LONDON'S HEAVY FATHER

THE MODERN

THERE is nothing more fantastic, in a fantastic world, than the pretension of the London County Council. The president of that eminent body has recently delivered an address, which is a fine specimen of tragi-comedy,-comic in its arrogance, tragic when it touches the pocket of the ratepayer. Something, no doubt, must be allowed for "humour," much more for boastfulness. But when all deductions are made, Mr Benn's address remains an astounding document. It was composed in the best style of the heavy father, determined to do the best for his children, determined also to do it after his own method, and for his own glory and selfsatisfaction. The Council, asserted Mr Benn, was "becoming more and more the guardian -might he say the guardian angel?—of the citizen."

Evidently there is nothing he may not say; but we trust that there is very much that he may not do; and though the Council has travelled far on the road of municipal socialism, we are still of good hope that its extravagant ambitions may be foiled, that the patient Londoner, if poor, may be permitted to live his life after his own fashion, and, if rich, may not be forced into a wasteful philanthropy more galling than

the benevolences of the Tudor kings.

It

What is it, then, that the County Council aspires to accomplish for the citizen? It is determined that he shall never escape supervision. would, if it could, follow him from the cradle to the grave. Having first educated him, it would house him, carry him to and from his business, keep a watchful eye upon his health and morals, dictate his amusements, educate his taste in music with a cheap band, ensure him tolerable wages, and finally compel him to forget that he has either will or responsibility of his own. The programme, no doubt, is flattering to the vanity of the Council, but it is a danger to the state; and, while we regret that so much evil has been done, it is not too late to speak a word of warning to the pinched, but indolent, ratepayers.

The duties of a municipal council are many and obvious. It is their legitimate business to see that the drains are efficient and the roads wellswept and clean. But it is not their business to build houses at a loss, and to construct expensive expensive tramways, which, though their conductors exact a small fare, are nothing more nor less than implements

of an ill-advised charity. Still less is the Council qualified to provide amusements for what, with its lofty air of patronage, it calls the "people." Every man has the right to entertain his leisure as he likes; and nobody should claim even such poor solace as a rickety band affords without paying for it. And how ill does the County Council carry out the foolish plans which it has no right to make! Mr Benn boasts that he and his colleagues "cheer" the citizens with music. Who does not know the poor, little open spaces, scrubby and illadorned, with a clumsy stand in the middle, from whose eminence policemen and other amateurs distribute what by courtesy is called "music." The performance is cheap, no doubt, but the ratepayers most certainly do not get fair value for their money; and it is not for such miserable results as this that we should see our rates increased, and the principles of decent citizenship outraged.

After all, there is but one method of making an honest citizen, and that is to give him the freedom of his own life, and to render him responsible for the lives of his children. What man can have a decent pride in himself who is conducted from the cradle to the grave by Mr Benn, or even by one far wiser than he? If once you tell the "poor" man-and it is the County Council that makes this odious distinction between rich and poor-that somebody else will pay for his tram-rides, will find him cheap

quarters, and bring up his children, you cannot blame him if he grow careless concerning the welfare of those who depend upon him. Why should he trouble to feed his starveling children, if a wellladen table is spread for them at school? Why should he be industrious or thrifty, if round the corner he can hear the flutter of the guardian angel's wings? In truth, when once you begin to pauperise a sturdy class you sow the seeds of weakness and misery. The equality of man is a sound doctrine, if it mean equal laws for all; it is a deplorable doctrine if it mean that the man who won't work is the pet of society, jealously guarded and recklessly privileged. privileged. Strength comes to every man from the struggle wisely inflicted by life, and the County Council, with its smiling ambition of making all things easy for all men, is doing its utmost to impose upon London a generation of idle and irresponsible weaklings.

