The Sun.
London, England, 1866-12-21 00:00:00

SPIRIE OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS

TI3IES.—It carries one into the depths of the
time to come to hear a talk of municipalities, and a
common municipality, for this metropolis. When
shall these things be ? It is one of those mighty
works to be done that remain to stimulate the
youthful imagination and nerve ambition. Young
and old dream of a great city that, in its unity, its
order, its reign of wholesome laws, its plan, and its
beauty, shall be worthy of this empire. A grand
ideal hitherto has only resided in a name, and in
the minutest and most indistinct embryo—the name
of London, which, after all, is only a popular, and
not a legal denomination. Indeed, when people talk
of London, they leave the particular meaning of
the word to be inferred from the context. It is
only of late years that we have come to the inevit-
able conclusion that for many public purposes we
must take au immense area, including the very dis-
tant suburbs, and containing an estimated popula-
tion of three millions. This we call the British
metropolis, and wish to see in closer union. For
the purposes of drainage it has lately been brought
under the Metropolitan Board of Works, and that
Board has even been made the medium of a general
rate for the relief of the houseless poor. At its own
request it has been charged with the making of the
Thames Embankment and the new approaches.
Thus far it must be thought to have succeeded, but
the more it does the more it has to do. We work
the willing horse ; but the Board does not rise high
enough or descend low enough. In dignity it pales
before the Corporation of the City, and for many
local purposes it has not the power of the smallest
borough corporation or parish vestry. So they
who have cast their lot in London are looking
about for some organisation that shall both come
nearer and go further, that shall combine the
homeliness of the village and the convenience of a
town with the grandeur of a great city. The most
zealous of them met lately in St. James's-hall, the
chosen seene for all our grandest enterprises.
The two points specially urged were' the great
number and variety of cross divisions and jurisdic-
tions, and the lavish expenditure in some districts
as compared with others. London is divided in one
way for registration, in another way for the Build-
ing Act, in another way for the Police, in another
way for the County Courts, in another way for the
Militia, in other ways for Inland Revenue, for the
Post, for gas, for water, and for Parliamentary pur-
poses. Indeed, it is impossible to say how many
maps would be necessary to show all these divisions.
No doubt, if any new occasion could be found, a
new division would be extemporised. Practically,
the metropolis is infinite iu bulk, and infinite also
in its complexity ; and in a material of this sort
there must be always the desire and hope of some
simplification. No one can dive into metropolitan
statistics and topography without longing to apply
some law to the chaos. Then, it is impossible
that there should not be waste of money and
official strength in the indefinite multiplication of
departments, and therefore of offices. But, as one
gentleman showed at St. James's Hall, this is not
merely a matter of inference. There is no very great
difference between the rates to be collected in West-
minster and Marylebone, but as the latter has one
board, and the former five, the administrative ex-
penses in Marylebone are £B,OOO a year, and in
Westlninster £20,000; so that the ratepayers of
'Westminster are paying, for management alone, 150
per cent. more than the ratepayers of Marylebone.
There can be no doubt that multiplicity, variety,
and intricacy oppose insurmountable obstacles to
good and economical administration. The stoutest
reformers are driven wild or paralysed when they
enter these labyrinths. One might as well throw
oneself into a jungle known to be full of wild
beasts, venomous things, and malaria, as wage war
with the multifarious waste going on under these
infinitelyldivided responsibilities. A man must have
a hundred lives for the work. Many have tried
their hands at it only to find they would lose health,
strength, temper, and substance before they could
achieve anything worth the sacrifice. And this is
what we call self-government, which, as interpreted
