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hold a generous acknowledgment from those Trh . omth . ey call in to " save society . " For our own part we do not highly value a standing army . It is an expensive and a dangerous mode of concentrating the manly strength of a country . In the absence of a standing army , a national force , such as that of a militia , is the true reliance foT defending the State , both against the external invader and the internal traitor . It would be a wild idea to attempt the invasion of the United ( States , whose whole manhood forms its standing army ; and experience has proved that disaffection is powerless to attempt any subversive movement in the Union , which is its own guardian of
its own peace . The mihtia of the United States has always distinguished itself by its fidelity , not less than its gallantry , in the preservation of national order . The insurrectionary mov . em £ nt during the native American riots , the anti-English Macready riots in New York , the revolution in New Jersey , the practical attempt at separation in JNTorth Carolina , were suppressed , not by a standing army , but by a national force . The republic has its own views , and highly national they are ; but it is quite prepared to maintain its own authority , its own self-possession , against the partial impulse of its own inconsiderate citizens . There is no essential difference
between English people and American people ; there is no reason to suppose that the English people , brought to a sense of discipline—as all trained bodies are—would be less faithful to order than the American militia . But the shop-keeping class , which in some districts has obtained too great a preponderance in local administration , is not competent to master any one of the alternative methods of governing a state . It will neither cultivate harmony between man and man by direct face to face conference ; nor will it train the body of the people to discipline and self-defence ; nor will it even thank , or pay without grudge , that standing army upon whom it depends for a rescue against the disorders which itself provokes .
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ADMINISTRATION" OF LONDON IMPROVEMENTS . London is inundated just now with incentives to material improvements , with promises and plans out of number ; -and yet the universal remark is , that there is neither person , nor power , nor plan , to reduce these improvements to a consistent whole , or even to carry out those of which , the necessity , and the design , are already before the superior authorities . This is a wide assertion ; but it can be made good in every particular , and there does appear some possibility that practical
conception of the actual state of the case is leading to a radical cure , and to such a material improvement of this metropolis as few have hitherto contemp lated . In all processes of improvement there is a work of demolition aa well as that of construction . In London , the work of demolition is not onl necessary beyond' the usual degree , but it is also easy , nay , in some respects ,
selfacting . We have so groat a variety of things to bo done , that it would bo hopeless to compose an entire list . Wo have , for example , overcrowdod gravo-yards , —drains constructed in all sorts of fashions at different periods , —buildings without any drains at all , —streets which are too narrow for the traffic that now passes through tliom , —whole districts built upon a plan devised about fifty years ago , for constructing houses very choaply , to stand a limited number of years , nioro
than one groat bridge over the river becoming unsafe from tho spontaneous tendency to lall clown , —a rivor which might bo tho fluent in tHo world , but which is crowded with tho ugliest buildings or ruins that any metropolis could exhibit , —tho water converted to tho stream of a ^ at common sower , —wo have- Homo millions of ires , dail y disgorging a amoko which covers our public building with a coat of black , —wo have publu
; buildings , some of them constructed for lunr purpose ; and with an eye to architectural e H'cfc , others consisting of temporary buildings P * ' mauonl ; ly occupied , in obscure streets and outoi-tho-way plaotiH of " no thoroughfare , " tho wuolo public , Horvioo being scattered about tho wuolo metropolis , —wo havo works of art which 'HiHfcrafco tho incompotoncy of tho nation either al ( ' ?" ' ruct n P » l > Hc building , or to givo a suitable > O ( lo for t ; ho works of foroi « m masters , or even l
J ° " »}» rovo the natural capabilities of that which A Ji m ^ lo fc } roatofl <; iwotropolis in tho world . A direct foinody for these several evils liea in
many different hands . We have a Home Secretary to close the grave-yards ; a Board of Health to stir up crowded and infected neighbourhoods ,-a Commission of Sewers to exercise imperfect powers ^ for constructing drains " looming in the future ; " another Commission of Sewers to make suggestions to the Common Council for similar purposes ; a Corporation of the City , with a power to make improvements , from funds
originally raised by a tax on coal for the benefit of widows and orphans in the city , and expended on outlying " approaches" so far off as Oxford-street ; we have a Board of Public Works , with a Cabinet Minister at its head , to receive and sanction plans that must be referred in part to Parliament , in part to the Commissioners of Sewers , in part to the City of London , and in part to somebody whom it would be difficult to discover in this
crowd of separate authorities . In neither of the preceding lists have we exhausted each subject , nor Would it be possible to present anything like a correct account of the plains . already under consideration , if not accepted for the improvement of the metropolis . There are some already going forward with real amendments / upon the old state of things . There is Victoria-street , in a state of chronic demolition ; the ancient refuse of Westminster in that particular line swept away , but the promised
magnificent street , with improved buildings on the Scotch plan , a separate nouse tipon every floor , as yet existing only in the imagination . We have the Commissioners of Sewers announcing a great project for intercepting the drainage on the North and the South of the river , by three drains , one on the North side , and two on the South , at a low and a high level ; we have the City Commission of Sewers taking the lead in recommending to the Court of Common Council a cemetery of the
most improved plan . We have all but commenced an experimental underground railway , probably to become , a circular line around London ; we have a new market for cattle in rapid progress of construction , at Copenhagen-fields ; there is one scheme for the improvement of the Thames by a new embankment , with a new frontage for business on both sides from Hichmond or Battersea , to London , bridge , on the North side , and on the North side a railroad .
