session,

meeting at which the provisional order was laid before the town, and was himself to propose its adoption. With regard to the other point, the rate of mortality, he (Mr. Smith) held in his hand an extract from the registrar general's returns, which showed conclusively that that was set forward as a mere colourable pretence for setting the measure in operation, for in all the important towns of England the rate of mortality exceeded that which was mentioned in the bill. Thus, the annual proportion of deaths to 1000 of the population was in Wolverhampton 241, in Coventry the same, in Birmingham 26, in Bury (Lancashire) 25, in Leeds 26, in Manchester $1, and in Liverpool 33. It was clearly intended, therefore, that the Board of Health should have the power of putting the act in force wherever they pleased, without reference to the inclinations or wishes of the inhabitants (hear, hear). Sir Benjamin Hall came into office upon the ground of his opposition to the Public Health Bill of last and the gross frauds and iniquitous proceedings which had taken place under the old act; yet from the present bill he had deliberately omitted every clause in that act which enabled the inhabitants to meet and protest, or to know before the provisional order was made what was the nature of the inspector's report upon which that order was founded. By that they might judge what was the tendency of the bill. He could bring case upon case before them where discussion on the part of the inhabitants had been completely stifled. Need he mention that of Worthing, where the inspector sent down by the Board of Health insisted upon applying the act though he had not been able to get the requisite number of signatures, and was instructed by the board to go round and obtain them afterwards (hear, hear). He held in his hand the report of the General Board of Health, presented in 1849, which contained the instructions issued by the board to their inspectors. According to these instructions, the inspectors were told to consider themselves "agents" for carrying the act into effect; that they alone would be held responsible for all inquiries; that they alone were authorised to conduct those inquiries; that the statute gave no authority for incurring the expense of hearing counsel or attorneys; and that any one desiring to put questions should furnish them first to the inspectors in writing, who would put them to the witnesses should they deem it necessary so to do. Further, the bill empowered the board to repeal or alter local acts of parliament. Now parliament existed to maintain the laws of England and the rights of property, and surely if they constituted another body superior to and independent of it, the existence of parliament was nothing short of a mockery and a delusion. To upset the rights of property established by law and guaranteed by parliament, the bill proposed, first, that local acts should be ipso facto repealed, under certain circumstances, without the consent of parliament; secondly, that the General Board of Health should have power, secretly, proprio motu, and without asking the consent of parliament, to alter or vary any existing local acts; and thirdly, to introduce an entirely new system of local legislation. Under this bill property would in future be held at the back of three persons; the irresponsible president of the General Board of Health in London, the recorder of quarter sessions, who was not even a ratepayer, in most instances; and some petty official or policeman. He confessed that the measure was artfully framed, with the view of enlarging the last bill; for whilst giving far more power to the General Board of Health than that, it did not often mention the board, until towards the end it came down like an avalanche (a laugh). The 134th clause provided that every local board of health should make a report in such form, at such time, and in reference to such matters as the General Board of Health should please to direct. The object of this was palpable. It was neither more nor less than to place in the hands of the General Board of Health the means of increasing and extending their powers (hear, hear). Then, with regard to the Nuisances Removal Bill, this bill, after being introduced and read a first time, was referred to a select committee, where it experienced numerous alterations, every one of which rendered it still more stringent and oppressive than it was before. Its 14th and 15th clauses, relative to the entry of premises in which there was ground for supposing a nuisance existed, went to convert the local authorities, whether board of health, town council, or other elective body, into mere stalking-horses for enabling a policeman, or other petty official of the general board in London, to

