necessary consequences. The Common Council did, in the following year, bring in a bill which, though not exactly what was thus proposed, was a much nearer approach to it than anything ever done before. It was Parliament, not the Corporation of London, who threw out that Bill.

I propose to enter more fully into this subject in another letter, in reference to statements made by some witnesses. I have, in this, treated of the topics that are continually reiterated by the habitual attackers of the Corporation, and which have been repeated by certain witnesses before this illegal Commission. I propose, hereafter, if your space permits, to deal with other of the evidence given before this Commission. In doing so, I shall adopt the rule not to be betrayed into personalities. For this reason, I take no notice of any attempts to meet what I say by personal insinuations; and therefore leave untouched a letter which I see in one of your contemporaries this day, and which, with characteristic logic, tries to warn the world against my argument because (strange enough, no doubt, now-a-days) I have maintained consistent principles for at least five years past. I am, Sir, your obedient servant, Highgate, Nov. 15, 1853.

TOULMIN SMITH.

THE CORPORATION INQUIRY.-No. III.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING ADVERTISER.

SIR,-The vaguest notions seem to float in the minds of all who have, as yet, given the public the benefit of their opinions before this Commission. The one point which lies at the bottom of the subject, it does not seem to have occurred to them to consider. I mean, what the constitution of the Corporation really is, and what is the nature and force of the charters and otherwise, which make up its law and regulate its government.

It cannot be said, indeed, that the Commissioners themselves have shown any desire to do other than avoid this first and most essential point of true inquiry. The following is the sort of logic they have put forth to the public:-" As full documentary evidence with regard to the constitution of the City of London, up to a very recent period, already exists in an authentic form, the Commissioners purpose to commence their investigation with receiving the evidence of persons who may have complaints to make, or alterations to suggest." The exquisite reasoning displayed in this choice passage can only remind one of the answer given to the anxious querist, who, having asked,

Pray, Sir, do you understand German ?" was gravely informed-" No, Sir, but I have a cousin, by the mother's side, who plays upon the German flute."

Documentary evidence as to the constitution of the City of London already exists in an authentic form. Therefore, the Commissioners who profess to be inquiring into this very matter, won't condescend to stop to look at it at all, but proceed at once to advere for complaints against, and alterations of, that ich they thus leave itself unexamined.

The constitution of the Corporation of London is not to be learned from the mere perusal of half a dozen musty parchments. None of the "authentic documents" that the Commissioners so complacently allude to,-and then, like the Levite, pass by on the other side,-will really help much to the understanding of it. It can be truly learned only by the examination of a number of collateral documents; such as the Rolls of Parliament, incidental forms and records of legal procedures and inquiries, decisions of various courts, local chronicles, and so forth. It is a work of a good deal of labour, though, to the lover of English liberty, one of surpassing interest. Had it been undertaken by this Commission, it would have been found that the free constitution of the Corporation of London, exercised by the entire body of the citizens (and not by any limited number of "freemen"), can be traced from a period long anterior to the time of William the Conqueror, down to the year 1725. In the latter year an act was passed in parliament, through the instrumentality of an unscrupulous ministry, which aimed a fatal blow at that constitution. The design and the result were seen through by a number of enlightened Peers, whose contemporary protests against it, on true and constitutional grounds, remain on record. I only regret that they are too long to quote here. What they foresaw has come to pass: the

dangerous consequences concerning the very being and constitution of the Corporation," are what stare us in the face to-day. A wholesome warning does this instance give, of the mischiefs of allowing Parliamentary tinkering to interfere with the regular course of Municipal Institutions. All that Parliament can now do, without increased mischief, will be simply to undo the mischief it has already, by its meddling, done.

The Commissioners are told, that the Charters of the Corporation are "not accessible to the public;" and this, to the "certain knowledge " of the witness. Nothing can be more incorrect. You may pick up a copy of these Charters of London, at any respectable old book shop. There is no secret at all about them. I have myself more than one copy of them, for which I have certainly not been indebted to the goodwill of any of the officers of the Corporation; not being so familiar with the neighbourhood of Guildhall as some of the witnesses seem to be.

