§ [ADJOURNED DEBATE.] [SECOND NIGHT.]
§ Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [3rd July], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
§
And which Amendment was,
To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "while ready to consider the question of a reform in the Government of London, this House declines to assent to a proposal by which the control over the levying and expenditure of rates would be vested in one central body to the practical extinction of the local self-government of the various cities and boroughs of the Metropolis,"—(Mr. Ritchie,)
—instead thereof.
§ Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
§ Debate resumed.
§ MR. W. M. TORRENSI will not discuss the question raised by my hon. Friend opposite as to the possibility of this Bill going further. But I believe the people of London are much interested in the determination by this House of what I take to be the principle of the Bill, which principle is legitimately raised at this stage on the second reading. Moreover, I think it would be of great importance to the future good government of the Metropolis, if the House should come to a wise conclusion as to what the fundamental principle of legislation on this subject should be. My hon. Friend on this side of the House, in his ingenuous speech last night, contended that what is called local government as now existing in London is in that sense worth little or nothing. 54 I am of opinion that the people value very highly their present system for self-protection against wasteful expenditure and reckless overcharge, although, perhaps, they may not consider it is the most complete system that can be devised. But I do not believe that they wish to be divested of their only guard against the costly caprices of centralization, without knowing distinctly why they are to be deprived of the powers which they have exercised under the direction of Parliament without question, for a quarter of a century. For my own part, I do not like to hear the Ministers of the Queen disparage existing institutions, which they ought rather to support. I differ from my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board, as to the way in which he and the Home Secretary have held up to ridicule the existing Municipalities of this our "Province covered with houses." These institutions were invented by Parliament, and confirmed by Statute over and over again, and under them a vast amount of useful work has been done, and an enormous amount of taxation has been levied. One of our best and wisest traditions, seldom if ever departed from, is that which forbids exceptional legislation for any Province of the Empire, unless its unruly and disobedient condition renders the operation of ordinary laws abortive; or unless the specific change is demanded in clear and unmistakeable terms by a decisive preponderance of the industry, wealth, and intelligence of the community, whose normal rights are about to be taken away. Neither of these conditions can be alleged on the present occasion. The Province of London, consisting of the 10 cities and boroughs of the Thames, with a vast appendant fringe of urban property and population, is not only the richest and most independent, but the most peaceful and orderly Province in the Kingdom. Two facts suffice to attest the character of the Metropolis in this respect—the unexampled increase of rateable property possessed by an unparalleled number of industrious owners; and the proportionate diminution of the civil force found necessary by the Executive to preserve order. Is it because this great cluster of separate and self-supporting towns is diligent in business, fervent in loyal spirit, uncomplaining beneath heavy burthens, and untiring in 55 works of education and charity, that it is to be capriciously divested of the Municipal independence which all other boroughs in the Kingdom enjoy? If each and all of the cities of the Thames have been judged fit, for many years, to send separate Members to this House, to take part in the supreme Council of the nation, are they to be disfranchised, without their consent, of those local rights of self-rule which, time out of mind, every important borough around them exercises; and all this wanton change in defiance of the multiplied protest and prayers of their existing Municipal Authorities, and of great bodies of ratepayers besides, expressing their spontaneous will? It is mere trifling to treat the opposition to this Bill as only a City question. Since its introduction, three months ago, 180 Petitions have been presented against it; not a dozen in its favour; and, inasmuch as no fewer than 140 have been signed by the chairman only of a public body or a public meeting, the number of ratepayers actually represented by adverse Petitions cannot be computed at less than 40,000 or 50,000. Other tests of public opinion, equally cogent, it does not become the Legislature to disregard. Notwithstanding the influence of the Government, who are to be endowed with a vast amount of local patronage for the centralized working of the measure, and temptations of every degree held forth in the prospect of retiring pensions for the numerous office bearers under the present system in each constituency, what is the known judgment of a decisive majority of Metropolitan Members? Is it conceivable that, irrespective of Party, class, and calling, two to one of my hon. Friends and Colleagues not holding Ministerial Office should have openly expressed opinions hostile to the scheme? What right, I ask, has this House to disregard, in so signal a manner, the reciprocal respect always presumed, and always professed, for the local wishes and predilections of each constituent Province of the Empire? If we asked to be treated differently from all the rest, or if we set up some new-fangled claim to Corporate rule, jealousy of innovation, or the fear of untried example, might justify the attempt to overbear a representative minority by the unconcerned votes of mere numbers. But we ask for nothing that 56 the oldest cities and the smallest county towns have not