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known to fame. The political papers which appeared between 1827 and 1830 are particularly vigorous and well written, though, as we think, and as Sir Walter Scott thought, on the wrong side: extremely bitter against Canning, and equally hostile to Peel and the Duke of Wellington two years afterwards. But Lockhart, at all events, did not approve of the rebellion against the Duke of Wellington consequent on the Roman Catholic Emancipation Act. In December, 1830, he writes to Blackwood from London :

'Thus we are brought to the brink of a crisis by the act of the ultra Tories in turning out the Duke. Of this there can be no doubt: he feels it, and they, I believe, repent it almost to a man. They did not foresee the terrible risks of this reform as a Cabinet proposition. They gratified their just resentment at the deep hazard of everything. Such is my view of the case, such is Southey's, such is Sadler's, such is Lord Chandos's. We are among the breakers; let us see how much we can save.'

We find in the Noctes':—

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King Arthur rules in England,
In Ireland rules King Dan,

King George of Windsor Castle,
Dethrone them if you can.'

One of them, at all events, soon did that for himself.
authoress remarks:-

Our

'It is well sometimes to see the dismal prognostications with which even wise men of that period regard the changes under which even the oldest among us have grown up, in complete unconsciousness of any shipwreck. We too in our turn are often tempted to indulge in the vaticinations of alarm and woe, which it is an encouragement to the general mind to believe may turn out quite as

excessive.'

We do not know where Mrs. Oliphant could have lived all her life if she was 'unconscious of any shipwreck.' But we should not have noticed such a remark from a lady writer except for the fact that it has become a common way of talking with a certain class of optimists who think that no harm has been done to this country by Liberalism, because the sky has not fallen. Religion, education, property, industry, agriculture, commerce, and, above all, Parliament itself have all suffered from the high democratic tides which have prevailed since the sea wall was broken down.

During Sir Robert Peel's administration Blackwood snuffed the coming catastrophe; and in 1846 the political article was highly praised by Lord John Manners. Robert Blackwood Vol. 187.-No. 373. recommends

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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.

THE

THE 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 Aldermen ; 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

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