Much is made of this professed want of knowledge of the Charters, in a case that has been ingeniously paraded, in an ex parte manner, before the Commission. It is pleasing to the benevolent mind to see the sudden sympathy struck up between the Vendors of Strong Ales, and those who have heretofore been frequent in charges against the prices of Ales and the sizes of bottles.

A Charter of the Crown is not a thing which, in itself, carries the slightest force. It is, in itself alone, of no more value or authority than a Commission of Inquiry, such as that now employed in getting up a case against the Corporation of London.

Two conditions are essential to its validity: first, it must be accepted by those to whom it is addressed: second, all its provisions must be in accordance with

the Law. It can make no new law: it can impose, or empower to impose, no burthen or tax upon any man : it cannot infringe or narrow any common right. These are exceedingly important points; little understood generally, but all-important to the understanding of such questions as the present. A Charter is a formal and constitutional act of registry, rather than any thing else.

To found any exclusive right or imposition upon any old charter, is, then, much like the old story which tells us of the world that rested on an elephant, which stood upon a tortoise' back,-but forgets to tell us whereon the tortoise fixed himself. Confirmation of any such charter by act of Parliament would, at the least, be necessary, before it could be availably set up.

Even, however, in the old charters of the City of London, it will be found that only those customs are that declared to be allowed or confirmed which are "just Hen.III and reasonable customs," and "so long as the customs kartus" be not contrary to right, law, and justice." These

are the express words:-where to be found it is not 1 free my business to inform Messrs. Combe, Delafield and Co., or those others to whose "certain knowledge' 8R266 the charters are kept so secretly. Any citizen may 121 & Hardwith find them, if he will take the trouble to look. need file no "Bill of Discovery;" nor need he invoke the aid of an illegal Commission which, passing by such authentic records, advertises for exparte complaints.

100407

There is an attempt to confound together the Corporation of London and the London Companies. This may do very well to raise prejudices and get up a hostile case; but they are distinct things. A corporation and a company are equally different in origin, in object, and in powers. This was once well expressed by the Court of King's Bench, in a case in which, oddly enough as it happens, the claims of the fellow"A ship porters were in dispute as they now are. corporation," said the Court, "is properly an investing the people of the place with the local management thereof, and therefore their law shall bind strangers; but a fraternity is some people of a place united together in respect of a mystery and business, into a company; and their laws and ordinances cannot bind strangers, for they have not a local power or government."

Nothing, indeed, is clearer than that no London Company can make any rule or bye-law binding upon any but their own actual members. They are mere partners in a concern. To confound them with the Corporation itself, is only to create a complete misconception. This has often been attempted before, it is true. Some of the companies have long been wealthy and powerful; and their members have thereby had great influence in the Corporation. And, as they have long existed within London, by far the larger part of the citizens has formerly been made up of members of these companies. Still, they never did, and least of all now do, constitute and alone make up the Corporation, in any sense, as a matter of fact.

Notwithstanding the evidence volunteered by one witness before this commission, it is beyond a doubt, that, whether or not any custom as to membership of a city company may have been attempted to be set up at any time, it was quite competent to the Common Council, by the power inherent in all such bodies to make bye-laws-and which power, in the case of the city of London, has been expressly declared and confirmed by statute-to alter such alleged custom, and to enact such a very proper resolution as that of 1835. If, as is intimated, the House of Commons threw out the Corporation Bill of 1851 on any notion of the exclusive rights of the companies, it is unquestionable that it acted upon a very great misapprehension both of the fact and the law.

