The Express.
London, England, 1867-10-22 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 22, 1867.

the present constitution of the Legislature, and all
the private attempts to remedy it have been ne-
cessarily conducted on • private scale. But
it has naturally suggested itself to most persons
who have thought of the subject at all, that
if the Legislature can empower public com-
panies to take property at its fair value and re-
move it for one form of public convenience, there
could be no dangevingiving the same power toother
companies for other forms of public convenience.
Mr. fit Tettsou TO/LIMNS, in his Bill for Improv-
ing the Dwellings of the Working Classes, pro-
posed to give local authorities power to obtain
sites by compulsory purchase, to erect dwellings
thereon, and to maintain them by rates. His Bill
of last session improved on this suggestion, and
it was stated that in Committee it would have
been proposed that under certain conditions powers
of compulsory purchase of squalid and unhealthy
property should be conferred on companies estab-
lished to provide improved dwellings for the
working classes. But the progress of the Bill on
its way to Committee was blocked by a discussion
on the Tornado case, and it will therefore have
to be re-introduced during the next session. It
is quite obvious that no other way of dealing with
the question remains than that of conferring on
some authority compulsory powers to purchase
such properties, attaching to the exercise of those
powers the obligation to renew and restore them as
dwellings for classes of people similar to those
which at present inhabit them. It is nothing to
replace a squalid street by a street of shops or
offices, or by a large public building. It is
I nothing to pull down whole acres of cheap and
nasty lodgings, and put dear but cleanly ones
in their place. What needs to be done is to
provide cheap and good residences for the poor at
the same time that the competition of landlords,
who live upon the high profits of crowded squa-
lor, is bought out by the compulsory purchase of
their property by those who undertake in the act
of purchase the obligation of its improvement.
Even the supply of fit dwellings would be only
half, though the better half, of a movement to
elevate the homes of the people—the abolition of
unfit places is needful to complete the work. We
are already reconstructing the public London ;
but to complete the work private Lon-
don must be reconstructed too. Private
philanthropy and public spirit are not strong
enough to do this under present conditions ; but
it will be possible to render them such legislative
help and to create for them such conditions as
will enable them to work in favourable circum-
stances. We can never have a city without poor,
but we not only may have, but ought to have a
city without degraded and degrading quarters, the
haunts of fever and the breeding grounds of
crime. The Victorian reconstruction of London
will be a great success or a splendid failure accord-
ing as it succeeds in making it a better home for
the vast population around us, or as it merely
renders it a more brilliant and striking metropolis,
and a more convenient place of temporary so-
journ for wondering visitors from all quarters of
the globe. It should do the last, but not leave
the first undone.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)

France decided that the will of the majority in the United
States should constitutethe union a single state, • power was
given to the democratic theory which made resistance to •
reform bill in England impossible. Had Lord Derby re-
signed, he had reason to believe that his opponents' bill
would only have differed from his own for the worse, and
HO he decided on a conservative bill, one which is
just to the country and conservative classes. The
ratepaying qualification is quite a different thing from
household suffrage pure and simple. How can it be be-
lieved that the vast majority of the conservative party
were tamely willing to sacrifice those principles merely in
order that a score of their political friends might receive
the emoluments and dispense the favours of office? And
if the country gentlemen were sincere in their belief that
the course of the government was the best under the cir-
cumstances, and so convinced of this that the secession of
General Peel and Lord Cranborne—both great favourites
and trusted leaders—could not cause them to waver for a
moment, if they were sincere in their belief, why suppose
that their leaders were less so

LATEST INTELLIGENCE.

ITALY.
THE ITALIAN CABINET.

The second edition of the Tim,., contains a tele-
gram from its correspondent at Florence, dated 11
o'clock last night, to the effect that General
Cialdini has not yet succeeded in obtaining
colleagues to enter with him into office, and
there is an apparent probability that the present
ministry will remain in power. Demonstrations
have been made, and municipal addresses adopted
in numerous places in favour of the Roman move-
ment, and against all foreign interference. The
insurgents within the papal territory have met
with severe reverses. Garibaldi is at large.

censor. The suns of the deceased Aincer continue
to command the new Anieer's army.
It is said that Ameer Shere Ali has retired to
Herat to seek the aid of his son, who is governor
of that town.