There is also lying somewhere , perdu , a plan for the redistribution of public offices for the convenience of the service and the improvement of the metropolis . These , again , are a few specimens of the improvements designed and more or less accepted or commenced .
Some of these plans will probably succeed ; others will fail ; but it is certain that the gross amount of success would be much greater if it extended beyond these designs—if they could all be reduced to a whole , and be made to work together . Let us take a single example of the advantage to bo derived from unity of design and concentration if not unity of authority . A discussion is proceeding , with some promise , on the subject of re-organizing the Civil Service . We aro aware it has boon under consideration of
statesmen in office with a view to improvements . W ^ o have no knowledge as to tho practical extent to which this consideration has gone , or to the existence of any settled plan for carrying out the proposed roforms . But tho idea has taken root , and it is mooted with so much interest and ability , that it is likely before many years to attain some tangible results . Ono' suggestion ift , that tho wholo of tho service should bo consolidated into one ; somewhat in tho way that tho army w at present . Every clerk in now allotted
to a particular dopartmont , or even to a section of a dopartmont , in which his career must commence and terminate , with a prospect of promotion only within a few rooms . Amongst many other inconvonionooH thore in tho limitation of promotion , tho very partial knowledge which falls within tho training of any individual clerk ; with the necessity , therefore , of repeating many proeosHos many timoB ' ovor ; also a certain fixity in then distribution of tho individuals , which deprives the superior of
authorities of the power }> ieIc . inK and choosing their mun according to capacity . Jlio varied experience , tho movoablonofla , tho wide * range of promotion offered by tho organization of tho army , aro totally wanting in tho Civil Horvioo . To rondor tho ' ihoonvoniencoB as groat , iw possible , tho service w distributed about sovoral buildings in London — ovon the smno dopartmont being divided . Finance , for oxamplo , finds a fragmentary abode in every quarter— -the Customs in ono
part , the Inland Revenue in another , the JExchequer in a third , the Treasury in a fourth , the Pay Office in a fifth , the Audit Office in a sixth , the actual paying department , the Bank of Eng * land , in a seventh . The notion Respecting improved buildings is , to continue a reform already commenced , by concentrating the departments more to themselves , and lodging them in suitable offices . This is in part effected by the better gathering together of the Inland Revenue OfG . ce in Somerset House . There is another sue-ffestion
¦ r— that a magnificent suite of public buildings should be constructed on the side of "Whitehall now occupied by the Horse Guards , the Admiralty , the Pay Office , and others . Some of the buildings in that quarter have recently been improved , but there would be advantage , as there would be ground , for laying out a much more comprehensive range than any existing in that quarter . The new offices might be built behind those already standing , and either incorporated with the best of them or presenting an entirely
new range of buildings . The idea is , to construct them with a face forming an arc of a very large circle from Great Georgerstreet nearly to Charingcross , with two wings projecting backwards on the line with Great George-street , and a corresponding wing about Spring-gardens . Here the major part of the public offices connected with the Supreme Government might be collected ; an arrangement , coupled with an improved organization of the service , which would get an amount
of work out of the same staff of public servants far exceeding what is now practicable . While recommended on these grounds , the improvement would also give , without cost , a magnificent range of buildings added to the ornaments of the metropolis . If we had a Ministry of Public Works , with power , staff , and means sufficient for its objects , the public might save itself endless expense and trouble , and a fine guiding point would h& offered for the general improvement of the metropolis .
But even much humbler works remain without the means or the authority . The plan for intercepting the drainage of the Thames , just promulgated by the Commissioners of Sewers , would , in the language of Mr . Robert Stephenson , " scarcely be felt , if not followed up by similar designs of much greater magnitude , both on the North and South sides of tho Thames . " These partial plans , however , would appear to involve the expenditure of nearly a million of money ; whereas the Commissioners have only authority to raise about
200 , 000 £ . a year ; a sum insufficient by about 50 , 000 / . for the annual expenses in current works of a much more ordinary kind . Again , while the Homo Secretary is shutting up grave yards , and parishes are forced to find burial grounds beyond the bounds of the metropolis , the City alone has sufficient power and means to provide a cemetery for a largo section of the metropolis in one spot , and on one adequate design . And yet again , the City , which has so many improvements in band , and which has performed improvements for Finsburv or Marylcbonc , is obliged to filch the money for tho purpose out of tho coal collar
of the poor as well as the rich—of the rustic in Hertfordshire as well as the real citizen . Thin part of tho great scheme of improvements resta upon a fraudulent species of coal tax , levied in a manner which renders its continuance a bare possibility , if bo much ; another part rests upon tho authority of the Commissioners of Sowers , ludicrous for lacking both powers and means ; and others , again , repose in trading companies liko tho railway companies , bound to no allegiance , but only by Homo Act of Parliament . If wo
blame tho metropolis /' or Jacking tho taste to arrange its own material dwelling place accordiug to its own dignity and importance , tho metropolis might reply that it lias indeed no collective exiatonoo . And here wo coino to tho greatest improvement of all , if it should bo carried out—tho promised incorporation of tho whole metropolis , comprising a population of more than two millionH , tho wealthiest population in tho world , witli
men of tlio highoHt nttmninentu and experience ,, resident in many quarters of it , and having at command a , larger amount of accomplished ami thoroughly informed professional and scientific mon than any othor city nave Paris . Tho inotropolis only wants a eolleotiyo existence and « n administrative power to call forth tho moans for placing itself in order , and becoming in aspect , what it is in oommweo and , politics , a groat civio impwimt fa invperio .
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November 5 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 1067
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 5, 1853, page 1067, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2011/page/11/
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