As far as regards the case of the fellowship porters, it is enough to say, that their alleged rights do not arise out of any charter, but out of certain bye-laws long ago enacted (for public protection and convenience) by the Common Council, and which the Common Council is therefore competent to repeal, and ought to repeal if public protection and convenience are no longer served by them. The Court of Common Council is, then, the proper tribunal to apply to, and by legitimate means to act upon, if real ground of complaint exists. By the law of England, indeed, any bye-law of any corporation is void which is in restraint of trade, or in the nature of a monopoly. So that a very simple point can be raised at once. But for the tendency which so unhappily distinguishes our day, to look to extraneous aid instead of to self-exertion, the present disputes as to the claims of the fellowship porters might, it is thus clear, have been long ago settled, and may now be settled to the satisfaction of all parties, in a very short and simple, but legitimate aad regular way, without all the cost and delay that have been said so much about.

The question as to the City companies has assumed an importance in consequence of the act of 1725, to which I have already alluded. It was that act, which was passed by the most unconstitutional and disgraceful means, in defiance of the loud protests of the citizens themselves, and the warnings of many distinguished peers,that interfered, and still interfere with the rights of the citizens of London, by attempting to force in certain members of the London Companies to an undue place and influence. The act is, indeed, contradictory and inconsistent with itself; as it is, in every part of it, with the ancient rights and functions of the citizens of London. This will be clear to every one who will consider the following facts,-which, in themselves, speak volumes of suggestive matter to all who know how to value municipal institutions.

The basis of the machinery of the Corporation of London is, the wards and wardmotes. I will hereafter show that such a basis is absolutely essential to the existence of true municipal action. The wards elect the common councilmen and aldermen. Now, it has never been pretended that to these wardmotes only the freemen of the companies are to come. On the contrary-expressly on the contrary,-every bond fide occupier within the ward, whether he have "taken up

no

his freedom or not, is bound to attend these wardmotes, and is liable to serve ward offices. The wardmote is the leet, to which every occupier, it has long ago been settled, is bound to come up. And the very precept of the Lord Mayor, read every St. Thomas's Day, let Farringdon men note this next 21st December, expressly requires the roll to be completed of "all persons dwelling within" the ward: not a word about restricting it to "freemen." And every person "newly coming" into the ward is to be entered on the roll, "whereby you may make and keep your roll perfect." And, to make the matter clearer, it is, later in the same precept, declared that “ alien," which is expressly explained to mean one not "Englishman born" (nothing to do with freedom of London),-shall be chosen of the Common Council, &c. It is the wardmote, so summoned, and SO composed, that according to this precept, and to the old Law and Custom of the City of London, has to elect the Common Council-men. Are all to be thus summoned, and to be liable to wardoffices, and yet to be stopped in the election of one office that they are expressly summoned to appoint to ? It is by purely illegal usurpation, the gradually increasing consequence of the Act of 1725 (an Act of the Parliament, not of the Corporation), that this old Law and Custom, and the actual requisitions of the annual precept to the Wardmotes, remain now unful filled, and the constituency of the Common Council and Aldermen is narrowed down to a mere fraction of the real citizens and members of the Corporation of London. Here is the great mischief. This, as I have before said, is the source of every existing evil and dissatisfaction. Let the citizens once insist upon their true and actual rights (and I believe it is in their power to insist on them even in spite of the iniquitous Act I have so often named), and everything that needs remedy in the Corporation would soon have it. But it would have such remedy after full and true discussion, inquiry, and consideration, among those who understood all the circumstances, and were able to appreciate their bearings; and not according to the closet-begotten theories of an illegally ereated external Body usurping powers that do not belong to it.