enforce the provisions of the bill according to his will or caprice. The President of the Board would have absolute and irresponsible power, and the police or petty officials would set the act to work without reference to the local authorities; and the same would be the case with the justices. The principles of Magna Charta itself were violated and set at nought by these bills, for they went to impose penalties without the intervention of a jury, without "the oath of honest men of the neighbourhood," and without "the lawful judgment of their fellows." The 34th clause of the Nuisances' Removal Bill was a remarkable one. He (Mr. Smith) wrote part of that clause last year, and presented it to Lord Palmerston, who admitted that it was a very proper one. Its object was to inflict certain penalties upon local authorities who did not feel their responsibility in the matter of preserving the public health, and, in consequence, neglected the performance of their duty. But as the clause now stood, it provided that if the local authorities did not carry out what the petty officials said they ought, the justices in petty sessions, who might be members of the local board, should pick out such persons from among those local authorities as they might think had not done their duty, and impose penalties upon them. Anything more unjust than this it was scarcely possible to imagine. Its injustice was, indeed, transparent. It was an utter perversion of the intention and object of the clause he prepared, and he had so stated his opinion before the committee on the 15th of last month Thear, hear). Time would fail him to explain the whole of the numerous clauses in this bill. Suffice it to say, that their scope and tendency were to do the work of despotism. Now despotism was the difference between for and by. Despotism had for its principle to do, under various pretences, for men what was necessary to be done, whilst free institutions taught men to act for themselves and carry out what I ought to be done by their own energies. Disguise it as they might, therefore, to set up a board of functionaries empowered to enforce their own Procrustean schemes upon men was simply the re-establishment of a despotism (cheers). The proposal to allow the Board of Health to effect a loan double the amount of the assessment of a place was tantamount to tying a millstone round the necks of the ratepayers for 30 years, and was calculated to check the spirit of enterprise, and retard the progress of improvement for that and a much longer period. In his opinion those who desired to facilitate improvement should endeavour to do so, not by thrusting crotchets like these down the throats of the people, but rather by enlightening them with regard to their duties and responsibility, instilling into their minds the principle of self-reliance, and encouraging them to act with energy and vigour in matters concerning the public health, as well as all others bearing upon the interests of their several localities. them be taught the value of their local institutions, and to see that one of their highest duties was to aid in giving effect to those institutions, whether they concerned the management of the poor, the police, the highways, the drainage, or the supply of water. He repeated, that if these bills passed they would go to surrender into the hands of an entirely independent and irresponsible authority the powers which were now exercised by the local authorities, and that the result must be to destroy the enterprise of England (hear, hear). Birmingham and every other large community in the country would be destroyed if the bills were to be a reality, and if they were to be a nullity, then he held that it would be un worthy of the people of England to allow such measures to be inserted in the statute-book (cheers). Writing & century and a half ago an ancestor of one of the present cabinet thus described the Whig party:-"The Whigs," said he, "although the great professed assertors of liberty, when they come into place never stick at any obligation of laws, liberty, or government, in order to carry their point;" and their object in this instance was no doubt to achieve the triumph of bureaucracy (hear, hear). It was nonsense to say that this was not a political question. It was a political question; and one that was even more important than the Reform Bill itself. For the bills went to destroy the local institutions of the country, and to constitute over the Crown and the parliament an irresponsible authority before which every local body and all local independence would have to succumb (hear, hear). The question then was, whether the future historian

Let

of the decline and fall of the English empire would have to record that the people of England had been SO deceived by false pretences, and so misled by names and cant phrases, that they were unable to see through the attempts that were made at one of the greatest of crises to destroy the very foundation of their rights and liberties; or that, seeing through those attempts, they nobly and manfully resisted and defeated them? It was for the people of England at meetings like this to answer that question (loud cheers).

M. It has 7.185'5'

THE "ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM
ASSOCIATION."

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING HERALD. SIR,-If there is one characteristic that more marks our day than another, it is empiricism. The absence of any regard to the means that are proposed for any suggested end, distinguishes the men of our time from those of former periods of our history, when, whatever the end sought might be, the means by which it was to be reached were deemed to call for the most careful consideration, and to mark the true man from the unsafe pretender. The proposed Administrative Reform Association is a striking example of this. This association, like so many of the paraded propositions of the day, seizes on a popular sympathy as the lever for raising an agitation by which anything rather than the real object of the popular want, or of sound seeking, is sought to be gained. No one who has attended the meeting at the London Tavern to-day, with an earnest appreciation of the state of the times and of the teachings of our history and institutions, can feel otherwise than that no worse symptom of that' state of the times could exist than the tone and avowed plans of the promoters of this meeting. It has every appearance of having been got up for the purpose of checking any healthy development and expression of public feeling; of making cliquism permanent; and, for that purpose, of merely deluding and amusing, and so preventing the sound direction of public opinion.

