LORD ROSEBERY ON THE LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL.
TORD ROSEBERY speaks with the utmost hopeful- ) ness, we may almost say, with the utmost optimism, of the career which the London County Council is just commencing ; and though it is certainly better for him who is just girding on his armour not to boast himself as he who putteth it off, we are far from saying that a sanguine spirit is identical with a boastful spirit ; indeed, without a very large spirit of hope, the new body might well collapse at the very commencement of such many and great labours as lie before it. Something has certainly been done already by the London County Council to earn the provisional confidence of the public. It is a good thing to have deter- mined on the abolition of the coal and wine duties. It is a good thing to have determined to keep the deliberations of the Committees private, for in deliberations in which there might have been perpetual competition amongst the members to catch public applause, the solid part of London commerce would have had no sort of confidence. It is a good deal to have selected such a man as Lord Rosebery for the Chairman of the whole Council, and men of such experi- ence and weight as Lord Lingen and Sir Thomas Farrer for Chairmen of the Committees of Finance and Taxation respectively. And, perhaps, what is best of all is that the London County Council should begin its career with a majority for the reforming party, not only because there are certain reforms manifestly wanted, not only because the Metropolitan Board of Works succeeded in impressing the need for reform much more effectually on the mind of London than any other need whatever, but even in the very interests of prudence and caution, because it is quite certain that a body with a decided majority for reform and a very strongly marked resolve to effect reforms, will command much more confidence when it rejects imprudent and rash proposals, than any body could have commanded which should have been credited by the people of London with a retrograde or anti-popular bias. Regarding as we do prudence and caution in the administration of great municipal affairs as the very first requisite of success, we are delighted to see the affairs of the new London County Council in the hands of men who will be really trusted when they condemn an arrangement as rash or dangerous, because, both by party sympathy and by personal antecedents, they are known to belong to the best class of popular states- men. We have no fear that such statesmen as Lord Rosebery, Lord Lingen, Lord Hobhouse, and Sir Thomas Farrer will embark the new London Parliament in dangerous and reckless enterprises. And we are quite sure that when they reject any proposal to engage in such dangerous and reckless enterprises, they will be more heartily trusted and supported than nominal Conservatives, however sagacious, would have been. The extreme men will have much less power to goad the new County Council on to perilous ventures, than they would have had if the leaders had not already got full command of the sym- pathies of the progressive party. The Radicals in Parlia- ment used to say that they rather preferred a Reform Bill brought in by the Conservative Party, because they could do larger things through the instrumentality of the Con- servative Party than they could do through the instru- mentality of the Liberal Party, the prudence of which was distrusted by the very limited constituencies then in com- mand of the situation. For a precisely similar reason, now that the constituencies are so thoroughly democratic, we prefer to have a reforming policy introduced by the Liberals to having it introduced by the Conservatives, because the new democracy will be more manageable by Liberals who tell them what is too rash and risky to attempt, than they will by Conservatives who tell them the same thing.
And what is more, we feel quite as firm a belief that the Liberals who are at present controlling the London County Council really wish to be prudent, as the Radical Party could ever have felt that the Conservatives under Lord Beaconsfield really wished to go as far in the democratic direction as their constituents, under the " education to which their leader submitted them, would permit them to go.
Indeed, as we have pointed out on former occasions, the Liberals in the London County Council are well aware that there are very clear limits to innovation which they must not trangress, if they would keep the confidence of their constituencies. A good deal may be done, perhaps, and we hope will be done, in the direction of equalising the pressure of municipal taxation on the rich and the poor ; but if once any of the wilder proposals for confiscation, or anything approximating to confiscation, should find favour with the Council, there will be a very sharp check ad- ministered by the various Building Societies in London.
whose property is in the aggregate very large, and all in the hands of struggling and needy people. It will be impossible to confiscate rich men's property without endangering poor men's property. That is the great safe- guard of all property where it is widely distributed among the poor. The great misfortune of Ireland has been that we have not hitherto had that safeguard there. The great good fortune of London is that we have that safeguard for London property, and that it is sure to prove a check-string which will pull up very sharply those who wish to make raids against the solid foundations of civilised life.
Lord Rosebery could hardly have expressed better the aim which the new County Council for the Metropolis ought to place before itself, and which, so far as the Chairman is concerned, he does place before himself, than in the advice " to advance hand-in-hand with a daring caution, feeling our way but not afraid to move, seeking the truth but not afraid to face the truth when we have found it." For it will take a daring caution and a cautious daring to do all that may be done for London, without risking all that may be risked and lost by injudicious haste. As Mr. Chamberlain said very justly in his speech at Birmingham on Monday, it is childish to reproach great Municipalities with a great increase of their expenditure, so long as that increase of expenditure causes, and is justified by, a much greater increase of their wealth. That is the principle which should inspire Lord Rosebery and his colleagues, both with their daring and with their caution. They should dare much when the promise is great that what they dare will raise the whole level of Loudon comfort and industry, and make it far easier to extract the greater taxation which is required, than it has been to extract the smaller taxation which is superseded. But that is a prin- ciple which will stimulate caution as well as daring. They must not impose rates which, instead of making London more industrious and prosperous, tend to make it less industrious and prosperous. They must guide them- selves, as Birmingham has guided itself, by the light of sober experience, and only incur new expenditure which they have every reason to believe likely to replace, and more than replace, the outlay by which it is to be defrayed. We may be quite sure that if they make this their aim, they will embark in no wild schemes for relieving the poor from all liability for the cost of the improvements which they vote ; for that is a principle which is utterly disastrous to the morale as well as the economy of any great Municipality, and which cannot be adopted without letting loose class passions as well as stimulating the most wasteful extravagance. Rates which make the poor richer will never in the end make the rich poorer. And it is only rates,—no doubt steadily increasing rates,—which will make the poor grow steadily richer, that will be sanctioned by that " daring caution " of which Lord Rosebery speaks.
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