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    Untitled Article

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    Untitled Article

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    THE CITY AND THE METROPOLIS.

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    -,- ¦» . , ¦ ¦ „ . THE AUSTRIAN.SUICIDES.

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    Untitled Article

    TIHE local government both of the City and the Metropolis ' needs to be amended ; and bills are now before Parliajnenfc professing to have that object in view . We liavfe 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 getting rid of the ricketty and rotten system of indirect election the olitan Board

    being a pretended system of local government , which will be found incapable governing at all . .

    by the vestries , and reconstituting Metrop 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 o-ood . As yejfc , 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 iip 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 altogether the -obvious ^ advantages / . oC economy , uniformity , and simplicity , that must strike the most superficial observer , there are considerations of a social and political kind wliich 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 a 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 imper ' wm in imperio to be brganized 7 Tmtl ~ ittTta ^ —Better , we are told , it would be to cut up the unwieldy mass into ten or ¦ a dozen separate cities , the accidental circumstance of whose Scontiguity to one another need not prevent their healthful independent existence . There is , we own , much to be said for this view ; and at all events it is a consistent , intelligent , and reasonable one . But there is nothing whatever to bo 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 large as that of " the City , " and extending' on * very 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 one central ' organization . We do not say that this might not be done , but we are bouiul 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 dovolution of power to ench of the great constituent ' districts that are topographically , and for purposes of sewerage and police , but for no other purpose

    that wo know of , at 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 none ; intercommunication or sympathy between them there is none ; unity of action , language , nv disposition there is none ; and . yet , with all this severance , jealousy , and repulsion , no locality hn * s the benefit of separate municipal life , except that comparatively limited one whose inhabitants have been -bom within the sound of Bow , bell . This state of things is both unsound and unsafe . It is that which must inevitably engender a vast system of domagoguism and jobbing , even in peaceful and prosperous times ; but should ft day of trouble or of danger come \\ will bo exposed to the still more serious reproach of

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    I T has long been evident that the Austrian Government was committing suicide , and every fr iend 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 Ha-psbukg 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 riot the moral-courage to meet poverty , punishment , and disgrace . We may wait for some time before the whole story of his delinqueri&es 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 aiui 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-etighT 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 4 o dexterous jobbers the jneans of getting rich ? Frain cis ~ Joseph could have no " moral r ight to honest services . He had deliberately violated the most solemn

    oaths , and ruled , at any rate over Hungary , as a murderous usurper , and nolTas * a legal Jang . " When , after many years of reckless extravagance , his finances became desperate , he was 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 Bruck helped his Emperor to cheat the money mongers and investors , according to the usual morality of such transactions the Minister would consider himself entitled to his master ' s aid- in transactions profitable to himself . We never regret to see rogues fall out ; but the Baron WS—aTr-ill = used- ~ inanr-a « d- —^ lvis- ^ Sovemgn ^ i 3 roy £ d _ Jiugraj « fui __ - to n . tool who had assisted his evil work . A wiser potentate

    would have enriched all the swindlers who wqre necessary to the support of his power , and would riot have , been so foolish as to ifnagine 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 see that cheating Ins 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 honestcr 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 . of and for the

    The credit * of Austria is as bad as that Turkey , same reason ; everybody knows the' system is rotten and its existence precarious * . The Emperor may ^ rive more of his " friends in council" to an abrupt termination of their mundane existence , and the result will bo that the undetected culprits will watch for an Opportunity of getting a new master , aria Will either mnke friends with Revolution , or join the Hapsburg family in placing another of its members on * the throne . This has long been talked ofarid 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 the name of Bruok , and it is equally so that in aristocratic Austria the experiment of raising middle class men to power should have signally failed , both in the instance of the late Baron arid in that of Bach , who has been n himlernncc to the liberal cause . Francis

    Untitled Article

    Mat 5 , I 860 . ] The Leader and Saturday Analyst * 415

    The City And The Metropolis.

    THE CITY AND THE METROPOLIS .

    -,- ¦» . , ¦ ¦ „ . The Austrian.Suicides.

    THE AUSTRIAN . SUICIDES .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), May 5, 1860, page 415, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2346/page/3/