The Sun.
London, England, 1860-04-25 00:00:00

worthy of the respect he had received. It was probably on
account of that incident however that the noble lord (Lord
J. Russell) was desirous of preserving the corporation. He
remembered how, for a period of two centuries the Crown
had endeavoured to limit the privileges and the boundaries
of London, and to prevent the building of houses in its
neighbourhood. In those endeavours the Crown generally
failed, but it never would recognise the increase of the City,
and it got Parliament to make its increase penal. The same
spirit remained in the ascendant down to the time of James

the First, or of Charles the First, when it was finally broken
down, and people were at length allowed to build upon the
vacant ground between London and Westminster. Temple
Bar no longer remained the termination of the inhabited

part of the metropolis, and one nobleman's estate came

to be built upon after another, until at the beginning of
the present century its dimensions had become fully
doubled. Still the City did not grow in favour with the
court. Every Lord Mayor, when presented to the
Sovereign, formerly received the Royal congratula-
.

lions, an,l the honour of knighthood, but when a Lord
Mayor ventured to criticise the conduct of a Minister of the

Crown, that honour became restricted to such of them only
as presented a glass of wine to the Sovereign, or performed
some service of a like nature. (Cheers and laughter.) The
metropolis had increased very much in its dimensions, but
the question he had to submit was, whether there was on
that account the less necessity for efficient municipal insti-
tutions. Ono of tho most useful acts of the reformed House
of Commons was to inquire into the state of the several
rannicipalities of the kingdom. It found them in the hands
of wealthy and intriguing persons, the freemen greatly de-
based, and it passed a general law of considerable import-
ance and wisdom, by which they were brought more into
harmony with existing ideas. But why was London not
included in that bill ? The only reason he had heard stated
for it was, that the case of London, from its extraordinary
magnitude, was altogether exceptional, and should be dealt
with by a special measure. The City, therefore, had long
had a clear prospect of reform before it, and it was, no
doubt, in consequence of it that it had adopted the very wise
course of choosing for its representative the noble lord
who was the head and front of the Reform movement.
(Cheers and laughter.) The City had certainly found its
account in that step, inasmuch as, though they had often
heard of Corporation Reform, the promises they had had
of it had not been fulfilled. At length, however, a step
was taken to divest the Corporation of its useless charac-
ter. Two commissions were appointed, nominally to in-
vestigate the question, but really to allay the alarm which
the reform cry had raised. Still, however, the body pos-
sessed vitality enough to withstand the constant exposures
to which it was subjected; and the right hon. gentleman
the Home Secretary, with all his philosophic turn of mind,
lost himself in the miserable twaddle of that petty munici-
pality. (Hear, hear, and laughter.) One reform did at
last come out in ansjer to the powerful demand for it. The
trade of London, which had increased enormously, would
no longer submit to be trammelled by the Corporation, and
the Government at last introduced a bill which divested
the Corporation of one of its most useful attributes—the
conservancy of the Thames. There was one right hon.
gentleman too, a member of the previous Government of
the noble lord the member for Tiverton, representing a me-
tropolitan borough (Sir B. Hall), who did not choose to
maintain every abuse, fashioning it merely into some new
worthless form, but set himself to carry out a useful measure
that would meet the requirements of the metropolis. That
right hon. gentleman had been elevated to the House of
Peers, he presumed, for that good service, for he never
heard of anything else that Lord Llanover had done.
(Laughter.) He was sorry, too, that the right hon. gen-
tleman the Homo Secretary did not follow in his steps—he
did not mean to the House of Lords—(renewed laughter)
—for they were very glad to see him where he was. He
maintained that there were very absurd pretensions to the
inhabitants of the small area of London having a sheriff of
London representing persons who had no sympathy with
him. Then, as to the City Solicitor, he also was not a
fair representative as a legal adviser. He was elected by a
few to look after the interests of the many. Then, as to
the police, the City of London police and the police
magistrates were too circumscribed to give satisfaction to
the metropolis, using the word in its largest acceptation.
Another matter with which his motion proposed to deal
was the question of taxation. The coal tax was reasonable
when established, but it was no longer consistent with
reason or justice that it should now be levied. Having
stated the origin of this tax, and traced its history, he asked
whether an act of Parliament which had been obtained by
such false means and pretences ought not to be inquired
into. Ought they not to investigate how it was that the cor-
poration lived and flourished at the expense of those who
were weak enough to pay this impost P The coal tax was
now 13d. per ton, but he believed that the corporation of the
City of London was not entitled to levy one farthing upon
coal at all. The right hon. gentleman the Secretary for the
Home Department stated that he would tell the house when
he should be prepared with a statement respecting this mat-
ter. But this was a question which they should investigate
before a select committee- They ought not to be asked to
sanction a bill to reform the corporation of London, for the
purpose of taxing the rest of the inhabitants, without some
