Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 July 1884 — The Government of London. [ARTICLE]

The Government of London.

We are apt to think of London as a single, vast city, covering a wide area and teeming with a population of four millions of souls. What we do not realize is, that London, while geographically a great and compact mass, is, politically speaking, simply a combination of a large number of separate towns, each partially independent, in government, of the others. What is called “the city of London” is but a very small part of the metropolis. The “city” comprises only about a square mile, afad has a population at night of only about fifty thousand. It is this small section, consisting mainly of the business and financial -quarter of London, which is ruled over by the Lord Mayor and Corporation. Otherwise London is divided up into a large number of parishes, which are governed by “vestries,” and into boroughs, like Westminster and Southwark, which have still another kind of government. There are one or two “Boards” indeed, which exercise their functions throughout the wjiole area of the metropolis. These are the Board of Works, which establish the roads, make regulations for health, and look after the sewerage, water, and so on; the School Board, which presides over the national schools, and the Board of Police Commissioners, who manage the police force of the entire city. Justice is meted out in the larger part of London by police magistrates, who are appointed and salaried by the State. But in the “city” proper the Lord Mayor and Aldermen are the magistrates—without pay. The many evils attendant upon the divided government of London have long been recognized ; and now a bin has been introduced into Parliament changing the various local and independent systems, and combining London under one central system. This measure proposes, indeed, to make London a sort of municipal federation, which we may compare with tbe United States. The Lord Mayor, chosen, not as riow, by a small body in a single locality, but by the representatives of the whole metropolis, will find his authority extended throughout its limits. The Board of Aldermen is to be abolished, and a Common Council chosen by and for all London. At the same time each parish and borough is still to have a local body, acting under the general one, and managing its local affairs, just as do our States under the general Government at Washington. - 1 The present Corporation of the “city” is thus made the basis and nucleus of the new single government which is to hold sway, not over fifty thousand, but over four millions of people. In making this great change, the Cabinet propose that the people to be governed shall have a much larger shark in electing their civic rulers than they have hitherto had, eithe r in the “city” or in the parishes. The government of the “city” has always been chosen by the “livery-men” and the various trade guilds. Now, the mass of those who are interested m the conduct of municipal affairs will have a voice at the polls as to who shall assume it. All the important functions, in short, of municipal rule except poor relief, education, and police, are to be given to the new corporation. The Council thus created is to consist of two hundred and forty members, this entire body being elected every three years. Of these, tfie “city” proper will have thirty members. The Lord Mayor will be elected by this Council, and will be paid such salary as it chooses to vote him. Each of the old vestry districts will have its “District Council,” all the powers of which will be derived from the general Common Council, and the members of which will be chosen by the voters of the locality itself. Such are the main features of the scheme for the union of London into one great central government.— Youth’s Companion.