possessed by Charter or Statute time out of mind—nothing that the largest and most populous manufacturing towns, uprisen to importance in our own day, have not been emulous to obtain. We ask no more; but we shall certainly be content with no less. A flimsy and futile excuse is made that until we were threatened with what is miscalled "unification," separate Charters have not been asked for. Well, what has this rather unfair reproach come to? Nine-and-twenty years ago, Parliament thought fit to impose an imperfectly developed Municipal system for London, chiefly with the object of modernizing certain portions of parochial rule; and creating the means of electing—for a few great common purposes, thoroughfares, and thorough drains, river embankments, and open bridges—the useful body called the Metropolitan Board of Works. Many public men of experience demurred at the time to the shortcomings of the Vestry scheme; but as it left each of the great localities the control of its own rates and taxes, and secured to the active and energetic men, whose worth was known to their neighbours, an effective voice in the management of their own concerns, the confiding and good-natured townsmen of Middlesex and Surrey set to working out the experimental institutions allotted them. And I maintain that, though, in some instances, they may have failed, in the main the Vestries have done as well as could have been expected, and that the business of local self-government in Marylebone, Paddington, St. George's, Hanover Square, Islington, and many others, have been more economical and efficient than that of several of our boastful Provincial towns. But if Whitehall, in its wisdom, has discovered that something better may be attempted, why are not the great communities, whose fates and whose rates, whose privilege and whose pride, are at stake, consulted as to the changes they would desire? Anything else, disguise it as you will, is mere political empiricism. I have myself been asked, in taunt, why, if I prefer separate Municipalities, and if I believe the people would prefer them, I have not brought forward a competing plan of that kind this Session? My answer is easy and plain. Long before the introduction of the present 57 measure, the principle of further Parliamentary Reform was, after full debate, adopted by the House; but only adopted upon the assurance, given in the most emphatic terms by Ministers, that a Redistribution Bill should be brought in next Session, in which we were told that the representation of London should be reconstructed in proportion to population and property. Would any man in his senses have proposed the municipal rearrangement of our Metropolitan boroughs, pending their Parliamentary redistribution? We do not want fantastical or outlandish lines of demarcation on different maps for different purposes. Ours is the old-fashioned English notion that every borough deemed entitled to send separate Members to Parliament ought to have its own centre and source of municipal life within itself. For good or for evil, this has been the acknowledged principle of local self-rule in the Realm for centuries. Despotic Kings and conspiring Ministers have, at various times, endeavoured to subvert it; but they have never succeeded for long; the practical good sense of the community has always reclaimed the privileges of which it was sought to despoil them; and we see no reason, because we happen to dwell on the banks of the same great river, that we should be treated differently, or told to relinquish our separate homes of self-rule for the sake of being flung into one huge truckle-bed of centralization. We look upon this scheme as one of vast monopoly, which, for purposes of practical utility, would prove unworkable; and, for the fancied sake of uniformity, would prove an utter delusion. We do not believe that the aggregate ignorance of local wants is the concentration of general knowledge, or that it would be possible to get the best men of the middle classes to make the sacrifice that would be necessary all the year round of time and health and labour in the infinite details of local government for 4,000,000 of people. If you insist on making the attempt, the first thing you ought to do in Committee is to insert a clause that, from and after the passing of this Act, the hours of the day in the Metropolis should be 36, instead of 24. What may be accomplished when that is done my poor wits do not enable me to say; but until you have 58 found the extra time required for the purpose, it would be worse than idle to pretend to believe that independent business men would undertake the overwhelming task: and, if not, what must ensue? Inevitably, though it may be insidiously, and at first almost imperceptibly, the substitution of paid officials for the un bought services of the men whom everywhere in their respective spheres, society in England has hitherto delighted to honour. A more corrupting and disintegrating change than this cannot be conceived. Bad laws of rating, sanitation, or police, when their blunders are laid bare, may be repealed, and better rules about assessment, sewerage, and constabulary may be adopted. But bad habits of local life, and of mean, unmanly dependence on central authority, stipendiary justice, and hired protection are not easily remedied, and when once introduced, can perhaps be never thoroughly eradicated. I do not believe that with all the army of Inspectors, and Sub-Inspectors, Commissioners at high salaries, and assistants, looking to advancement by jobs, clerks without number, and deputies without end, you would get the daily work of Metropolitan administration better done under the control of a Central Council. I am sure that you could not get it done at anything like the same cost to the ratepayers; but, even if you did, I believe it would be dear, very dear indeed, at the money. The pretence that, in a Central Council of 240, triennially chosen by Party excitement and lavish expenditure on blue posters and brass bands, you would got a superior class of men to take charge of the multifarious concerns of 