THE VOTE ON THE PARKS.
pEOPLE tell us that the new House -of Commons shows an unusual appetite for work, and that it puts down windy speech-makers with an .abrupt decision which suggests strong action in the future against obstruction. That is a good sign, but it is accompanied by a bad one,—a most alarming amount of inconsiderateness. The vote of Thursday, for example, on the Parks of London, though it may be defensible enough in principle, was passed in a manner which can only be characterised as utterly reckless. For many years past, there has been a grave and by no means unreasonable dispute between London and the larger provincial cities about certain contributions from the national-funds towards objects whichaas the cities affirm, are exclusively local. Certain sums ate granted to London in aid of the Police funds ; the British Museum, the South Kensington Museum, the 'National Gallery, and other institutions of the same kind—the most expensive being-Kew Gardens—are paid for out of the taxes ; and there is a heavy grant, some fifty thousand a yew, for the maintenance of places like Battersea Park, Hyde Park, Regent's Park, St. James's Park, Kensington Gardens, and one or two more parks which are beneficial in the first instance to Londoners rather than to the nation. There is, undoubtedly, a prima facie case for inquiry, and perhaps for reform ; but the subject
is one of unusual complexity. In the first place, many of these parks are paid for under contract, they being in theory the property of the Sovereign, and surrendered to the nation on condition that they should be kept up out of national funds. The contract may, of course, be revised with the consent of the Sovereign, or upon any resettlement of Royal allowances ; but the House of Commons has no right to annul it of its own mere will, and without discussion with the reversionary owners. In the second place, if London is to pay for the Parks, London is entitled to the ground-rents of the houses built in them, which, as Mr. W. H. Smith pointed out, make up in the aggregate a large sum now paid by the lessees to agents who collect for the Con- solidated Fund. In the third place, London provides, chiefly out of her own rates, all the appliances of municipal civilisation for the whole of the immense establishments of the Central Government from Parliament downwards, and her claims on that score would, if fairly drawn out, amount to a considerable offset. In the fourth place, it is entirely the fault of the nation, and not of Londoners, that the Metropolis is left without a government of its own, and consequently without the means of accumulating property, or receiving gifts for the advantage of all its citizens, or providing for any general purposes whatever. And, in the last place, London is not a mere city, but the metropolis of the Empire, its Clearing House, its bonded warehouse. and the centre of its commercial life. Every city in the Kingdom benefits directly by the good health, good order, and special commercial facilities of London, which, moreover, is, for part of the year at least, a home for the leading men of the entire Kingdom. She is the Metropolis, and as such her beauty and dignity and salubrity are matters that concern all Englishmen, who all insist on taking a share in settling the minutest details of her affairs. She cannot open a new road through a park, or cut down a tree in Kensington Gardens without a discussion, in which the Member for the Orkneys or the Member for Penzance may take a share. The exact relation of London to the State is, there- fore, full of complexity, and one which can only be settled fairly when a body has been created with power to represent all the citizens in a final negotiation with the State.
That, however, was not on Thursday the opinion of the House of Commons. Mr. Labouchere, the reckless Member for Northampton, who would abolish a Legislature for fun, or erase a Church as a joke, simply moved that the grant for Royal Parks should be reduced by £50,000, the amount spent in London, and the House, without considering for a moment how the expenses were to be provided, decreed by a majority of 131 to 114 that the reduction should be made. As London has no government, and as the Metropoli- tan Board of Works has no authority to keep up the Parks, and as the Crown rights have been surrendered, the effect of this vote, if acted upon, would be to reduce the Parks to the position of open spaces, unwatched, uncultivated, and uncared for. The lovely gardens must be destroyed, the pathways must be suffered to decay, the palings must be allowed to rot, and even the grass must be abandoned to the ruin caused by the tread of multitudes over what would be in future open commons. The most separate and beautiful feature of London, which foreigners are never tired of extolling, and which alone consoles its citizens for the distance of their streets from any of the beauties of nature, must be effaced, or kept up by uncertain and insufficient charitable subscriptions From Thursday there will be no money to pay superintendents or gardeners or watchmen, and a crowd of experienced and successful public servants must be dis- missed uncompensated and unrewarded. Of course, none of these results will happen, but that is the logical result of the vote of the House of Commons, a vote given without thought, in spite of the protest of Cabinet Ministers on both sides, and dictated mainly by a wish to pander to a low provincial jealousy, of which the great cities themselves, if they could be consulted ad hoc, would, we believe, be ashamed.
Be it understood we are in no way pleading the cause of London. It is quite possible that, if justice were done, London, despite its claims upon the whole Empire, might fairly be called upon to contribute a fresh sum to the Treasury as its share of the cost of keeping up the Parks. It draws its wealth from the whole Kingdom ; and though it serves as the meeting place, house of business, and pleasure resort of the whole King- dom, it may be perfectly fair that it should pay all its local expenses. But it never can be fair that the House of Commons should break a contract by a snap vote ; or that after main- taining the Parks for generations without demur, it should suddenly leave them to ruin without even discussing the means of allowing Londoners to keep them up. It never can be fair to ruin hundreds of worthy servants of the public for no fault except that of having trusted in the justice, the deliberateness, and the sense of public decency of the British Parliament. The vote, we presume, will not be allowed to do any harm, if only because London has now sixty representatives who will be dismissed to a man if they do not compel the House to- provide a remedy ; but it has been passed, and its passing at the suggestion of a man like Mr. Labouchere is the gloomiest sign of the sectionalism which threatens our public life that we have yet seen. The great cities have agreed with the Parnellites in a vote the single result of which could only be to make the Metropolis less habitable, less beautiful, and less worthy of being the representative city of the Kingdom. Had not the House better abolish the reading-room of the British Museum? It is a national glory ; but after all, it costs money, and it cannot be used except by residents, permanent or temporary, in London. The vote vould not be more reckless than the vote of Thursday, and would tend more than any other we can think of to "equalise " the intellectual advantages of London and Merthyr Tydvil, which, it appears, the new Radicals think an object greatly to be desired.
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