The facts that are known to everybody were retailed at this meeting: but there seemed to be an especial care to avoid any inquiry into the causes of such a state of facts. If there was not the prearranged avoidance of such inquiry, there must have been the entire inability to make and understand such inquiry. Either alternative is equally dangerous. There was profuse profession of not attacking persons, but of casting blame ou the "system" only: but of what "the system' that is thus to be denounced, not a glimmering was given. The whole had very much the appearance of being got up on a very good understanding with those who are in power; and of being a diversion by which it is attempted to draw off public indignation from its right channels.

was

No principle was announced, by any one speaker. No fundamental idea was enunciated as that on which the association is to be based, and which it will seek to carry out. One could only be reminded of Mr. Layard's admission that he had little knowledge of the constitution and institutions of the country.

But when we come to what the association proposes to do, the matter becomes even more serious.

It is enough to attempt to throw dust in the eyes of the public; to divert attention; and to mislead honest men from the right quarry. But the means proposed to be employed, assume the gravest character of hostility to what is sound and safe for the public interests, to say nothing of what is constitutional.

The whole plan of operations is, to overawe parliament by a self-appointed clique. We have enough of clique government already. The mischiefs we are suffering from, are mainly owing to the systematic course by which Whiggovernments have already fastened cliquism on the land. And here is an attempt, thoroughly Whiggish, though under cover of the name of "Administrative Reform,"-to set up an irresponsible cliquism far more objectionable, in every respect, than any form of cliquism that has ever yet existed. It is the system of cliquism set up by the Whigs without the walls of parlia ment, and which is continually working with silent secret engines, unseen alike by the public and by parliament, that has, of late years, reduced parliament to be the cypher and the mere machine that it is. This is the fundamental mischief: this is the root of the evil that men in earnest would have aimed at. But the aim of the promoters of this association is different. They would, at the best, but set up a clique of their own in place of a clique from which they have hitherto been excluded. They propose to form a London committee-self-appointed-which shall correspond with their agents through the country, and get up petitions whenever wanted to order, and work on all elections of members of parliament.

The true expression of public opinion is always valuable. But that expression must be genuine. To get up meetings or petitions at the bidding, and subject to the approval, of a self-appointed London committee of public safety--which is the intention -is cliquism in its worst and most dangerous form. It is no expression of public opinion. It is, alike, the suppressio veri et suggestio falsi reduced to a system. It is against the privileges of the Commons of England that any nobleman shall interfere in any election. Will it be less so that a London clique shall interfere in every election ?-which is avowed to be the intention of this association.

One practical point is enough to show the sincerity of the originators of this association, and what may be expected from them. They declare, in their circular, that "the absence of any constituted autho rity in the City, for political and social purposes, free from all party complexion, must be the excuse for taking the initiative." It is hard to conceive the brazenness of front that could have put this excuse forth. Every man knows the pretended excuse to be positively false. If, in all the world, there is a "constituted authority" adapted to any emergency, it is in the City of London, as adapted to precisely this emergency. The sound has hardly yet died out of the reception given by that "constituted authority" to the Emperor of the French. And every page of our history tells of the action of that "constituted authority" on every eventful emergency. It is known to every man that the COMMON HALL of the City of London is the proper means through which the opinions and wishes the City of London should be uttered. This is the mode in which they have been continually, as they may at any time, be regu

of

larly and constitutionally uttered; and the Lord Mayor-the "constituted authority" for that purpose -cannot refuse, on proper requisition, to summon a Common Hall. The Common Hall of the City of London possesses the right to have any petition or memorial which it may adopt presented, by its own officers, to the Throne itself. Such a means is the constitutional and practical one. The adoption of it proves earnestness. It has always, heretofore, been adopted in like cases. That this means has not now been adopted proves that real honest straightforward intention, is not what actuates the promoters of this "association." It proves that they have neither respect nor care for the constitution and institutions of the land. They talked much, today, of the "duties of constituencies," and of how much these duties are neglected. They have proved, by the course they have adopted, that they disregard and neglect the discharge of their own duties as citizens of London; and that, while, to help cliquism, they are very ready to foster the mischievous notion of a servile reliance on the omnipotence of parliament, they disregard, leave undischarged, and would throw contempt upon, the sound and wholesome and practical means which the law and the constitution and the institutions of their country have provided, for the consideration and discussion and expression of opinion by the citizens of London upon those matters which concern alike their own and the common welfare.