10 great cities and towns, is no more than the inconsiderate chatter of West End Clubs, whose idle members look to the opening of a new career of sociable and political ambition. The promise, indeed, of such notoriety as may be gained by a few canvassing speeches and a few reckless votes when elected is distinctly held out to these pretenders, who, having no definite pursuit, and no practical knowledge, and no spare cash for speculation in Parliament, want a career that, out of nothing, will give them a chance of something. They cannot dig, but to brag they are not ashamed. They know nothing of prices that ought to be paid for contracts; nothing of values 59 that ought to be confirmed or rejected in surveys; nothing of the ebb and flow of the currents of trade; nothing of the pinch and fret and grief of labour; nothing of the puzzle and perplexity, the greed and the gain, that beset the overstrain of our day of competition; but they are ready to jostle from their natural place the sensible and experienced men of the middle classes, who everywhere else justly and rightfully govern local affairs as their fathers had done before them. I do not hesitate to say that this sort of over-centralization is in every sense and every aspect capable only of producing disappointment and mischief; that, however well meant as a monster experiment, its blunder would end in plunder; because it would gradually stifle all hope or possibility of spontaneous local control, substituting, or rather pretending to substitute for it, that which must, upon trial, be found utterly ineffectual. The opportunity of taxing without check or limit £30,000,000 of rateable property is too great a temption to be offered to any set of men, or rather to a majority of any set of men, chosen as this Council would be. The first few flagrant cases of partizanship or jobbery might be brought before this House; but the instincts of self-preservation would soon compel us to discourage such appeals. We are not in a condition to trifle with any serious addition to our judicial taskwork, already grievously overgrown Two years ago, we were asked to surrender many of our valued privileges for the sake of gaining a few hours of indispensable time; but if we are asked to review and revise the local controversies of 10 Metropolitan cities, how shall we ever get to bed? We shall soon be asked to sit upon Saturday, and I tremble even for the Sabbath. Only conceive the additional number of Questions that would appear on the Paper daily about matters of which the House could possibly know nothing, and the answers to which it could not possibly understand. And all this for what? To afford 240 loud-voiced demagogues and passive nominees of the Government of the day the opportunity of calling themselves Town Councillors; and hustling out of their proper places the men who best understand how local work should be done. Apart from all other considerations, the moral and social value of local self-rule is ineffably great; 60 as well described by Lord Russell, when showing how closely connected it has always been with our representative system, in which all men of public energy and talent cannot bear a part, it taps everywhere near its source the social ambition to render public service, which, in the main, has so much to do with all that is good and sound in our national life. The Secretary of State for the Home Department has criticized with great severity the incidents of the late agitation in certain parts of the Metropolis; but he has entirely failed to show that the public in general sympathize with the shouting and hooting of a few misconducted crowds here and there; or that the opinions and wishes of the magistrates, clergy, proprietors, employers, professional men, and respectable traders of every degree are in favour of this fantastical and outlandish measure. I freely admit that some of the public meetings recently called to discuss its provisions have been disgraced by interruption and clamour. I am sorry to say that resort to unworthy expedients of this kind for out-voting and overpowering opponents has of late grown more common than it used to be. By whomsoever used, or on whatsoever pretence, I think we are all bound to repudiate what is really nothing more or less than a return to barbarism by the needy and ignorant who lend themselves to such proceedings. But I entirely deny that the bulk of the thoughtful, industrious, and respectable community are swayed in the least degree by feeble and factious efforts at uproar, of which, after all, not one in 20 of them have ever heard. I can truly say of my own constituency that, with very few exceptions, the feeling is unanimous against any further experiments in centralism, of which they think they have already had more than enough. They know that their rates have doubled of late years, and that they are still increasing, not by local extravagance, but owing to fresh impositions exacted by precept, which they may not dispute or cut down, from the Central Bodies which have been given control over poor relief, asylums, drainage, and schools. I scarce know a man whose judgment in practical matters I am used to consult, in suburb, City, or West End, who does not regard this Bill as unworkable. The real author of the scheme is the hon. and 61 learned Gentleman the junior Member for Chelsea; for it is the reproduction in all its leading provisions of that which he brought in four years ago: even the mystical number of the proposed Town Council being the same in both. When asked why police and water supply were omitted in this new edition of Municipal monopoly, my hon. and learned Friend candidly owned that these were left out for the present only; but that once the novel power was firmly seated in the position now claimed for it, these and every other department would gradually be clutched, and would inevitably be won. We are asked, in short, to enact this measure as a first chapter in the code of expropriation and absorption. In one of his many speeches on the subject out-of-doors, he has foreshadowed the certain progress of Municipal