recommends that they should stand by the Corn Laws but not attack Peel. Fourteen years later Disraeli said to John Blackwood what fully justifies all that we have here quoted—namely, that his political articles were excellent, and that the Magazine in fact was 'the only organ the Conservative Party had.' It does not do to pry too curiously into remarks of this kind. There are sayings of policy as well as judgments of policy. But in 1860 Disraeli's connexion with the party was perhaps at the lowest ebb. And the arrière pensée of the above dictum is not very difficult to trace for those who remember the period. But there is no doubt that Blackwood' has been distinguished by very powerful political writing, which has rendered great service, especially in Scotland, to the Conservative cause. It is a mistake to suppose that an honest, able, and uncompromising support of what sometimes may be thought extreme views, has no beneficial effect on a political party. Even those who cannot go to the same lengths are led to think more deeply by seeing the attraction which definite theories possess for men of undoubted intellect: and they may perhaps cling all the more steadily to the moderate course which they have adopted, by knowing that there are heights beyond it on which men of genius have established themselves. Towards the end of the second volume we find a good deal of interesting matter about the state of the Conservative party from 1846 to 1860, in which the name of Samuel Phillips, so long connected with the Times,' very frequently occurs. Early in the first-mentioned year the Protectionists seem to have thought that, if they could not ultimately defeat Sir Robert Peel, they could prolong the battle over the Corn Laws for another two years, in which interval many things might happen. Had Lord Stanley remained in the House of Commons, there is no saying what might have followed. But in 1846 the Protectionists were left without any leader of sufficient authority to give them a fair chance. Of Lord George Bentinck little was known in Parliament. He was not an experienced statesman to whom men had been accustomed to look up. Considering the circumstances he performed his part to admiration. But a different kind of man was wanted to stand up against the Peelite brigade. Mr. Disraeli, men thought, did not carry sufficient weight. He had shown himself an admirable skirmisher; but his capacity for leading and commanding was yet to be recognized. There are many entries to this effect in Mrs. Oliphant's pages. But it is ancient history now. is sufficient to have glanced at it in passing. And it ART. ART. XI.-Annual Report of the London County Council, for the Year ended 31st March, 1897. TH HE London County Council has arrived at a critical stage of its existence. With the elections for the fourth Council approaching, it may be said that it is no longer the object either of the exaggerated laudation of one set of politicians, or of the open hostility of another. When the Council was established by the Bill of 1888, the Liberal party was in a curious condition. Disorganized by the Home Rule Bill and the decisive election of 1886, it had for a time lost its bearings as well as its leaders, and was feeling wildly after new principles and a new 'cry.' The established tenets of the party, which, if mistaken, constituted a respectable body of political doctrine, had gone overboard in the general shipwreck. No one knew what was and what was not the test of Liberalism as it stood for the moment; indeed the very name of the party had been temporarily lost, and a new title-that of 'Gladstonian' -which meant chiefly a vague belief in a leader, whose own political creed had never been reduced to a system—had been substituted. In this confusion, a small body of resolute men conceived the project of forcing to the front the ideas of Municipal Socialism or Collectivism,' which just then were much in favour with the younger members of the Radical section. Never formally accepted by the 'official' Liberals, and never really understood by the mass even of Liberal voters, these Collectivist theories received a dubious authorization from some of the regular leaders, and attained a transient popularity among the rank and file. When the Local Government Act of 1888 brought the London County Council into existence the Municipal Socialists. saw their opportunity. While the Conservatives were inclined to regard the local affairs of the metropolis as altogether outside the region of party politics (as indeed they should be), the advanced Radicals plunged boldly into the new constituencies with a programme that was permeated with Collectivism.' It is not surprising that the voters were captivated. The difference in the attitude of the Radicals and the Conservatives for the moment entirely favoured the former. They christened themselves for the purposes of the contest by the appellation of Progressives, and the very name had a ringing, exultant sound with which the chilling title of Moderates, adopted by their opponents, could not compare. To the Moderates the County Council was what it was intended to be by the legislators who created it: a popularly 8 2 elected elected substitute for the Metropolitan Board of Works, designed to link together the various local authorities of the metropolis, and entrusted with the functions which the older body had discharged, with such additional powers and duties as increased population had rendered necessary. To the Progressives the Council was to be a sort of earthly Providence, which was to brighten the life of every citizen of the metropolis, abolish poverty and want, provide the poorer classes with a large number of advantages at the expense of the wealthier ratepayers, and alter the relations of rich and poor by taxing the former for the benefit of the latter. No wonder that this alluring programme, explained with a great deal of eloquence by a cohort of speakers, many of whom were thorough enthusiasts, had its effect on voters not yet familiar with the duties of the newly-created Authority. The first Council was 'captured' by the Radicals, and its history, as well as that of its successors, was largely a record of the attempts of the Progressives to make it attain some of the comprehensive objects at which they aimed, while the Moderates were endeavouring to confine its energies within the more restricted limits laid down by Parliament. In the third Council, which expires this spring, matters have been different. The violence of the Progressives had provoked a re-action. By March, 1895, many of the working-class voters and the small tradesmen