in the Metropolis, means that the twenty thousand
principal shareholders are not to have the least share
in the management•of their own affairs, or the least
knowledge of them, or be even acquainted with the
names and characters of the persons who make
arrangements in which they themselves are much
concerned, and levy rates which they have to pay.
The plan which seemed to find most favour with the
gentlemen who met at St. James's Hall is that the
metropolis should be divided into boroughs for
municipal purposes, combined for common objects
in one great municipality. The Corporation of the
City is said to be so much in favour of this plan as
to offer influence and even pecuniary aid. It is a
very pretty and symmetrical idea, and very like the
model Constitutions one has read of. But this is a
practical question. The evils to be avoidel are
practical ; the difficulties are practical, and so are.
the objects. The metropolis was excepted from the
operation of the Muncipal Reform Act at the urgent
entreaty of the City Corporation, but for reasons
which found acceptance. The metropolis always
has been treated exceptionally. Even the Parli L-
mentary position of the metropolis is exceptional,
for with half the population of Ireland it has only
one-fifth of her share in the representation. In the
neighbouring empire, Paris and Lyons are the only
two cities that are not allowed to govern themselves,
both being governed by nominated Councils. There
are obvious reasons why an elective and compre-
hensive organisation would be a dangerous experi-
ment in a population of three millions, inhabiting
the seat of Government and the Legislature. Yet we
certainly should like to see something done in the
direction of good and simple goverrment, if only
to enlist the energies of a higher class of amen in
the welfare of the metropolis: Even a century ago
it was complained that London was one of the most
slovenly and ill-cared for cities in the world, and
some of the matters of that complaint are unamended
to this day.. So there is plenty to do, and plenty
that may be done. But we cannot forget that Lon-
don, with the population and revenue of a conside-
rable State, has also its variety. It comprises the
seat of Government, the annual gathering of the
aristocracy, the courts of law, the commercial capital,
the chief port, an immense number of national insti-
tutions, and many important manufactures. It is
impossible to conceive a greater variety of popula-
tions and pursuits than are found in the metropo-
litan bounds. The unity to be made out of such
materials can only be approximate and practical ; it
cannot be absolute and theoretical. The difficulties
of the case will be better understood: if some of the
advocates of a Metropolitan Municipality will sit
down and attempt to draw out a complete plan. If
they do, they will themselves probably be the first to
wish their own plan revised.
DAILY NEWS.—An explosion of the anti-military
spirit of the age is the latest, and not one of the
least curious and interesting, surprises which the
Second Empire has reserved for the sadder, if not
the wiser, period of its history. There was a some-
what similar movement of opinion, it may be said,
in the latter days of the First Napoleon. But the
resemblance is superficial only. It is neither a com-
pliment nor a calumny to represent the Second Em-
pire as much more unlike than like the First, thanks
to the civilising progress, or at all events to the
altered conditions of Europe. M. Veuillot describes
the Paris of to-day as the " site of a great unfinished
city." It would not be more extravagant to de-
scribe the military history of the Second Empire as
a gallery of splendid but unfinished pictures. There
has been one war of. two years and another of
six months, and three foreign expeditions and two
foreign occupations ; there have been brilliant
camps of exercise,. enormous constructions of bar-
racks, imposing reviews. Yet on the whole,
the Second Empire has shown neither the lust nor
the latitude of glory. The wars it has waged have
not been very obviously to the public mind under-
taken for the profit, honour, or advantage of
France ; and as to the foreign expeditions, they
have been inexplicable caprices, fantastic adven-
tures, or prodigious speculations ; and though they
have left their marks upon the budgets and upon
many .a French household, it has not been their cos