At the same time that I thus feel and insist on the importance of invoking the true and rightful constituency of the Corporation to action, I am bound to declare that, however much one must wish such constitutional restoration, and feel assured of its importance, I believe the charges of jobbery and corruption against the existing governing Body to be unfounded. The city is unquestionably by far the best governed and least jobbed of any part of the metropolis. What is ill done, is what the Corporation have been interIfered with in their control over. The property of the Corporation is more economically managed than that of any large-estated private gentleman in England; and the system as to Officers and Clerks is by far more careful, just, strict, and honest, than that adopted in any department of the State. Vague charges of jobbery and corruption are exceedingly easy to make. They vanish

when sought to be fixed. In this case, they have failed altogether. Their authors have been obliged to take refuge even in the shape of charges that the duty of self-defence has not been neglected. Self-defence is a duty which it has always behoved, and always must behove, every individual and public body and corporation to practise; which it is to their credit to have practised-not to their discredit. The attempt to raise sinister imputations out of such discharge of mere obvious duty, does but help to prove the baseness, the conscious unlawfulness, and the real motives, of the present attempt, under the name of an "Inquiry," to get up a case to enable a centralizing Government the more easily to overthrow the Corporation of the city of London.

I shall return to this subject; remaining, meantime, Your obedient servant,

THE CORPORATION INQUIRY.-No. IV. TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING ADVERTISER. SIR, I have sought to make it felt that the questions involved in the present inquiry, are such as concern, not only those more or less directly interested in the Corporation of London, but all who value the sacredness of law, the sound action of municipal institutions, and the liberties of England. The questions directly involved are;-First, Shall our laws, our liberties, our properties, be divested of those guards and guarantees that have so long formed the boast of England? Shall arbitrary and illegal tribunals and procedures be allowed to be set up, in order to accomplish ends that happen to suit the purposes of a centralising government? Second, Shall the systematic course of attack that has, for several years past, been carrying on in England, against the fundamental principles of the Constitution, be allowed to proceed, until our hands are manacled and our independence crushed, as completely as they have become in those continental countries which are now the pity of our people and the eager model of our Government? Third, Shall the only part of the metropolis which now exercises full municipal functions, be deprived of these, in order the more easily to keep the remainder of the metropolis from asserting its demand for elevation from its present degraded condition, of submission to be mismanaged, jobbed, and taxed, by irresponsible functionaries, instead of the affairs of its various parts being managed by its own inhabitants, on an efficient, responsible, and intelligent system?

I have shown what the moral worth and character is, of the pretences that certain classes will not take a part in the affairs of the Corporation of London. I have also shown that, as regards the immediate condition of the Corporation, the mischief that actually exists has arisen from parliamentary intermeddling, not from the act or default of the Corporation itself. At present an hostility (carefully fanned by the designing) has grown up to the Corporation, for two opposite reasons. One class is hostile, because the Corporation

stands a perpetual rebuke to their criminal selfishness; the other, and a much larger class, because they see those who have a voice in the Corporation to be not one whit better than themselves; and they cannot understand why they should themselves be excluded by a merely technical barrier, from the taking a part in the management of the affairs that immediately concern them. The latter, not unnaturally, but wrongly, ascribe the blame to the constitution of the Corporation itself, and would hail any professed remedy for what is thus felt to be a wrong. Hence they do not stop to consider whether any means are legal or not, or whether the course adopted is or not one that can lead to truth and right. Would they but more patiently look at the subject, they would see that the Commission at this time professing to make inquiry into the Corporation of London, is, in itself, a thing as hostile to themselves as direct a violation of the rights and liberties they now complain of deprivation of, as it can be supposed by any one to be threatening to the existing state and condition of the Corporation of London.

There is a law written on the rolls of Parliament, and which has often been confirmed, that, in London, every "inquiry must be made by the citizens themselves, and not by others, as to all customs, imposts, and boundaries; and also as to encroachments, and all other things whatsoever within the said city, or relating to the commonalty of the said city, or to any office therein." No one can suppose that the members of the Commission now sitting,-which consists of one who was lately a Judge and two who have been not inactive Members of Parliament,-can be ignorant of the express Law which they are thus directly infringing, any more than they can be that such a Commission is, in itself, a direct violation of the General Law of England. If they, indeed, shall plead ignorance of the Law that they thus daily violate, how much more will not the excuse of ignorance justify any acts, of either omission or commission, on the part of such men as the enemies of the Corporation are seeking to make out to constitute the main part of its present governing Body?

