The Express.
London, England, 1861-01-31 00:00:00

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LONDON, THURt4DAY, J.I.V. 31.

TIM Metropolitan Board are resolved to dime-
gall public opinion, and to persevere with their
encroaching Mill. indifferent to the reclamation*
so generally raised against their further absorp-
tion .4 the rights and revenues of the local
belies of the capital, and apparently bent only
upon aggrandizing their own central power and
huportatice, they are preparing to make an early
attempt to carry in the coming Session the mea-
sure they were battled in their efforts to obtain
during the last. It was stated at the last meeting
of the Board that a deputation had recently sought
an interview with the Hnui. Sri RkT.IMV, with the
view of endeavouring to engage the favourable
emend...ration of the I iovernment ; and the
story of their interview was told in such a way as
to convey the impression that every facility would
be afforded in that quarter. It is a curious and
characteristic fact, however, that in the pub-
lished account of what took place on the
occasion, no mention whatever appears of the
matters moat notably in controversy between
the ratepayers at large and their would-be taxing
masters. A parade of minor amendments of the
existiii.r law, and a profession 14 anxiety to in-
crease the administrative powers of vestries and
shstret boards, are substituted for • declaration of
the real dnft and purpose of the Bill. Nut a
word is said of the design to usurp under the
sanction of law the right of parochial taxation, and
of substituting for locally appointed, locally paid,
mod locally responsible officers, the centralized
staff of the Board. Compared with this funda-
mental change all other questions involved in the
measure are as nothing in the estimation of its
authors ; and that, we suppose, is the reason why
nothing is said about it, and why • cloud of dust
is raised in other directions to distract attention
and occupy time, until, it is hoped, the House of
Commons may be caught in • listless mood,
and cajoled into reading the Bill a second
time. That step once gained, we shall be
told that Parliament having approved the
principle of the Bill, any modifications
that may he thought desirable can be introduced
in connuitteu ; and should a committee of country
gentlemen fail to discern the true scope and ten-
dency of the project, we shall then bo told that it
has been carefully examined in all its details by
the proper tribunal, and that nothing remains but
to huddle it through a third reading some fine
night about two o'clock, when four-fifths of the
House are gone home to bed, or some fine day at
a morning sitting, when the said four-fifths are at
home at breakfast And a very shrewd speculation
it is, by no means unlikely to be realised, if the
devoted ratepayers of the metropolis do not bestir
themselves in the course of the next fortnight.
A majority of the House of Commons have no
prejudice one way or other in the matter ; they
are uninformed regarding it, and therefore
liable to be misled. Their natural indisposi-
tion to wade through a dense mass of legis-
lative print on a subject to which they are strangers
is no doubt appreciated by the gentlemen who
last session presented them with a re-
pulsive-looking folio containing some hun-
dred and thirteen lumbering clauses, and
told them that without making themselves
masters of all that they contained, it was
impossible to understand the real merits of
the question. Gallant young members yearning for
another day with the foxhounds ; indolent old
members who have been advised not to read a
line more than they can help, on account of their
weakened sight, are exceedingly apt to arrive
in silence at cue and the same conclusion ;—not to
read a word of the unattractive Bill, and for fear of
making any mistake, not to vote upon it,—a de-
vice which conscientious incompetence too often
accepts as the best compromise between duties
neglected and responsibilities shirked. It is perhaps
the inevitable consequence of the respectable sys-
tem by which two such assemblies as the Lords
and COIIII3IOIII of the United Kingdom are required
to give their collective sanction to everything that
is called a " whether its object be to reform
the temvvralities of the Church, the taxation of
the Stier), the highest jurisdictions of the
realm, or the trumpery details of local
regulation regarding ash-pits, numbering of
houses in a street, traps on drains in back
alleys, and the premium to be given to informers
who shall scent out and hunt down delinquents in
such matters. Messrs. Tura amp TILWAITES well

know that their best chance of carrying what the;
really want is to meMo it up in a wrapping so
thick of technical and local details as to deter
fastidious and lazy students of legislative litera-
ture from entertaining the subject at all ; and the
policy of those who would save the inhabitants of
London from the fatal mistake of suffering the
measure to pass must be to make those who won't
read understand what is really designed, and to
prove to them that the feelings of the community
in general are strongly arrayed against it.
since last we adverted to this topic a series of
proceediogs have taken place in different parts of
the met' opolig, not wholly undeserving of atten-
tion• Several of the vestries of the largest
parishes bare been occupied with investigations,
conducted fur the most part with good temper
and decorum, into charges of inaccuracy in the
taxation accounts of the Metropolitan Board,
which its members and officials have endeavoured

to explain. We have nointeniio; of entering
into th•. particular ipicsCons in issue, or
to intimate in any way the conclusion
at which these local bodies aro likely to arrive.
ilia it iiill.cates no confidence to spare on the
part of the vestries of the Icadin4 parishes
in the financial infallibility of the body that is
sealing to over-ride them, that they should have