The first duty of the Chairman of the new London
Council will be to restrict discussion to the business the Council is in- tended to do, and so preventit from degenerating into a debating society. There is an idea abroad that, it is to be a. sort of Home-rule Parliament for London, with power to legislate on taxation, the police, the right of meeting, and even the pro- vision of work for the unemployed. It is needless to say it has no such powers, and that in debating such subjects it will neglect its work, and retard the concession to it of wider authority. It is, as Lord Rosebery pointed out, when "heckled" by the electors, strictly an executive body, bound to concern itself with its revenues, its debts, possible im- provements, and the efficiency of its great skiff, and not with amateur projects of philanthropy. It will be on its trial for the first. three years, and can be abolished at the end of those three just as readily as the Metro- politan Board. The idea of its, resolutions, swaying the House of Commons is absurd The weakest and least popular State Legislature in the Union has always been able to abrogate the charter of any Municipality ; and in London the mass-vote is conservative,, and constitutional.
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