indication of what was done with the money which the cor-
poration was in the habit of levying. There was another
tax called the metage upon tho import of corn, which, he
believed, brought £14,000 a-year. Now, this tax ought
strictly to be levied not for the benefit of the corporation,
but for the benefit of the conservancy and improvement of
the navigation of the Thames. He hoped he had said suffi-
cient to satisfy the house that there was abundant ground
for an examination into the existing taxation. Another
monstrous grievance was the carriage tax of £70,000 a-year.
Were they to pay that stun for using their own roads and
get nothing inreturn ? There wereotherquestions of finance
also equally deserving of investigation. In point of form he
could not put his motion, but he hoped that when the bill
went into committee it would go charged with the inquiries
he had indicated.
Mr. W. WILLIAMS said that the cost of administer-
ing the corporation of London was much more than
would be required for administering the corporation of
the whole metropolis, and what was wanted was a reform
based upon a comprehensive view of the wants of the
entire inhabitante of this great capital. The present Cor-
poration was the most corrupt, the most wasteful, and the
most extravagant that he knew of. They expended three
times as much as their revenue. The late commission had
laid bare the whole of their affairs, and even the members
of the corporation were not aware of the abuses, and were
surprised at the discoveries that were made. In the year to
which he referred 12 of the principal officers of the Com-
mon Council received £2,955 more than 12 of the Cabinet
Ministers. There was no provision in the bill to rectify
these grievous abuses. Of the £lOO,OOO a year received by
the Corporation, £155,000 was received from coals, corn,
salt, and potatoes coming into the port of London. He
thought the house ought to reject the bill altogether, and
he was sure that even if the matter was left to the Corpora-
iion they would bring in a better bill themselves. The ex-
penditure of the Corporation was enormous, and ought not
to be continued. It was equal to £2 12s. 6d. a head upon
the population of London.
Sir G. C. LEWIS said he was sure that nothing had been
stated that evening that would warrant the house to reject
the bill before it. He would not go through the various
antiquarian researches presented to the house in the course
of the lengthened address of the hon. and learned member
for the Tower Hamlets, but would proceed to observe that,
after the passing of the Reform Bill of 1831' one of the
first recommendations of the house was, that it should pro-
ceed to pass an act for the reform of the municipal corpo-
rations of England. That act was passed, but the Corpora-
tion of London was excluded from that act, and the reason
given was, that the basis upon which the Corporation of
London rested was a model of popular representation ; and
for years afterwards it remained unaffected. Subsequently
complaints having been made, the commission of 1851 sat
to inquire by what means the abuses complained of could be
remedied. It should be borne in mind, however, that the
question referred to that commission was not the extensive
question of reform for the whole of the metropolis, but merely
for the city of London itself. The commission (of whom he
was one) ozpressed certain opinions, and made certain sug-
gestions, and most of those opinions he retained still un-
changed. The commissioners did not propose, as had been
said, a corporate administration of such dimensions that it
would overshadow the dignity of the Crown. On the con-
trary, they recommended the adoption of a scheme for the
City only. They proposed that the metropolis should be
divided into districts, each under a separate municipal
organisation, and that there should be a general metropo-
litan board of works. [The right hon. gentleman then
read from the report of the Commissioners the passages
embodying those suggestions.] He had no wish to detract
from the credit which had been given to Lord Llanover for
what he had done in reference to the Board of Works. The
principle, however, of the Metropolitan Board of Works
Act was first proposed by the Commissioners of which he
(Sir G. C. Lewis) was one, and the noble lord, in proposing
his measure, referred to the report of the commission as
that upon which he founded his measure. His right hon.
friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster founded
his bill for a reform of the Corporation of the City of Lon-
don on the report of the Commission of 1851, which con-
tained many more of the recormnendations of the commis-
sioners than this bill. (Hear, hear.) That bill was referred
to a select committee, and it came out of the committee
substantially in the form of the present bill, and that was
the reason why lie had founded this bill on its present
limited basis. He did not concur in the opinion that it
differed from the report of the commissioners,and he
believed that it would be found to be a useful bill as far
as it went. Ile trusted the house would not refuse a
second reading to this bill because some gentlemen did not
think it went far enough. With regard to the prepost:l o
the hon, member for the Tower Hamlets, it was not in
his (Sir G. C. Lewis's) power to accede to it. He could
not understand how it was possible to form the metro-
polis, which had no defined limits, and included a part
of Middlesex, Surrey, Essex, and Kent, into a county
with a lord-lieutenant, its yeomanry and militia, with
its various governments, and the disposal of its judicial
business at one assize. It was quite a novel plan, and in
which ever way it was looked at, he could not see how any
advantage was to be obtained by it. It had never been sug-
gested by any previous inquiry, neither had any Consider.
able persons recommended it. Ile should, however, be glad