspondence is by no means exactly observed. At
all times there have been parties ready to maintain, in
acts if not in words, the identity of right with power;
to assert that all men have a right to all things they
have the strength to take. Nor has this error ceased
with the so-called " violent times." In our own, on
the subject now before us, this principle has been
stoutly maintained. Of course, upon such a basis no
argument intended to weigh with honest men is pos-
sible ; and what we have to say must bo understood to
exclude altogether a doctrine fit only for pirates or
highwaymen. It is, no doubt, a ready way of settling
this or any other question, to apply to it the

Good old rule, the simple plan,
That they should take who hsee the power,
And they should keep, wbo can.
The Times the other day (in the character, no
doubt, of the " best friend they erer had") addressed
a tirade to the railways which may be thus trans-
lated —" In any matter at issue between you
and the public, be assured that, right or wrong,
the latter will have whatever it may choose to de-
mand. There is no use in contending with it; you
are the weaker party, and must give way. It is far
more likely that you will have to submit to a divi-
dend of three per cent., or even less—that, indeed,
you may be totally ruined—than that any. conveni-
ence which the public thinks proper to enjoy—with
whatever pecuniary result to you, who must furniah
it—will be allowed to suffer." This mode of arguing
once admitted, there is nothing left but to ascertain
which of any two parties supposed to have different ob-
jects may be the stronger ; and, this being known, to
determine the duties of the weaker by the desires of
the more powerful body. We would endeavour to ascer-
tain their respective obligations on principles rather
more consistent with notions of equal justice, and
leave the robbers' ultima ratio, of mere strength,
wholly out of the argument.
What the nation in its collective capacity may
fairly claim, as matter of right, from the owners of
railways, would appear to be determined, firstly, by
the share the nation in that capacity may have taken
in promoting them, and by the amount of furtherance
it may have contributed towards their establishment;
and secondly, by the sacrifices, if any, which it may
have consented to in order to their introduction, or by
the detriment, if any, which the new system may have
eampalsonly, or even accidentally, inflicted upon it. It
atsqi We la clear that, except on one or other of those
' the nation, as a joint body, can have no ape-
LlWilege, in any country where property is under
the shelter of law, to lay its hands upon the means of
=individuals, legally employed in any domestic
whatever. Now there can be no seed to
wade a simile word in proving that on behalf of the
fit 611111 el equivalents named, not even the shadow
et a dais can be raised. It is notorious that the
arts of *Ws utergy_ in the construction of rail-
ways have been voided by the state—that it has,
eat of mere Indianan at the beginning, and after-
wards with deliberate intention, left the whole
risk cost, and trouble to those who had the
amigo to venture their money upon them. In
the second class alone can the least claim
d any plausibility be found, and this merely
and solely in the condition which allows an incorpo-
I rated railway company to take land for the
works, under act of parliament. Besides this sing
point, implying, no doubt, a sacrifice of the usual
Xeto of possession, there is not an itp.,
' h to found
either. There

perhaps CoL
thing but fr
the nation

R 4;., on Ulla'

breach is certainly
law, a primafisc4-
we may fine
but especially
ease are copaidered,

It is plain
k nestst:

of landowners

shall presently .
—the piss kr k
ereniestra
in 118
lhoiyd demand.

Ration to

dandbw.ordeTs

every act,

very narrow
allows the i-

poesension, there is not an item remaining on
found any special claim in this second class
There is no one in the present day, excepting
CoL SIBIHORP, who will pretend that any-
benefit, ineulealable benefit, has • •
froth the establialunent of the • • - '
this one point, of taking land, '' 14: it 4
certainly made in the securities •• •
imafiwre claim may fairly be • Ad
ire observe that no such claim • deed
ially when the whole c- •••• • Ewa •-,1
moldered, can have an unlimited 4 .
plain that wooldmegrimbealtore„..o.-
_
we pprinnts
men on the on. hander ' • a,
wetly mes bus =einkselbedionif
es for an infidel . =
e 4hto of railway c""Nrsal 426. -; .'.. •
ror4 to !bend, oa a limited 4
emends. This will thither '
regarding the terms by which '•: r- o.lq
landowners bee been secured ra
orders of parliament, uin the • * •,".'•-•
, confine the interference with • • "1„,,
raw bounds, and that the princi • • g
interference has directly appro • • • -