confiscation. The shows and hospitalities of the City would be allowed for a time to remain; but its endowments and trusts are certain eventually to go. The civil force of the capital would shortly be placed under the command of a chief magistrate, chosen, it might be, without any previous qualification, by popular whim. Waterworks, hospitals, thoroughfares, public places of recreation, workmen's dwellings, board schools, gas lightings, and workhouses, must all be brought within the one irresponsible grasp, and be rendered submissive to its paramount will. Well might he sum up the whole in the significant phrase that what he and his friends desire is the creation of a London Parliament. A pleasant look out this for the sorely-perplexed and much troubled Body that has hitherto borne exclusively the name of Legislature within this Realm. Well, Sir, we do not want any clique of men, however, chosen absolutely to rule over us. We have had abundant and varied experience of fiscal centralization, and we want no more of it. Assimilation of wood-pavement, fireplugs, gas lamps, and the rules of oakum picking, may be important improvements in the pragmatical opinion of Whitehall; but even these prodigious benefits may be bought too dear. Any material benefit would be bought too dear if purchased at the sacrifice of local life and local self-content. The 10 cities of the Thames, like other enlightened cities, know the value of co-operation for common purposes, which are comparatively 62 few; but they comprehend likewise the advantages, which are comparatively many, of the application of their own resources to their own wants, and of competition in the means adopted for supplying them. We do not ask you to revoke what you have already decreed in the way of a common poor fund, a common school rate, or a Metropolitan Board of Works; though I hope my hon. and gallant Friend the Chairman of that Body (Sir James M'Garel-Hogg) will not take it amiss, if I say that we think he and his colleagues in Spring Gardens are already overworked, and that their zeal for the Public Service would earn them more credit if they had fewer subjects to attend to. The prevalent conviction that has grown up and grown strong by experience amongst us is, that in this important matter of Municipal rule, as in every other department of English life, the two things are the true things—local independence, balanced, not overborne, by federative institutions: central authority, acting as umpire and arbiter between occasionally conflicting interests, not ravening for prey at their expense. What would the self-contained and self-reliant towns of Lancashire or Yorkshire, of Scotland or of Ireland, say, if it was proposed to jumble them together under one Mayor, and to allow none of them to make a new sewer, raise a new fountain, christen a new street, make a fresh contract for emptying dust-bins, or hiring another clerk or additional beadle, without asking leave of the dominant faction that happened to be uppermost for the day at Central Quarters? How long do you suppose such an exotic scheme would last? I say exotic, because the only two examples you have been able to find in Christendom are French and American. In the midst of the madness of 1792, Paris was persuaded that it ought to be one and indivisible. With certain intervals of Imperialism, Royalty, and Communism, the forms of Centralized Municipality have been kept up; but how and with what results? At every whirl of the revolutionary wind, the civic machinery has been made subservient to purposes of confusion and convulsion; and such is the dread of the opportunity of mischief it affords, that down to the present day, even under a Democratic Republic, the Mayor of Paris is not allowed to be 63 chosen by the people or their representatives, but is nominated by the Head of the State. And what has the Centralized Corporation done for Paris? Compare their death-rate with any one of the cities of Surrey or Middlesex; compare the provisions for sewerage or lighting; compare the local rates, which are notoriously greater than ours. The other signal example is that of New York, which, in a moment of frenzy, having certain abuses which had been suffered to gain head, rashly resolved to suppress the distinct and separate institutions under which it had long thriven apace, and to establish a Mammoth Council after the pattern held up to Republican admiration in Paris. There has been some controversy about the details of this experiment, which, after all, was, in point of numbers, not half as extravagant as the same thing in London would be. I happen to have, within my own knowledge, an authority on the subject which I will give to the House without note or comment. Some time ago, before the right hon. Gentleman's Bill was in print, a gentleman of character and fortune from the other side of the ocean brought an introduction from a leading statesman at Washington, who said he desired some information about our institutions, with which he was anxious to compare his own. In the course of our conversation, he asked, was it true that we were thinking of boiling everything down to one indiscriminate uniform level, instead of preserving our old distinctive ways and means of life? I said, "I hope not;" and I assured him that some of us, at least, were not afflicted with such a foolish desire. "But," I rejoined, "how does it fare with you?" He replied—"I take it, stranger, the difference 'twixt you and us is just this—we are in the mud, and we have to get out of it; you have first to get into it, and then, if you can, to get out of it." Not being particular, I own I have no fancy, from what I have since heard from numerous other testimonies of the state of things in New York, to see London reduced to anything like the same condition for the mere sake of uniformity. Rather I should say, "Diversity for ever!" tending, as it does, to economy, liberty, and self respect. The multitude have been told that this Bill will confer on them additional power, because, by 400,000 votes, they would be 64 able for the first time to choose 240 men to