Ex uno disce omnia. Begun by a clique; uttering itself in a mode contrary to and in contempt of that which is the recognised and constitutional one; proposing to carry on its work according to the Whig clique system; what can be expected by sober men, lovers of their country and of its institutions, from the action of this self-vaunted "Administrative Reform Association?"

May 5, 1855

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

AN ENGLISHMAN.

ANTI CENTRALISATION AND ADMINIS TRATIVE REFORM.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING HERALD.

SIR,-In your paper of yesterday there are contained allusions to the Anti-Centralisation Union, in company with the Administrative Reform Association, which may be liable to misapprehension by some readers not familiar with the proceedings of the former. May I, therefore, ask you to allow me to point out wherein the Anti-Centralisation Union differs from the later-born Administrative Reform Association?

Administrative Reform is a term which, in itself, expresses nothing definitive. The London Administrative Reform Association have so used it as to show that what is dealt with by them is mainly a matter of persons, without any reference to principles. Herein they stand broadly distinguished from the Anti-Centralisation Union, which has been founded upon the basis of practical principles, irrespective of persons. It deals only in principles and the practical applications of these.

The founders of the Administrative Reform Association are men of personal honour and integrity. But they differ from the founders of the Anti-Centralisation Union in this: that the former have been merely roused to utterance by a sudden impulse, caused by the pressure of special immediate circumstances; while the latter, the founders of the

Anti-Centralisation Union, have long been pursuing a steady and consistent course, and have long since foreseen and foretold, with precision, that the circumstances now existing, and which have now roused general indignation, must inevitably come, as the consequences of the violation of those principles upon which the Union takes its stand. Hence it happens that there are the following broad and characteristic differences between what may be called the fundamental ideas of the two associations:

The founders of the Anti-Centralisation Union deal with causes the founders of the Administrative Reform Association, not stopping to inquire after causes, deal empirically with certain mere inevitable results of those causes.

The former deal with principles: the latter with accidental instances (I use the word in Bacon's sense) of the violation of those principles.

The former hold the permanent soundness of practical institutions to be the only source of sure safety to the state: the latter, leaving institutions unheeded, are content to deal with the temporary character of the ever-varying men of ever-shifting administrations.

The former look to that which forms the basis of a sound social state: the latter look only to the dividers of the loaves and fishes of office.

The former look to what is lasting and practical: the latter look to what is merely temporary and superficial.

The former maintain the continual duty of all men to understand and, with a full sense of responsibility, habitually to watch and constitutionally to express themselves on, all that concerns themselves and their immediate local communities, in the relations of the latter as well to every individual as to the state the latter-having hitherto for the most part habitually neglected the fulfilment of this duty, now take a fitful start, after a vague and undefined end, when things have,-simply through want of the fulfilment heretofore, by themselves and others, of that duty,-come to a very bad pass as to certain matters made prominent by the war.

The former aim at permanent remedies, and therefore at what are the only truly practical ones: the latter, seeing symptoms only, not causes, have no defined aim, and can suggest nothing better than a mere change of men. So the skilful surgeon traces the source of the exhibition of eruption or disease in any limb, and treats that source, knowing that thus only can the true remedy be reached; while the eager but less safe practitioner rejects the labour of searching after causes and principles, and applies lotions and fantastic panaceas, and believes in a "touch" for the king's evil.

No man can doubt the desirability of having the right men in the right places. But you have touched, sir, the root of this matter when you say, in the article I allude to, that we have "boards established to do nothing-commissioners issued to report upon non-existent things. departments springing up without duties." Who are the right men for those places? The Anti-Centralisation Union would have no administrative functions but such as are needed, and such as are truly responsible. And I must be permitted to think that those who, engrossed in the pursuits of commerce or otherwise, have heretofore neglected their own duties as members of the community-where every man has a responsible sphere

-but are now forward to complain of maladministration, should have begun at home, and taken shame to themselves for their own previous neglect of those active and unselfish duties which every man really owes to the state, as a member of the special local community in which his lot is cast. Instead of this, the latter are habitually sneered at and neglected by the same men who can easily talk of "administrative reform" for others. Had they and others not left an "administrative reform" to be so much needed in that which it was their own duty to have fulfilled, there would not now have been need for the cry of "administrative reform" in quarters where responsibility has only become forgotten because of the so widely-grown neglect of the above-named duty.

