THE PROPOSED LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL HALL- 1W E have no quarrel
on the question of principle eith the desire of the London County Council to supplement its name and its work with a local habita- tion wo thy of the gigantic labours that occupy the central body which represents the ratepayers of the whole of the administrative county of London. It is a natural and not an unworthy ambition, and one that would long ago have been gratified were it not for the unfortunate fact that London has never chosen to regard itself as a living municipal entity, and were it not for the further fact that it is the Corporation of the City of London which repre- sents in the eyes of the world the Metropolis of the Empire. The union of the Corporation and the Council would have solved the difficulty, but it is too late—or too soon by many years—to think of that. The County Council from the first has felt that its dignity and its convenience demanded central offices. In 1889 the question of suitable buildings was considered, and about £10,000 was spent in adapting the Spring Gardens premises to the growing needs of the Council. In 1890 Parliamentary powers were obtained to borrow money for the purpose of providing a permanent site, and a Committee reported on seven large sites, including those of Christ's Hospital, Millbank Prison, the Foundling Hospital, and a site on the Victoria Embankment east of the Temple Gardens. In 1893 a Committee reported on other sites, including that of Farringdon Market and an area of over two acres in Parliament Street now being covered with Govern. ment offices. In 1896 the Council determined to acquire an available site in the neighbourhood of Spring Gardens, but the Bill presented to Parliament for this purpose was rejected on the second reading. In March, 1900, a Special Committee was again appointed to report on the acquisition of a site, and this Committee finally reported in July last strongly in favour of building on the site of the Adelphi Terrace. This area is three and a third acres. It is said to be central, accessible, and quiet. It is bounded on the north by a music-hall and some small streets, on the south by the Embankment Gardens, on the east by one of the large hotels. The estimated cost of compulsory acquisition is £900,000. The actual cost would be much larger,—if we may judge by what usually happens in such cases. The cost of erecting the necessar'y buildings would probably be near £1,000,000, and the hall and offices would not be completed for a considerable number of years. The proposal of the Special Committee came before the County Council on Tuesday, and was discussed at some length and with some asperity. An amendment that would have involved the complete rejec- tion of the scheme was defeated, but if we may judge by the speeches of the most weighty members of the Council, many of whom feel with us that there is much to be said in favour of the principle of a County Hall and per- manent offices, the opinion of the Council was against the ultimate adoption of the scheme.
It seems to us that it would be impossible for the Council, if it intends to apply statesmanlike principles to this interesting question, to adopt the proposal that Mr. J. S. Fletcher and his Special Committee after two and a half years of careful thought have brought forward. If the financial question, and all that that question means to Londoners in the near future, could be eliminated from the problem, it is probable that the site proposed is one that might be chosen as offering to the County Council many advantages of position, quietude, accessibility, and centralisation of work. We say "probable," as it seems that there is another possible solution of this " housing " question which has been most unaccountably overlooked by members of the Council. To this we shall refer directly. 'We are also inclined to think that if a site must be purchased, it would be at least as well to adopt Mr. Cohen's ingenious proposal, and erect the desired buildings on the east side of Westminster Bridge south of the Thames, and thus give to South London a new and needed dignity. This site combines practi- cally all the advantages of the Adelphi site and is much cheaper. The financial question cannot, however, be elinn- nated even by an epigram from the lips of Lord Carrington. 'We prefer to anchor ourselves on the statistical solidity of Lord Welby. Lord Carrington, though an opponent of the proposal, felt that those who opposed it on the ground of the burden on the rates were straining at the mumcipal gnat while swallowing the Imperial camel. The answer to this metaphor is that when the municipal gnat is proved to belong to the genus Anopheles, and attains the dimensions of a dragon, the ratepayer must either strain or leave the neighbourhood. The sum of £2,000,000 voted for the purpose of supplying the Council with a Mansion House would mean, if spread over the whole 01 England, a substantial increase in Imperial taxes, and restricted to London it would mean a terrible increase of the burden which a camel to which Lord Carrington did not allude has to bear. We refer to the London ratepayer. In his capacity of camel he has, we hope.
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yet reached his carrying capacity, and probably the proposed £2,000,000 would not prove the last straw ; but the limit of carrying capacity is rapidly approached. Neither rich men nor very p being men adequately realise how great a burden local taxation has become to persons of small or moderate incoines The extravagance and wastefulness of Boards of Guardians —composed very frequently of persons accustomed. to, think in pence and mentally incapable of apprecia.tmc the meaning of millions—and the necessary costliness of local government and Metropolitan education. even now tax the community beyond its economic strength. Another three years, as Lord Welby points out, will see a large increase in the rates to meet liabilities falling due ; and we believe that it would be madness at such a time to throw the responsibility of another two millions on the rates of London. The economic principle underlying rating is, we think, clear. When a certain limit of rating is reached, local authorities are only justified in calculating on an income increasing with the automatic increase of rateable values. It is, of course, difficult to fix the limit, and it is dangerous to approach it. Prac- tically it may be taken to be a rate that adds 50 per cent. to rent. If this limit is passed, rateable value will de- cline as the result of emigration and the consequent decay in the structural character of the rated property. We therefore are opposed to the proposed County Hall, on the ground that it will help to bring us dangerously near the rating limit, and so check the increase of rateable value.
But there is another and a very important reason for opposition. London government is in a state of flux. The future of the London County Council, of the London Borough Councils, of the City Corporation itself, is an un- known quantity. The little that we know all militates against the erection of a great municipal palace that in a few years may be useless. Such things happen in municipal affairs. We should be sorry to see the Adelphi Mansion House built to no real purpose. But we all know that the tendency of legislation, as shown by the London Govern- ment Act, 1899, is to take away duties from the County Council and to vest them in the various Borough Councils. This process will eventually leave the County Council as a body or heart controlling arterial movement, but without detailed locid work. Among the central labours of the County Council will be, we believe, the control of primary and second- ary education in the Metropolis. Without committing our- selves to prophecy with respect to the unknown, we may say that it is more than probable, it is even possible, that next year will see the London School Board disestablished, the local control over primary education —as in the case of small urban e to the Borough Councils, and the general superintendence and financing of primary education (as well as secondary) given to the London County Council. If this were to be so—and from the general analogy of the present Education Bill it well may be so—then the proper place for the London County Council to occupy is the costly and palatial building that the London School Board has erected for itself on the Victoria Embankment. We are surprised that this solution of the difficulty should not have occurred to Mr. Fletcher's Committee. The building would be unoccupied, it would not cost the County Council any money except certain expenses connected with internal rearrangement, and it would very possibly afford accommodation for the work that the Council will eventually be called upon to perform. If for the present the detailed work that the Council has to perform, but which will eventually pass to the Borough Councils, demands more space, Spring Gardens could also be retained. That is a matter for arrangement. We certainly feel justified, therefore, in suggesting that no millions should be spent on new buildings until the fate of the London School Board is settled, and the future of the great Embankment School Board Offices is determined.
It may be said, of course, that the work of the School Board will still go on, only under another name, and that therefore there will be only an apparent and not a real Vacancy in the School Board Offices ; but if, as we Fe presuming, the Counts' Council's educational function _ to supervise rather than to administer directly, its Education Department will by no means require the whole of the present buildings. Certainly the hall now used for the School Board meetings will not be required.
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