had begun to see that the most tangible result of the activity of this party was likely to be a great rise in the rates; and the election of the year left the parties evenly divided, though the Progressives still maintained their majority by means of the aldermen. Their advantage has been accentuated by a certain want of cohesion among their opponents. But except in one or two matters, to which we shall refer presently, the position of the Progressives has not been strong enough to render it prudent for them to make any attempt to carry their more extreme ideas into operation. The result, if beneficial in some ways, has had this disadvantage, that it has somewhat lowered the interest of both parties in the approaching contest. The fighting zeal of the earlier elections seems to have died away, and left behind a little of that distressing apathy which has long been the bane of local politics in the metropolis. The Council is recognized as a respectable institution which does its work neither brilliantly well, nor conspicuously ill, and therefore calls for no excessive amount of notice. It would be a pity if this temper should prevail largely, particularly among the Conservative electors, who would vote Moderate Moderate if they voted at all. The Council has settled down into a routine of administrative work, and even the Progressives have recognized that there are certain limitations to its powers and duties which cannot be overstepped. But it must be recollected that the Council is a 'little Parliament,' in so far as the majority of members is able to appoint the Executive. The administrative work is carried on by a number of departments, presided over by Committees of the Councillors and Âldermen ; and the majority in the Chamber can, if it pleases, obtain a majority on every Committee, and so retain in its own hands the complete control of administration. Moreover, the Parliamentary Committee can make representations to the Imperial Legislature for the enactment of fresh Acts of Parliament, dealing with the functions and position of the Council, or for the modification of those already in existence, and so to some extent shape and influence the course of Imperial legislation in metropolitan affairs. For all these and other reasons it is eminently desirable that the intelligent electors of the metropolis should do their best to understand the questions which are likely to arise in connexion with the new Council, and should, above all, not permit the verdict of the constituencies to go by default and abstention. The County Council, as we have said, has, to a large extent, outlived its unpopularity, and justified its existence by a considerable amount of good work accomplished. There is now no desire in any influential quarter to undo the legislation by which it was created, or to curtail and diminish its powers to such an extent as to revolutionize its present character. The feeling on the subject was strong among many Conservatives under the first two Councils in their indignation at the evident intention of the Progressives to convert the Council into something much more powerful than anything originally contemplated. It was not merely the dominant party that was attacked in many influential newspapers, but the institution, as a whole, was regarded with bitterness. The sentiment has greatly abated of recent years. The Conservative party, according to the view of its regular leaders, is not opposed to the County Council, or anxious to emasculate it. This we say with a perfect recollection of the words which Lord Salisbury used on this subject in his speech to the National Union of Conservative Associations at the Albert Hall last November. The Prime Minister did, it is true, criticize the constitution of the London County Council as being framed on too large a scale. The] statesmen who were responsible for the creation of this body, and perhaps the inhabitants of the metro polis as well, had fallen victims to the complaint to which modern terminology has given the name of megalomania- the passion for big things simply because they are big.' Lord Salisbury's language on that occasion was adversely, and, in our opinion, justly criticized. For our own part we agree with those who think that the Premier would have been well-advised if he had spoken with less contempt of the work of the Council, and omitted the sneer at its members for the time and labour which they bestow fruitlessly upon the public good,' a most unhappy phrase when the Whips of the Moderate party were doing their best to induce young Conservatives of position and ability to come forward as candidates for municipal office at the next elections. But the inference, drawn from the Premier's words, that Her Majesty's Government intend to introduce legislation next Session, animated by hostility to the very existence of the County Council, is unjustifiable. The Prime Minister states merely that in his view, and presumably that of his colleagues, future legislation on London local government should be in the direction of supplementing the Council by a number of smaller municipalities, which would take over some of the duties now performed by the central body. In this sense the opinion has been expressed by the larger portion of the authorities who have studied the completion of the work of London government. From the time when the problem of organizing into some administrative whole the province of houses roughly known as London, first came to be seriously considered, two general solutions of the question presented themselves. They may be described broadly as the method of unification and the method of division. On the one hand it was thought that London, like other large cities, might be placed under the control of a single governing body; on the other, it was felt that separate administrative authorities should be provided for the various localities which had a common designation or some other sense of local relationship. What should be the size of these areas, what the character of their local government, are points which have been debated ever since the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835, and they still remain open for settlement in the ensuing or some future Session of the Imperial Legislature. Had London been dealt with in the Act of 1835, in the same fashion as provincial municipalities, the question would not have arisen. Following the analogy of Liverpool, Bristol, and other large towns, the City, which was the only 'London recognized by the law as it then stood, would have been extended so as to cover Hackney, St. Pancras, the Tower Hamlets, Finsbury, |