administer the innumerable concerns of 10 overgrown cities. Sir, I can afford to use all plainness of speech when dealing with fair promises and specious hopes held forth to the people, for there is not a right or privilege that has been accorded to them in the last 30 years for which I have not voted, spoken, or written; and there is no enactment that will truly serve to better their condition which I am not ready and willing to support. Only one thing I will not do to please the people—I will not fool them by flattery into believing that they are not, as other men are, incapable of carrying on wisely an overgrown system of Centralized Government either directly or by deputy. I believe that the men who would consent to servo upon the Central Body it is proposed to constitute, and to give up the whole of their time to the duties it must involve, would not be the sort of men fit to be intrusted with them. I believe that they would be the idlers and speculators, spouters and jobbers, that would inevitably float to the top in every successive commotion, because of their want of weight; and when they failed, the cry would be raised to get clever officials, at high salaries, on whom the whole business of urban rule would devolve. But what does this imply? It was not by a multiplied staff of officials that local liberty had been cultured in England. It was by enlisting the infinitely varied shades of local competency, from the hard-toiling tradesman to the country gentleman, and rewarding them each and all in their respective spheres by the approval and praise of their neighbours, that public virtue had been nurtured and strengthened throughout the land; and it is only by such means that the genuine love of self-rule can be preserved. The tendency of exaggerated centralism is inveterately at variance with the English spirit of liberty; for it seeks to substitute the hard and selfish motives of venal devotion for the higher and worthier impulses that have hitherto prevailed. Complaint is made, and sometimes with truth, that our Metropolitan communities lack thews and sinews, owing, no doubt, to the sense of their overgrown size; and that is the reason why we ought to strengthen them by every means in our power. But this Bill would pluck them 65 up by the roots, and substitute for them nothing but mechanical routine and agency. Failing to persuade us by other arguments, the Secretary of State for the Home Department has appealed to our fears, on the score of sudden calamity, and has striven to scare us by the impending danger of cholera. If we do not pass this Bill, pestilence may come; and because there is over-crowding and misery in certain parishes, which, he well knows, neither this or any other Statute can suddenly eradicate, the plague may come upon us, and our homes will be made desolate, because we have not adopted this particular form of law. But if he really believes in the peril, why is not the Metropolitan Asylums Board called on at once to exercise suitable precautions? Nobody has ever accused it of slackness or parsimony in using the powers it possesses; and if new powers are necessary, why not bring in a short Bill, giving it fresh powers, which all of us would vote for, and which might be passed within a week?
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEWe have brought in a Bill for the purpose.
§ MR. W. M. TORRENSThen there is an end of the argument derived from the danger of cholera; and, at all events, it must be clear to the most thoughtless that, as the present proposal, with its numberless clauses and sub-sections, would take many weeks to discuss, and then, should it pass, would take as many months to bring into operation, it is wholly delusive to press for its passing on the ground thus assigned. For all these reasons, and with many thanks to the House for permitting me, with so much length, to state them, I must give my vote against the second reading.
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, he thought the House must be completely puzzled by the speech of the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. Torrens). No man who was not already thoroughly acquainted, in all its details, with the system of government existing in London at the present time could possibly gather any but an incorrect impression of that system from the speech. The hon. Member spoke, over and over again, of the historical associations attaching to the 10 cities of the Metropolis as if they were existing Municipalities; and had complained that the Bill would take away from them the municipal rights 66 which they had possessed for ages. This was a pure figment of the hon. Member's imagination; the boroughs had no municipal existence.
§ MR. W. M. TORRENSI spoke of the borough system of England created by Act of Parliament in 1835, and asked why you disfranchised them?
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, the hon. Member, in making his explanation, repeated his statement that we proposed to disfranchise Municipalities. The Government did not propose to do so. Let them take the case of the hon. Member's own borough, there were six or seven local authorities in that borough, the borough had no ancient boundary, it was a creation of the Act of 1855, it had not even the dignity of an 1835 creation; and as to the character of some of those bodies, even the hon. Member would admit that they were not deserving of any great consideration at the hands of that House. The hon. Member declared that the Bill was practically the Bill of his (Sir Charles W. Dilke's) hon. Colleague. On that he joined issue. The Bill of his hon. Colleague contained no District Councils or Representative Bodies in the various existing localities; it created one great Central Body, and no local bodies. The proposals of the Government were really those embodied in a series of carefully-drawn Resolutions brought forward by Sir Ughtred Kay-Shuttleworth in the last Parliament, on which the House pronounced an adverse opinion by a small majority.
§ SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSIt was a large majority.