But it was not for this, though a right application of it, and not to be forgotten, that I quote this Statute. It is to remind the citizens of London, in reference to the point specially touched on in my last letter, how emphatically their predecessors, citizens of London, have heretofore insisted on managing their own affairs; and on doing right to themselves, by their own unaided activity, if wrong had grown up, either in the Corporation or anything else affecting them. Are there not now, among the at least twenty-five thousand adult male citizens of London, men enough to be found, capable and honest enough to search out and inquire for themselves, and to help themselves ;-that you thus consent to stand humiliated before all the world, by the confession that your rights and liberties are to be laid at the feet of three men in Downingstreet? I might cite even stronger passages than the above-quoted, from the Rolls of Parliament: but I do not wish to quote too much of what those ignorant of the Constitution and History of England (as is unhappily the common case), and impatiently crying for

what they call "Reform," will certainly think I have invented for the occasion. I take my stand simply on the Constitution, as I find it recorded and practically illustrated. I would only add, in the words of an Address presented to King George the Third by William Beckford, when Lord Mayor of London, (of that London which its ignorant enemies declare Ladys to have been always so laggingly backward), that "The forms of the Constitution, like those of Re-repes 6th March 1770

ligion, were not established for the Forms' sake, but for the Substance; and we call God and men to witness, that, as we do not owe our liberty to those nice and subtle distinctions which places and pensions and lucrative employments have invented; so neither will we be deprived of it by them: but, as it was gained by the stern virtue of our ancestors, by the virtue of their descendants it shall be preserved." At least, if not thus preserved, it sinks. No contrivances, ever so ingenious, can save it, if those who are heirs to such an inheritance want that sense of duty and personal responsibility which comprehends its value. Those who submit to the present Commission, and those who hail it, equally show that they have neither inherited nor can comprehend this virtue.

it

A Constitution given, can be as readily taken away. The world's history proves that Constitutions given never last. It is only a Constitution self-asserted and maintained, that can have permanence; or the value of which can ever be appreciated by those who use it. Let the citizens of London do their own duty, and, instead of shrinking from the Corporation of London, enter, themselves, into its active working, and they will soon understand thoroughly what there is that really needs remedy; they will see what remedy can best be applied; and they will themselves apply it. There is nothing to prevent this: everything to make easy and practical. This will be a work worthy of enlightened and free men. To lay every trumpery complaint and imagined grievance at the feet of an illegally existing and illegally proceeding Body, and to look to Parliament to do what it is their own duty to do, is the work certainly not of free men, and as certainly not of intelligent men. It is a work of selfdegradation, of cowardice, and of criminal selfishness and sloth. The cart never moved so long as the waggoner was content to kneel to Jupiter. Every can dance his crotchet out. The honest desires, rather, to discuss his views. The earnest man will not condescend to the slothful course of mere enunciation, or accept the arbitrary means of centralised enforcement: he will seek to support his views with substantial argument; and will desire that full opportunity should be given to all others to combat him with all fair argument. He will have confidence in the result.

man

man

Thus, then, it is not my intention to enter into any nice examination of the varicus complaints that have been so liberally laid at the feet of this Commission. They prove nothing but that the complainants have

