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Mat 5, I860.] The Leader and Saturday An...
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THE CITY AND THE METROPOLIS. THE local g...
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THE AUSTRIAN SUICIDES. IT has long been ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Mat 5, I860.] The Leader And Saturday An...
Mat 5 , I 860 . ] The Leader and Saturday Analyst . 415
The City And The Metropolis. The Local G...
THE CITY AND THE METROPOLIS . THE local government both of the City and the Metropolis needs to be amended ; and bills are now before Parliament professing to have that object in view . We have lately taken occasion to speak of the latter with a view of directing attention to some of the leading features which ought , we conceive , to characterize any measure intended to be permanent for the o-eneral taxation -and improvement of the capital at large . Every day convinces us more and more of the importance of trettin" - rid of the ricketty and rotten system of indirect election
by the vestries , and reconstituting the Metropolitan Board on principles of direct choice and direct responsibility as regards those who are taxed and governed . Until this is done , we are satisfied that nothing will invest the Metropolitan municipality with that moral power or influence without which no public body in these days can gain much credit or do much good . As yet , however , Parliament has not been called on to discuss the amended bill promoted by the present Board of Works ; and in the mean time the House of Commons has o-iven a second reading to the Government proposal for the
reconstruction of the Corporation of the City . We are not here about to enter in detail into the new municipal mechanism which it is proposed to set up under the images of Gog and Magog . But , assuming that it would be an improvement in many respects on the lumbering and anomalous system that has so long , survived its original meanings and uses , we cannot help regretting that some effort is not made to fuse the institutions of the City into those of the Metropolis . Reasonable objection to so obvious an arrangement there seems to be none . Prejudice , both of the pelfish and of the passionate kind , there would of course be not a little to be overcome . - But
no resistance would avail if Government could be induced to grapple with the subject in a comprehensive and statesmanlike manner . Putting aside altogetlier _ the obvious advantages of economy , uniformity , and simplicity , that must strike the most superficial observer , there are consideration sT of a social and political kind which appear to us to be of the greatest moment . London , with its teeming population , unprecedented accumulation of wealth , and yearly accelerated rate of expansion , still lies in a state the most helplessly inorganic that the history of civilization ever witnessed . For no one purpose , good , bad , or indifferent , is it possible at the present moment to ascertain what the opinion of the Metropolis is , or to secure its constitutional action . There may be reasons why the formation of such
si unity or concurrence of acts and motives should be deprecated rather than induced , and we have heard men argue plausibly that it would not be expedient to allow an itiipcrimti m imperlo to be orgaiiized 7 ^ nd ^ ndue ( l-with-social-aiKl--poiiticaL-poiv : er Better ., Ave are told , it would be to cut up the unwieldy mass into ten or a dozen separate cities , the accidental circumstance of whose contiguity to one another need not prevent their healthful independent existence . There is , we own , much to be said for this view ; and at nil events it is a consistent , intelligent , and reasonable one . But there is nothing whatever to be said in defence of the anomaly which inscribes on the right hand side of the statute book separate municipal privileges and rights for a particular district unmeaningly called " the City ; " while on the left hand side of the statute book is inscribed the vague and
sinewless outlines of a mammoth municipality with the jurisdiction ten times as largo as that of " the City , " and extending on every side round it . Mr . Locke and Mr . Ayrton propose that the whole of the two corporate concerns should be thrown into hotch-potch , and redistributed under ono central organization . We do not say that this might not be done , but we are bound to own that we see great difficulties in the working out of the plan . The only principle on which Metropolitan Government can ever be reconciled in London with a salutary retention of local life , spirit , and action , is that of a large and liberal devolution of power to « ach of the great constituent districts that nre topographically ,
and for purposes of sewerage and police , but for no other purpose that we know of , nt present chained together . Nothing can in our opinion be more imbecile , abortive , and mischievous , than that which now exists . Identity between the . different , districts there is nono ; intercommunication or sympathy between thetn there , is none ; unity of action , language , or disposition there is none ; and yot , witli all this severance , jealousy , and repulsion , no locality hns the benefit of separate inunieipol life , except that comparatively limited ono whoso inhabitants have been bom within tlio sound of Bow bell . " This state of things , js both unsound ond unsafe . It is that which must inevitably engender n vast system of demagoguism and jobbing , oven in peaceful and prosperous times ; but should a day of trouble or . of danger « omc it will be exposed to the still nioro sorious reproach of
being a pretended system of local government , which will Bfe found incapable of governing at all .