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEAt any rate, several Conservatives voted with their opponents. The hon. Member declared himself in favour, as against the Government, of encouraging Local Government by local men. That was, in the opinion of the Government, precisely what the Bill would do; and their contention was that the present elections by 13 or 16 votes could not be called elections of representatives at all. His hon. Friend asked them why they wished to take out of the ordinary order of the law and institutions of this country these 10 imaginary cities and boroughs. Their desire was not to take them out, but to put them in. They proposed to apply to London, with exceptions which had to be made owing to its extraordinary size, those principles of municipal self-government 67 which were applied by the Act of 1835 to the rest of the country. His hon. Friend based the whole of his speech on the assumed hostility of the public to the Bill. Well, he would only venture to give his own experience as a Metropolitan Member against that of his hon. Friend; and he ventured to assert that if this Bill were now defeated and the Party opposite came into power they would be compelled to carry this Bill. ["Oh!"] Well, that was his opinion. He knew London well. They were told of the number of Metropolitan Members who opposed this Bill — the four Members for the City, the two Members for Westminster, the two Members for Greenwich, and one each for several other boroughs; but his hon. Friend did not name the boroughs in which all the Members were in favour of the Bill. [Mr. TORRENS: Name!] They should come to that by-and-bye. [Cries of "Name!"] If they were allowed to go to a Division they would see. It was his firm conviction that if there was a General Election they would not find Conservative candidates offering themselves to Metropolitan constituencies with declarations against the principles of this Bill. As to public meetings his hon. Friend spoke vaguely; but he led the House to think that public meetings generally pronounced against the Bill. He asserted that the exact opposite was the case. From the extreme west of Chelsea down to the extreme east of Greenwich public meetings had pronounced in favour of the Bill. He would take Finsbury, where there were four meetings, two called by the opponents and two by the supporters of the Bill. The two called by the supporters were very large meetings, and they gave an all but unanimous vote. In the other two he was told, as to one, that persons were paid 1s. 6d. a-piece to attend. It was known where they were paid and who paid them. Well, at that meeting the supporters of the Bill were overborne by these paid persons. At the other meeting, which the hon. Member for Finsbury attended, he was outvoted by an immense majority.
§ MR. R. N. FOWLER (LORD MAYOR)No, not an immense majority; it was very nearly equal.
§ MR. W. M. TORRENSexplained that it was just a toss up which party was in a majority; but being opposed to the 68 Bill, he thought it fair to give the benefit of the doubt to the other side.
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, he should withdraw "immense majority;" but the meeting was called against the Bill, and it decided in favour of it. There had been no serious attempt to deny the statements as to the manner in which the agitation against the Bill had been got up. He (Sir Charles W. Dilke) would take his share in maintaining the accuracy of those statements. Reference had been made to Petitions. He should be glad to hear what was the amount of money paid by the City in getting up Petitions against the Bill. There was some interesting documentary evidence on the part of those concerned in getting up the agitation as to what the Petitions cost and the character of those who signed them. The hon. Member for Finsbury had attacked the Home Secretary for depreciating existing Institutions, and for holding up to ridicule existing Bodies charged with the local government of London. Now, the Home Secretary had stated, and he (Sir Charles W. Dilke) said also, that, in their opinion, the majority of the existing Vestries and District Boards did their work very fairly. But, on the other hand, there was a minority which did their work doubtfully; and there were a few who did it about as badly as it could be done. The hon. Member for Finsbury had himself submitted a scheme quite as sweeping as this Bill. [Mr. TORRENS dissented.] He could easily prove it. His hon. Friend, for instance, proposed to establish one Municipality for Finsbury; but that would be a much greater interference with the existing system than the Bill proposed. His hon. Friend would not only give the Local Bodies the power they had now; he would give them some of the power now held by the Metropolitan Board. That was to say, his hon. Friend would sweep the Vestries off the face of the earth. [Mr. TORRENS: Incorporate them.] He contended that his hon. Friend's scheme was just as he had described it; it would sweep Vestries like St. Luke's, St. James's, and St. John's, Clerkenwell, off the face of the earth. That was a greater change than anything contained in the Bill, because the Government maintained the existing areas. No one could be satisfied with the working of the Vestries; but what did his hon. Friend 69 propose? That there should be a Commission — a Body something like the Railway Commission—to make them do their duty. That was a greater innovation than anything proposed by the Government. The hon. Member for Finsbury had said that he did not wish Finsbury to be divested of the powers which they had long possessed; but inasmuch as Finsbury possessed no Corporation, no such powers had been exercised by them; and, therefore, the Bill did not propose to divest them of any such powers. The hon. Member had told the House nothing about the existing Local Governing Bodies of the Metropolis. When the hon. Member came with a deputation to the Local Government Board, he did say something against the local Vestries; but that night he had said nothing of the kind. But no one had a right to ridicule or to sneer at the Vestries generally, because the majority of them were very good, although some of them were as bad as bad could be. His hon. Friend had proposed a more sweeping scheme of reform than that proposed by the Government, for he would destroy every one of the existing Vestries and District Boards, whereas the Government