in blood or treasure that has cooled the military
fervour of the nation and disabused it of the old
passion for victory. After two millions of French-
men had been swept by the conscription into the
armies of the First Emperor, and offered up as a
holocaust to insatiable ambition—after the disaster
of Leipzic and the tragedy of Moscow—it was
time that France should begin to sicken of war and
glory, and that from deserted field and desolate
hearth a cry for peace and quiet should arise. The
patriotic fury that hurled the armies of the Con-

vention againse the league of monarchs had long
burnt itself out ; to the passion of conquest had
succeeded satiety, and the fever of victory had sunk
'-`,o exhaustion. When the banished Emperor set
gain on the shore of Provence the:magic of his
and presence could rally an army to his stan-
but the nation was no longer there. It was
when the enemy gathered on the frontiers, but
not to fill the gaps in the ranks or to pour its trea-

name
dard,
there

sure into the Military chest. The loie of righting
for fighting's sake had died out. Invasion, the
martyrdom of the Great Captain, the sufferings of
his disbanded soldiers, their alliance with the revo-
lutionary party, even the interested vanity of the
restored dynasty, the appearance of a new gene-
ration on the scene, the restlessuess of the na-

tional temper, the impatience 'of repose, united
to rekindle this military spirit within eight years
after the fall of Napoleon ;* and again, seven
years later, the monarchy of July, though peace-
fully inclined, made the memories and traditions
of the Empire its own. ThL.re was, however,
no anti-military reaction of public feeling during

Louis Philippe's reign. How comes it that the
Second Empire, after •15 years of ease and pros-
perity, broken only by short, comparatively inex-
pensive, and successful wars, finds itself in the pre-
sence of a peaceful public, the moment it provides a
measure for the reorganisation of the army, which
would double its effective and convert the whole
civilian population into a reserve ; a measure, it
should seem, called for with loud cries last summer
by many who denounce it in the autumn ? More
than one explanation of this singular revulsion of
public feeling may be assigned with sufficient pro-
bability. Assuredly it is not to be assigned to the
causes which signalised the decline and fate of the
First Empire. The forces of the Second Empire
have been constantly victorious, so all the world
knows, even in Mexico, and still hold their ground
in Cochin China. They have suffered no reverses
in Europe. All their campaigns have not consumed
a tithe of a single conscription of the first Napoleon.
His successor has given to that military spirit which
is never long dormant in France, not only the in-
citement of waging short and successful wars, but
the more subtle stimulus of looking on while a great
rival military Power was establishing by force of
arms its supremacy in Central Europe. He has heel'
aided by the zeal of the Opposition in denouncing
the ambition of Prussia, and demanding new sect"'
rities against Prussian aggression in the develop-
ment of the military resources of France. And yet
upon the appe.irance of a well-considered scheme for
the reorganisation of the army, to which all the
Marshals have:contributed their counsels, and the
Emperor himself has set the seal of his approval,
a scheme which at the probable cost of
some two millions sterling a year makes
every Frenchman out .of his teens, capable
of bearing arms, a soldier, if not of an
offensive, of a defensive army, public opinion
throughout France declares itself in spite of all re-
strictions or impediments unequivocally, and all but
unanimously, opposed to its adoption. Every jour-
nal with the slightest pretension to independence
condemns it utterly ; even the Government organs
halt and hesitate in defending it. Even the papers
that demanded some measure of the sort most 01'
phatically denounce it as almost equivalent to a
declaration of war against Europe ; as an act Of
arbitrary government at home, as a scheme of de-
population ; as the ruin of industry, commerce, and,
agriculture ; as an outrage upon civilisation. And
it is asked, " Why invite all nations to a Congress
of Peace in the Champ de Mars in 1867, if you arne
about to turn all France into a camp or a barrack,,
Are there not barracks enough in France already
This extraordinary movement of the public mind in
France is indeed a startling novelty, and we must
sincerely congratulate our gallant neighbours on the
evidence it affords to the most incredulous witnesses
of their gradual awakening to a sense of the true
conditions of modern civilisation, and their recoveri,
from the old fever and folly of glory. It wool'
probably be an injustice to the Second Empire. to
refuse it the credit of having provoked this anti;
warlike spirit, not only by its encouragement 0'
peaceful arts and enterprises, not only by the
example of some aimless wars and abortive expedi-
tions, but by the simple fact of its own existence as
an essentially military government, and by the
natural law of attraction and repulsion which under
the monarchy of July made the Liberal. Opposition
ardent for war, and under the Second Empire
makes them sick of soldiering and eager for peace.