Beverley and East Riding Telegraph. — 1895-06-22 (Beverley, Humberside, England)

THE PREMIER AND UNIFICATION. The Daily Chronicle remarks: Lord Rosebery put the case for unification with great directness and strength in th,e speech which he delivered at the opening of the Clerkenwell Town Hall. He showed, in the first place, as we think conclusively, that the alarmists who are prophesying the extinction of local life and patriotism, are dealing with phantoms, not facts. "The unity that we desire for London," said Lord Rosebery, "is not a crushing unity, not a monotonous unity." What interest, we should like to know, could London citizens have in suppressing any spark of their all too scanty common life, or enforcing upoil tbe centre burdens which belonged to the parts? The local authorities have their own work to do, and as the civic sap rises in the tree their duties will increase in weight and importan3e. The day is coming when every vestryman in London will look down upon the Common Council. And the longer it blocks the way the more ignominious will the end be. They may stay for a few years longer a spectacles to the world and an offence to the common life, or they may find salvation and make the old traditions shine once more in the service of a united London. The Daily News writes: Lord Rosebery repeated the assurance we have constantly given to the public that the nearness of the General Election has been considerable over-estimated both by friends and foes of the Government. It is not likely, however, that any attempt will be made to deal with the question of the units of London in the present Parliament. In these circumstances, the one thing for the Government to do is what Lord Rosebery did. The people of London must be made fully acquainted not only with the general principles, but with the actual details of the Government Bill. An overwhelming majority of London voters, Tory as well as Liberal, would probably choose Lord Rosebery rather than any other Statesman for the settlement of this problem. He is not only deeply interested in the subject, while his rivals are indifferent, but he knows all about the question and Lord Salisbury knows nothing. The Daily Telegraph has the following: No small part of the enthusiasm which was aroused by the report of the Commission was occasioned by the apotheosis it suggested of the County Council—the triumphant development of a municipal body into an omniscient and omnipotent Senate of the Metropolis. Lord Rosebery, we are glad to find, does not for a moment accept such a consummation as comii.g within the range of practical politics ; and indeed, now that the wings of the Progressive Icarus have been clipped, and his ambitious flight into the void inane has been rudely checked by the suffrages of our fellow-citizens, we should imagine that the "overgrown Municipal Parliament" may be put aside for a more convenient season—together with some other expensive and useless Ranical toys. It is even conceivable that the famous Report of the Royal Commission may ultimately find its way into the limbo from which legislative projects have some difficulty in returning. The Daily Graphic considers that it is a false analogy to argue from the case of the provincial town in which a single municipality works well. London is too big for that. London is not a town, it is a collection of towns—a province—a nation, containing a larger population than many a Sovereign State. Make London a municipal unit and you drift inevitably into all the abuses of Tammany Hall, and, likely enough, into all the extravagancies of that egregious body the Municipal Council of Paris. If a central body, such as Lord Rosebery suggests, be formed for the purposes , of general control its powers will have tc be very strictly defined and limited so as to allow the free autonomous development of the various local bodies.  Sir Edward Reed has consented to stand again as a Liberal candidate for Cardiff. At Jarrow, an old woman named Elizabeth Urquhart was charged with the wilful murder of her husband by administering rat poison. He had been paralysed for about two years, and was confined to his bed for most of the time. The prisoner said her husband stirred up the poison and drank it himself. Prisoner was remanded until after the coroner's inquest.