Worse still, the ideal of socialism is, and must always be, the policeman. If the County Council ever grasped its ambition and assumed as its especial charge the life of London, it could only enforce its ordinances by the police. When once you have bidden the citizen to house himself according to your own standard of comfort, when once you have told him how he must be clothed, where he must find his amusement, which tramway he must choose to transport him to his work, you

can only succeed in your tyranny with the help of the law. In other words, you must invent a vast number of new crimes. The citizen, in whom there still lurks the pride of independence, who refuses to come under the aggressive shelter of the Council's enforced benevolence, will appear an outcast; and we shall not be surprised if the amateurs of a vicarious philanthropy who meet in Spring Gardens will not presently be emboldened to ask for a law which shall compel the working men of London not only to live in their houses, but even to listen uncomplainingly to the the sad music of their bands. Such, then, is the ideal of the County Council-a relief from responsibility and the invention of new crimes; and we can only contemplate its perfect realisation with horror. A despot is a grievous thing, even when he is intelligent and spends his own money; but nothing can be worse than a despot who is Bumble incarnate, and who shamelessly robs Peter in order that he may make foolish experiments upon the comfort and happiness of a reluctant Paul.

One of Mr Benn's pleasantest announcements was that the Council's debt amounted to £30,000,000, of which only some £4,000,000 was remunerative, and the rates are mounting year by year. Now, the recklessness of municipal trading is an increasing danger to the community. The county councillor, vain of his influence, fondly believing that he is the

modern Haroun-al-Raschid, is ever sanguine. He is confident, in pretence at least, that the surplus of to-morrow will atone for the extravagance of to-day, and so he continues in his reckless career of wanton expenditure. When the bill comes due, he gaily insists that one end of London shall pay for what the other end spends, and we are gratified with the spectacle of a ruthless rate, levied for the benefit of those who are never asked to contribute a penny. Now, philanthropy is a dangerous expedient, even when it is freely administered by the wisest brain; it is doubly dangerous when it is imposed upon an unwilling community by imprudent vestrymen. Moreover, there must be a limit to the power or complacence of the ratepayer. It is all very well to feed the "people," and relieve it of an irking responsibility. But who presently will feed the harassed ratepayer, and solace his hungry leisure, when his last halfpenny has been exacted to swell the alms of the Council?

And it is not merely the hardship of paying toll which distresses the victims of the

County Council. Municipal socialism is the natural cause of commercial depression. The money which is squandered upon the tramways which do not pay, do not pay, and upon the poor foolish "recreations" inflicted by the Council upon the working man, is withdrawn from works which might give him employment. The sad case of West Ham, lately explained in 'The Times,'

might prove a salutary warning; but the County Councils throughout the country are so deeply in love with their costly generosity, that no disaster is likely to check their extravagance. Now, West Ham, as 'The Times' points out, is perfectly adapted by its hapless site and other circumstances for certain uncomfortable industries; but manufacturers decline to go to a neighbourhood where they are asked to pay 10s. in the pound by way of rates. Moreover, those who have long been established there find it more profitable to go farther afield, and West Ham is left to contemplate, amid its dreams of socialism, bare ruined factories, and a list of paupers increased within a year by upwards of two thousand.

Nor is this the sum of our anxiety: we are also told that the County Council takes the adornment of London under its special care; and here we may discern the beginnings of a serious danger. We cannot regard the London County Council as a committee of taste, not even though it enjoys the patronage of that well-known æsthete Mr John Burns. And not only is the County Council of London incompetent to rebuild and beautify the city which it has taken under its charge, the city itself is one which defies an organised improvement. For London is the result not of a deliberate design, but of a gradual growth. It still bears upon its gnarled face the history of the centuries. It is not one

know that once upon a time that street ran through a village, parted by green fields from the encroaching lines of bricks and mortar. Each parish (or country town) had then its own aspect, its separate life. And this aspect is still discernible, though it will not long survive the mistaken ambition of County Councils. The example of Paris is an ill one to follow. Paris holds our affection by its well-ordered beauty. London conquers our hearts by a character which is various and yet its own. As you pass from Soho to Bloomsbury, for example, you shift from one century to another, and you recognise that a strange history of change and fashion is written upon the streets of London. Our mother-city is, indeed, nothing else than a brilliant series of accidents, and it is these accidents which the County Council hope to abolish. Again, the pretentious buildings which it will put in the place of these accidents are pitifully undistinguished. We have not a great school of architecture which we can intrust with the rebuilding of London. Even Paris is shamed by the "style Felix Faure" and