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

Municipalities for the Metropolis.

Under the auspices of the Metropolitan Municipal
Association, which has been formed within the last
few months for promoting the better local govern-
ment of the Metropolis, and which has Lord Ebury
for president and 15 members of Parliament for vice-
presidents, a meeting was held in St. James's-hall,
Regent-street, last evening. Among those present
were Mr. C. Buxton, M.P., who presided ; Mr. T.
Hughes, M.P. ; Sir W. Fraser, Mr. J. C. Buck-
master, Dr. Farr, and Mr. G. Horton, of the Re-
gistrar-General's Department. The audience in-
cluded members of many of the metropolitan ves-
tries and other governing bodies.
The CHAIRMAN, in opening the proceedings, said
that the administration of the affairs of this great
metropolis was a disgrace to us as Englishmen. Never
in the world was there a nobler opportunity- for
self-government; never was an opportunity more
shamefully thrown away. Here, on the one hand,
we had a city in itself a State, a kingdom, inha-
bited, one might almost say, by a nation of its
own, with 3,000,000 of people within its borders,
its real property alone producing .£13,000,000 per
annum ; and containing, moreover, boundl ss sup-
plies of ability, energy, and public spirit, of English-
men accustomed to self-government, and imbued
with a sincere desire, not only to be well ruled them-
selves, but to rule others well too. Such was the op-
portunity; what was the use made of it? Of govern-
ing bodies, no doubt, we had a plethora; but of
organisation, of combination among them, so as to
carry on their administration of affairs with eco-
nomy of power, of this at present we had none. As
Mr. Horton, in his valuable pamphlet, pointed out
—" The metropolis is divided into 37 districts for
the purposes of registration of births, into 56 districts
for the duties of the Building Act, into 19 divisions
for police purposes, into 13 County Court districts,
into 15 militia districts, and additional divisions for
Inland Revenue, postal, gas and water, and Parlia-
mentary purposes ; so that a map must have 14 or
15 different boundaries to represent in each area the
controlling powers." The first thing to aim at
should be this—that the areas of authority should be
the same, that Loudon should be divided into cer-
tain districts, and that each of these districts should
\
be completely self-governing for all and every pur-
pose, so that each householder 'should feel that he
as a citizen, as it were, of that city. (Hear, hear.)
every
Next we should seek this, that in each of these dis-
tricts householder should be enabled to take a
direct partaniidi the election
hislect ion of those who were to go-
vern him
money.
elected
A
acts of these authorities
s
tednsdh,o3uLlyb,
e thatdon
done as
far as possible under the publi •
c eye, and an account
should be rendered by them every year of their
stewardship to those -whose money they bad been
spending. If we wanted work to be well done, the
One vital thing was that the worker should feel that
he was watched. These were the main points that
ought to be kept in view. we heard a great deal
nowadays about the educating effect of local self-
government upon the people. Bad administration,
whether local or imperial, was bad education. It
made people even more selfish, narrow-minded, de-
spotic, and indifferent to the public good than they
were before. On the contrary, good administration
was the best of all educations; it raised the tone of
thought and feeling amona those who ruled, and,
The association was
among those who were ruled.
not going to sweep away local self-government.
The work it had taken in hand, and which, by
God's help, it would carry through, was to make it,
so far as it could be, perfect and pure- (Applause.)
Mr. J. C. BUCKMASTER moved the first resolu-
tion as follows :

"That in the opinion of this meeting the present system
of local governmont in the metropolis is highly
in efficient
and unsatisfactory, and requires immediate revision ; the
number of local bodies now participating in such govern-
=lnt being unnecessarily large, and occasioning a consider-
able amount of unnecessary expenditure."
He said that the association had no hostile feeling
towards existing boards, and that it had no selfish
or party purpose to promote. The requirements of
the metropolis had outgrown the present system of
parochial administration. Ile compared the high
price of gas in London with its price in several
other towns. (A Voice—" Don't they get their
coal cheaper?" and " Hear, hear.") Yes ; but all
the products of gas manufacture fetched a far
higher price in London than they did in other places,
and that more than made up for the distance the
coal had to be carried. (Hear.)
Mr. T. HUGHES, M.P., in seconding the resolu-
tion, said he was glad when he was invited to join
the association and when its bill was put into his
hands. It .was a bill he should be glad to gee
pressed forward in the House of Commons, because,
whether one might agree with all its details or not, it
was founded on a large and clear view of what was
required, and it proposed a specific remedy. He
had lately looked at this question as a representative
of a large metropolitan constituency. Such a mem-
ber fancied that he represented some entity ; but he
found when he went into his borough that it was
all chaos. He was born near a small market town,