The Austrian Suicides. It Has Long Been ...
THE AUSTRIAN SUICIDES . IT has long been evident that the Austrian Government was committing suicide , and every friend of humanity has watched the process with complacency and satisfaction : but it is not only a system that is killing itself;—individuals in high position are afflicted with the mania of self-destruction ; and quite recently one of the leading statesmen of the Empire , a confidential adviser of the Hapsburg crown , has ended his personal troubles in a most determined manner , through the double aid of poison and steel . In the ordinary sense of the word there was no insanity about the late Minister of Austrian Finance . His choice of
death was the deliberate act of a cool , calculating speculator , who saw that the last chances of success had . passed away from his grasp , and who had not the moral courage to meet poverty , punishment , and disgrace . We may wait for some time before the whole story of his delinquencies is publicly known ; meanwhile the belief in Vienna is that he was not guilty of greater frauds than were to be expected from the minister of a demoralized , despotic court . He was probably not a whit more dishonest than the ordinary speculative adventurers , of whom we have in this country an abundant supply . It is probable that he winked at and aided the frauds of Eynatten and his companions ; but we should remember that if our free State can exhibit its Weedon defalcations and its
large Admiralty deficits , Austria is fairly entitled to a priority in dishonesty ; and nothing as yet known is a bit worse than ought to be expected from the hereditary traditions and principles of the Government of which Francis Joseph is the head . We are told by persons well acquainted with Vienna , that nobody supposed the late Baron or any of his predecessors contented themselves with the small-salary attached to their office , and that such a post was known to offer to dexterous jobbers the means of getting rich . Francis Joseph could have no moral right to honest services . He had deliberately violated the most solemn oaths , and ruled , at any rate over Hungary , as a murderous
usurper , and hot as a legal king . When , after many years of reckless extravagance , his finances became desperate , he Avas a party to the fraud by which his Ministers raised a much larger loan than they were entitled to negotiate , and thus obtained subscriptions upon false pretences . If Biujck helped his Emperor to cheat the moneymongers and investors , according to the usual morality of such transactions the Minister would consider himself entitled to his masters aid in transactions : profitable to himself . We never regret to see rogues fall out ; but the Baron xvfl ^ nw—i 1 L . iisprL . innn , mid his Sovereign proved ungrateful tn n tnnl who had assisted his evil work . A wiser potentate
would have enriched all the swindlers who were necessary to the support of his power , and would not have been so foolish as to imagine that a system of despotic craft and cruelty could be sustained or worked by honest hands . The fact is , that Francis Joseph , the favourite pupil of the Jesuits , is not overburdened with brains . He feels bitterly the degradation of his Italian defeats . He will not sec that cheating his subjects out of their political and social rights has been the cause of his misfortunes ; but while obdurate and impenitent concerning his own crimes , he has taken it into his head that if he had possessed honcster servants he might have crushed the Italians , and negotiated as a conqueror with the Emperor of the French .
Hence , while he will not hear of liberty , of constitutional checks and human rights , he believes he can terrify his subordinates out of the dishonesty which is engrained in the very method of his rule . Such an attempt is full of danger , and has suggested ideas of sedition and rebellion in his official world . The tools of despotism seldom wish to be honest , and those of Francis Joseph , paid in depreciated paper , cannot afford it , and do not intend , if they can help it , to try the experiment . * and for the
The creditof Austria is as bad as that of Turkey , same reason ; everybody knows the system is rotten and its existence precarious * . The Emperor may drive more of his " friends in council" to nn abrupt termination of their mundane existence , and the result will be that the undetected culprits will watch for an opportunity-of getting n new master , arid will either make friends wjlth Revolution , or join the Hapsburg iunnly in placing another of its members on the throne . This has long been talked ofand we . notice that the rumour is now revived . ;
, It is unfortunate in Catholic Austria that a Protestant minister should have exposed himself to charges such as surround tho name of Bruck , and it is equally so that in aristocratic Austria the experiment of raising middle class men to power should have signally foiled , both in the instance of the late Baron and in that of Bach , who has been » hinderanee to the liberal cause . Fkanois
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), May 5, 1860, page 3, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_05051860/page/3/
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