would keep the existing areas, and would elect District Councils, which might be composed of the same men as the present Vestries. His hon. Friend had proposed to the Local Government Board that there should be a Crown Commission, something like a Railway Commission, to have certain powers over Vestries, and to keep them up to their work. This alone would be a greater interference with them, and a greater step in the direction of centralization than anything that the Government had proposed. The hon. Member had spoken as though he were satisfied with the existing government of London; but as he had proposed a scheme which would revolutionize the existing Bodies, he might be assumed not to be well satisfied with them. He (Sir Charles W. Dilke) had no desire to ridicule Vestries; he was a vestryman himself, and had been so for years; and, as far as his other duties permitted, he attended the Vestry meetings and took part in their deliberations. He would ask his hon. Friend whether he was satisfied with the composition of the Local Bodies in his own borough? He presumed not, because the hon. 70 Member wished to establish a borough of Finsbury. But the effect of the hon. Member's speech and vote would be to back up those Bodies, and to enable them for an indefinite time to mismanage the affairs of a portion of the Metropolis. The hon. Member knew the composition of the Clerkenwell Vestry well enough, and that the Sanitary Committee of Clerkenwell had been turned out by the Vestry, because Chairman after Chairman of that Committee had reported in favour of sanitary reforms in that parish, which had been year after year vetoed by the Vestry, the majority of the members of which were interested in the property it was proposed to deal with. Some of the most interested of those vestrymen were returned at the head of the poll by 13 votes. Some who had held the Chairmanship of the Sanitary Committee in years past had testified to the harm done by the action of the majority of the Vestry. The Sanitary Committee had now been repressed, and there was no one left to protest against the mismanagement of the affairs of the parish. Was the hon. Member acquainted with the fact that, some years ago, the beadle of one of the parishes of his borough had made £12,000 in consequence of knowing what street improvements were about to be carried out, and that he had managed to get himself elected to the Metropolitan Board of Works, from which he was expelled with ignominy? Vestrymen had been fined over and over again, not only for the breach of sanitary laws, but for adulterations and other offences. His hon. Friend knew the amount of property in his own district which was held by leading vestrymen which was a disgrace and a danger to the whole town. The hon. Member knew of the jobbery which prevailed in some of the Vestries with regard to surveys, paving, and other matters, and of the sums of money made by contractors and dishonest men. Knowing all this, his hon. Friend could not contend that the government of London was in a satisfactory state. The Home Secretary had spoken of some parishes as constituting a danger to the whole of the Metropolis, and on his own official responsibility he endorsed that view completely. He maintained that the sanitary condition of the parish of Clerkenwell rendered that district a 71 danger and a disgrace to the whole of the Metropolis, and that the Vestry which allowed it to remain in that condition was unfit to exercise the powers entrusted to them. Medical officers of health had testified that they had much difficulty in performing their duties when so many of those who employed them were directly or indirectly affected by the discharge of these duties. He might on this matter quote words from Hamlet about "a mildewed ear blasting his wholesome brother." Unsanitary districts were peculiarly liable to be attacked by epidemic diseases, which would necessarily spread from them to other parishes which were better governed. The hon. Member had asked why the Government did not propose to make the Metropolitan Asylums Board the sanitary authority for the whole Metropolis. But it must be remembered that the Metropolitan Asylums Board was a body elected by Guardians, and was a wholly separate and distinct Board. It was a Poor Law Board; but, because it went over all London, it was said—"Take it for a purpose it was not intended for, and make it act for all London." Was it not, he asked, better to form a new body, whose natural duty it would be to do that which it was not the duty of the Metropolitan Asylums Board to do, and one that should be equally worthy of the larger duties they would have to discharge? The noble Lord the Member for Westminster (Lord Algernon Percy) said that this Bill would make no new departure as to attendance at Vestry elections. That was one of the most amazing statements he had heard in the course of this debate. Could anyone suppose that, if this Bill became law, members of Vestries would be elected by two votes? If the noble Lord believed that he would believe anything. He did not wish the House to think he had picked out the parish of Clerkenwell as the only instance in favour of the Bill; he would take another parish, that of St. Luke's. The Governing Body of that parish, which contained some of the worst districts in London, had written to him last November to say that no areas at present existed in that parish to which the Act of the hon. Member for Finsbury would apply; but the hon. Member himself knew that there were extensive areas in that parish to which his Act would apply. Then, 72 again, the Governing Bodies of the parishes of St. Pancras and of Clerkenwell had refused to listen to the proposals of the Local Government Board for making sanitary improvements in their districts. It was an undoubted fact that Vestries and District Boards were less liable to financial control and audit than any bodies which existed. Any conceivable sums might be charged for gourmandizing of the worst description, and large sums were so charged in Clerkenwell, and there was no power to disallow these sums which the ratepayers had to pay. His hon. Friend seemed to agree with the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ritchie) that the Metropolis was less heavily rated now than it might be under the proposed scheme. The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets stated that the Metropolis was less heavily rated than