which possessed a good town-hall, which would
hold 1,500 people ; but Lambeth was destitute
of a good room for a public meeting. He could give
numerous other instances of deficiencies attributable
to imperfect local government which bad come up
during his representation of the borough. There
was, indeed, no corporate life in it ; and he hoped
ere long to see something like municipal life in all
the metropolitan boroughs. Without that things
would become worse and worse. In other large
towns there were flourishing free libraries. A meet-
ing was held the other night respecting one for
Lambeth. The Free Libraries Act was consulted,
and it was found that it required a corporation to
put it in motion. The case was one for a radical
reform. No one could doubt that there were too
many governing bodies, and that, with proper or-
ganisation, three or four times the amount of work
now done could be accomplished. An apt illustra-
tion of the cost of the present system was furnished
in the following figures andlacts, quoted from the
association's address :
"Marylebone parish collects £194,036; Westminster
city, £194,031; plus police and county rate—Marylebone,
£38,167; Westminster, £78,814. The sa,lary.and poundage
are respectively—Marylebone, £7,711; Westminster,
£17,462. Marylebone parish is managed by one vestry,
and its administrative expenses are under £B,OOO per an-
num, while the five Boards of local management in West-
minster cost nearly £20,000. These five Boards employ
21 clerks and vestry clerks, six surveyors, four solicitors,
nine officers ff health, six inspectors of nuisances—all
these officers being employed for the purpose of carrying
out the provisions of the Metropolis Local Management
Act."

At least it appeared that much abused body, the
Marylebone vestry, managed to do their work with
considerable economy. (Hear, bear.) This huge
city ought to be the best managed and the best
lighted in the world, and the best supplied with
water, instead of being in these respects, or some
of them, perhaps the worst ; and it was, therefore,
the duty of every citizen to do what he could in
the way of reform, and to save us from presenting
to the world a spectacle of absurd incapacity in re-
ference to matters requiring very ordinary skill in
our organisation and self-government. (Applause.)
Sir Wit. FRAZER supported the resolution. He
said that the government of London was inferior to
that of almost every other town. No oue could
doubt the evidence of his senses as to the streets
being badly paved and covered with mud, and the
gas being bad in quality and insufficient in quan-
tity. He would not burden their measure unneces-
sarily with details ; and he did not see the slightest
necessity for making this a party question.

- -
In reply to numerous inquiries as to the exelu-.
sion of the city of London,
Mr. BUCK3IASTER said that to have attacked the
city of London would have raised a storm of oppo-
sition that the association was not strong enough in
its infancy to encounter, but they were not precluded
from dealing with the city of London when it could
be done.
The resolution was carried.

Mr. J. BEAL, in moving the second resolution,
said that it was not the object of the association to
destroy any single element of local self-government,
but to build up real municipal power in the metro-
polis. It was a mistake to suppose that the move-
ment in favour of municipalities was an attack upon
vestries ; it was an effort to clothe them with dignity
and power. lle pointed out how powerless the
divided vestries of the metropolis were to deal with
joint-stock gas and water monopolies, especially as
compared with the municipality of the city, and in-
sisted that the strength that would be derived from
the union of the parishes in municipal boroughs
would command more respect than was associated
with deputations going to Downing-street to ask
Government to do what municipal boroughs might
do for themselves. The City Corporation went
thoroughly with the association ; and when the rest
of the metropolis had reached the position of the
city, and had done for the people what the Corpo-
ration had done for its citizens, it would then be
time to talk of reforming the City Corporation.
Some members of that Corporation had gone so
far as to propose that £5,000 should be voted to
each borough for the purpose of promoting the
objects of the association. Referring to IVest-
minster, he said that repeated efforts had been made
to induce its nominal Corporation to invest with
reality ; but the present Dean, like his predecessor,
said that he was not disposed to take any action in
the matter. He moved the following resolution :

" That any attempt to amend the existing system would
be ineffectual, and that nothing lees than the establishment
of municipal institutions similar to those enjoyed by other
cities and towns in the kingdom would secure a government
calculated to command the confidence of the inhabitants."

Dr. FARR seconded the resolution, referring to
some of the evils that resulted from the ill-organisa-
tion of the metropolis. Diseases bad decimated the
population, and they arose from the neglect of
regulations which a municipality alone could carry
out. The object now was to constitute the Metro-
politan Board of Works a great municipality, with
l 0 or 11 municipalities affiliated to it.

Mr.E. HUGHES, of Woolwich, supported the reso-
lution, pointing out that the Woolwich District
Board, which could not tax surrounding parishes,
was debarred from providing a free library and un-
dertaking other useful measures, because they would
be participated in by those who did not contribute
to the cost.

The resolution was carried unanimously.
Mr. PHILLIPS moved the third resolution, that a
deputation. consisting of vice-presidents of the asso-
ciation, with power to add to their number, should
wait upon the Home Secretary to submit the fore-
going resolutions, and to urge upon the Govern-
ment the necessity of immediate legislation to carry
out the suggestions therein contained.
This having been carried, a vote of thanks to the
chairman terminated the proceedings.