Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/65

 1899.} Government of London Bill. [57

and he deprecated any scheme which would take away from the central authority of London any of the power which it ought to possess. Whether this central authority would be best represented by the Lord Mayor, or the Chairman of the London County Council, Mr. Asquith did not decide. He denied that the bodies to be established could be called municipal boroughs, utterly lacking as they were in the powers of real municipal- ities. As for the creation of a " Greater Westminster " he had no words too scornful for such pitiful gerrymandering. The Solicitor-General, Sir B. Finlay (Inverness Burghs), said that the enormous size of London rendered it impossible to dispense with the services of efficient local bodies. They all desired to have a strong central authority, but it would be a mistake to starve the local authorities in order to aggrandise the central body. No attack could be made with any justification on the administration of the City. Answering some of the criticisms passed on the details of the bill he stated that it would be impossible to arrange the districts so as to ensure that in every one of them there should be an equal distribution of rich and poor, and he pointed out that the bill specially provided for the observance of the act for the equalisation of rates. He justified the creation of "Greater Westminster," and, replying to objections that had been raised to the financial provisions, he showed that nothing in the measure prevented the local muni- cipalities from borrowing money for their expenditure through the County Council. Mr. L. Courtney (Bodmin, Cornwall) who doubtless had been mollified by Mr. Balfour's proposal that under the bill women would retain their votes and might be elected as councillors, thought that the bill might be accepted as a substantial instalment of reform, although it did not embody all the recom- mendations of the royal commission of 1894. He was in favour of the bill being referred to the Grand Committee, when, votes being in some measure influenced by argument, it might, undergo important improvement. Sir Edward Clarke (Plymouth) admitted that there must be a central body, but no powers ought to be given it which could be discharged effectively by the local bodies. What were needed were capable munici- palities to represent local interests, and there should be a com- mittee formed from those municipalities to deal with matters which were common to them all. He regretted that the Government did not intend to link the new boroughs with the County Council.

Mr. Burdett-Coutts (Westminster) pleading pro domo sud, asserted that no area in London possessed boundaries so deeply marked in history as Greater Westminster, and that its muni- cipal traditions were 1,000 years old. He denied that it could justly be called a city of the rich, and, answering the argument that the area would be unwieldy, pointed out that, in the list of scheduled areas, it stood seventh in respect of size, while it tanked fifth in respect of population. Mr. Burns (Battersea) on