Provincial towns; but it ought to be borne in mind that that which was included in rates varied in almost every place. Before they could establish any criterion of comparative rating in London and the great Provincial towns they must ascertain what was included in the rates. For example, the rates of Liverpool included water. Then, again, it should be remembered that in London the rates were greatly affected by the fact that London was assessed higher than any other town in the Kingdom. It was assessed nearly 10 per cent higher than most Provincial towns, and 20 per cent higher than some Provincial towns. This, of course, affected the rates, and therefore the comparisons were necessarily fallacious. He had tried to verify the figures given last night by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets, but had been unable to do so. It was worthy of remark, however, that all the boroughs mentioned by the hon. Member were situate in more than one Poor Law Union. The hon. Member for Finsbury had referred to the healthiness of London, and compared it with Paris, which was, he said, less healthy; but surely his hon. Friend must be aware that for the purposes of health generally Paris was governed by a Prefect of Police, who was nominated by the French Government, and who gave directions to the 20 maires of the different districts. His hon. Friend likewise spoke of New York; but he knew that his statement was entirely incorrect as to the changes 73 which had been made. The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets had told them that London was the healthiest City in the world of its population. Well, as there was no other City in the world of its population that was a very easy statement to make. If they looked at the death-rate a very fair test as to the effect of the government of London on the health of London was to be found by comparing the decreased rate of mortality in London as against the decrease in the country generally. They must, of course, take the relative rates and the relative decrease. In every part of England and Wales there had been a steady and a gratifying decrease of mortality since the passing of the Sanitary Acts of modern times. In the last 10 years the mean death-rate in London had decreased 1.1 in the 1,000. In the 19 great towns of England, the death-rate had during the same period decreased to the extent of 5.1, being a decrease of 4 per 1,000 in the Provincial towns more than in London.
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEIn London the decrease has been from 22.1 to 21 per 1,000.
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEThe decrease has been from 27.7 to 22 per 1,000.
§ SIR GABRIEL GOLDNEYThat is a very fallacious test.
§ SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, that, doubtless, the death-rate was not a very accurate test, because it was necessary to correct it, inasmuch, for instance, as a great many London deaths occurred out of London. Unless the Registrar General's figures were corrected by allowing for those deaths any test of the London death-rate must be altogether fallacious. The death-rate in London was still a great deal higher than it ought to be, and he trusted they would see the time when it would be greatly reduced—say, to two-thirds of its present rate. But the decrease which had actually taken place in London appeared to be connected with the operations of the Metropolitan Board of Works in constructing a system of sewers. Prior to the action of that Board the death-rate of London had been nearly stationary 74 for a great many years at 24 or 24½ per 1,000; but after the partial establishment of the sewer system it fell to 22, and after its complete establishment to a little over 21. This result, he thought, was owing to the action of the Metropolitan Board of Works, which was so well presided over by his hon. and gallant Friend opposite; and he regarded it as a proof that the administration of London by a united Body would be a good thing. At present they had, as regarded sewage, one authority; but as regarded infectious diseases, there were no fewer than 70 authorities in London, while there were 39 authorities which had power in reference to the regulations for tenement houses. Of those 39 some 15 or 20 were now doing their duty. Formerly, only two did their duty. Out of the 39 about 29 were indisposed to do their duty, and some five were absolutely refusing in the strongest terms to do it. That was a specimen of the present system of government of London. The hon. Member had said that there were 27 great services for which London was united at the present moment under the Metropolitan Board; but he should have been glad if his hon. Friend the Member for Finsbury, who desired to destroy that unity, had given the House some notion as to what the services were which he would wish to break up among the 10 different Municipalities. With regard to gas and water in London, there was no authority except Parliament which could be called into play whenever anything had to be done. The hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets stated last night that the vast majority of those who were interested in the present system of local government in London opposed this Bill. He entirely denied that statement. The hon. Member for Finsbury asked them to pronounce for separate Municipalities; but the hon. Member was not yet prepared for that plan, because he stated that, though there were now 10 Metropolitan boroughs, there might shortly be 20; and, therefore, he wished them to wait for a Redistribution Bill, which could have no conceivable connection with the government of London. The ten boroughs had no root—no ancient life. He admitted the case of the City, and he admitted that as regarded the borough of Westminster there was something, though very little, to be said. As 75 regarded the other communities of the Metropolis, however, they were the modern creation of that House; and yet his hon. Friend asked them either to take these boroughs and destroy the unity which now existed, or else to wait until other new boroughs should be created by that House. On the contrary, he asked the House to approve the principle of this Bill, which was, in his opinion, the most decentralizing measure that had been seen in modern times.
§ Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned"—(Mr. R. N. Fowler,)—put, and agreed to.
§ Debate further adjourned till Tuesday next.