neglected their own duty. They do not touch the real point in question in the least degree. They only serve to raise a number of irrelevant issues, wholly beside-but serving to obscure, and to distract attention from the real question. The least that could have been done would have been to show to the world; the grounds on which the issue of such a Commission has been pretended to be necessary. Even this has not been attempted ;-such has grown to be the contempt, not only for law and right in England, but for any thing like honest public opinion. Government has let its name and authority be meretriciously used, to set the example of open contempt for law and right, and of adopting a revolutionary instead of a constitutional and lawful course. Are these times in which such an example can be approved by any lover of his country ? What institutions have we that are secure, what rights and liberties, of either person or property, have we that are safe for a year or for a day, if such a course is to be suffered;-and not only suffered, but let be eagerly seized on, and used, as is the present commission, by those who are the bitterest enemies to our most cherished and fundamental institutions? The real patriot, the truly enlightened man, will always (where liberty has not yet been quite crushed out) avail himself of the institutions that exist, to stay mischiefs and to adapt existing conditions to the growth of circumstances. He will go on steadily, and in an unrevolutionary spirit, from and by means of that which exists, by lawful courses to that which, after real discussion among those concerned, is found better adapted to any changed conditions. But he will know that no changed conditions can ever make right or desirable the shutting up of free discussion, and, therefore of the means and opportunities for it. Those means and opportunities, he will know, that Municipal Institutions only can supply. He will know that the functionary system is one that none but the enemies of human liberty and human progress can desire to see adopted, and that it is one that carries revolution and national degradation and organic convulsion as inherent seeds within it. It is the " eager eye and greedy hand" of the revolutionist only-the enemy alike of law, order, and free institutions-that watches with satisfaction either the appointment or the procedure of such a thing as the present Commission of Inquiry."

seeking

Nothing, with all the anxious of the most malignant hostility and unscrupulous illegality, has been yet able to be found to justify any of the vulgar charges against the Corporation of London. The heaviest real charge yet proved against it, is its pusillanimous submission to this illegal inquiry. All the complaints made are such as have a regular tribunal where they might be fully and publicly discussed, and, if really just, amended. As was well remarked by Mr. Cattley:-"It is very much the fashion to run down these alderman magistrates, by persons who would very much like to have their places." And again:-" I think, if people acted judiciously, and made a proper representation to the

city, there would be no difficulty from any undue enforcement of rights." If they would only fulfil their duties, and join their fellow-citizens in fair and open discussion, the thing would be done. Things can't be so very bad, if they will not take the trouble needed to amend them. The franchise itself might be restored to its rightful basis in less than a year; for, happily, even this is a matter that can be grappled with, thoroughly and effectively, without any extraneous aid.

It has, very discreditably, been attempted to bolster up the case against the Corporation by the introduction of much personal matter. The Commissioners themselves (gentlemen who, however one may protest again their illegal position here, are, doubtless, personally honourable) can view this attempt with no favour. The great points attempted to be made out against the Corporation have all completely broken down. I allude to the alleged bribery of the Press, to the 70,000l. rest in the Chamberlain's hands, and to the coal duties. It is, self-evidently, highly honourable to the Corporation, instead of the reverse, to have sought to encourage the publication of full reports of their proceedings. Had they, as Commissioners of Inquiry usually do, sought to shun this publicity, then, indeed, there would have been just suspicion and a loud outcry. But they have done the exact opposite :-they have desired the light: they have courted publicity. And an audacious mendacity that has never been surpassed, has dared to attempt the distortion of this into a charge of bribery of the Press! If this be bribery, every paper in England is bribed, many times deep, for every number. All the daily morning papers have, at any rate, been equally bribed by the Corporation; and all, there is no exception, have proved themselves equally willing to accept the bribe. All have reported the proceedings. And each, in turn, has had copies of it purchased in consequence; as copies of each are daily purchased, for precisely the same reason, by railway companies and by those interested in other public or even private affairs, that appear reported or commented on in the diurnal columns.

Passing over, then, any specific examination of individual complaints or personal scandals, I shall next proceed to examine the various suggestions offered by the various witnesses. This examination will best enable the public to judge whether a good picture is likely to result in our time, any more than it did in ancient times, from the putting up of a canvass in the market-place, and every passer-by handling the brush upon it, according to his humour. The examination of these suggestions will afford the best opportunity for showing, the clearly, what the real duty of every citizen is, and what, both as to the City itself and the whole metropolis, are the needs of the time. It will, I venture to think, be found that safety and the common welfare, as well as the true and sound action of municipal institutions, will depend upon the following a constitutional and not a revolutionary course; upon

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