It is in consequence, and only by means of, the neglect to fulfil these duties, that our institutions have, from time to time of late years, been tampered with and overridden, in all departments, by a novel system, entirely alien to our constitution, as well as inconsistent with the possibility of responsible and sound government and legislation. No mere change of men will cure the evil. It can but help, on the contrary, to perpetuate it, by encouraging a reliance on temporary men instead of on the permanance of sound institutions. A mere change of men can lead to but little change of system-and never to a permanent one. As the magician of old was often unable to control the spirit that his art had raised, so the government and legislature of England have now become the slaves of that system of centralisation or bureaucracy which has, under one pretence or another, been gradually reared up in the land, and which now pervades the whole atmosphere, both of administration and legislation. Ministers themselves are no longer free agents: parliament itself is, in by far the greater and most important part of its functions, deprived of its free action.

Before the first meeting of the Administrative Reform Association had been held, I wrote to one of its principal promoters as follows:

The whole question now is, whether the proposed movement will be made in a really hearty and earnest spirit-with the determination to grapple with the backbone of the bydra; or whether it will only be an attempt-under a cloud of dust-to cut off one set of heads, in place of which another set shall forthwith grow. The root of the evil lies far deeper than one of persons. There has, in fact, been gradually produced a complete revolutionising of parliamentary action. That is at the bottom of the whole mischief. This I have shown at length elsewhere; and have, long before present events, expressly foretold what the results : must be. The very best men are made utterly helpless by this system: and unless you go as deep as this, the result can be no other than merely delusive. This point is the one on the thorough comprehension of which any practical result of this movement must depend. Now, parliament, instead of being the grand inquest of the nation, is reduced to be littie more than the registrar of the orders of unseen controling powers; who really work all the levers of government and legislation, superior alike to parliament and the nominal executive. On the other hand, the people have been taught to believe in the omnipotence of parliament :-thus, really, playing into the hands of the unseen workers of the levers."

I could easily illustrate the unquestionable truth that ministers themselves, and the nominally responsible heads of all departments, have necessarily become—and must remain so till the source of the evil is reached-the slaves of this system. They are the victims of the secret workings and

unseen agencies that are now (in the shape of boards, commissions, &c., and the legion of their myrmidons) ever active, utterly without responsibility. In our foreign politics we begin to hear angry words at "secret diplomacy:" but that is only one species of that of which the genus has, of late years, become established, even far more mischievously, in all our home affairs, and in every department. The same cause produces the same fruit in each case. Lay a statesmanlike hand on this cancrous evil, and there is hope and safety. But, were all the City merchants to condescend to enter the administration to-morrow, and to oust every noble lord and country gentleman from office, they would, though beginning with a show of spirit, soon sink under the same influences. You must go to the root of the matter -discard the secret system-uproot the unseen influences now systematically and irresponsibly at work, and so restore a sounder and more constitu tional action-before any change of men will produce its fruit. The only really useful change of men, therefore, will be the incoming of men who see this root of the evil, and will determine to grapple with it as the fundamental point of their policy. The course taken proves this not to be the idea of the Administrative Reform Association.

How parliament itself has become affected is capable of innumerable illustrations. Everybody knows how the nominal business of parliament is "managed." Long bills, impossible to be understood, are prepared in those secret officinas by those unseen and irresponsible agencies above alluded to. Such bills, really unknown alike to parliament and the country-and, if known, not understood hy either but all devised to carry out the bureaucratic plans of their unseen authors, are bundled through parliament-not really passed by it. Even select committees of the house-which every Englishman ought to look upon with the utmost respectbecome the victims-even the tools-of this system. It is deeply painful, however just it may be, to read the remarkable but manly "protest" that has lately been published against the report of one such select committee (on the National Gallery), as "unworthy of confidence, and a fraud upon the nation!" But we see the same thing, and "administrative reform" itself, finely illustrated in auother case. Sir B. Hall, the vehement antagonist, last session, of the Board of Health, was no sooner him. self made president of the same board than hewho I thoroughly believe conscientiously intended and wished to act rightly-became entangled and a victim. He has brought in two bills deeply affecting the interests of the trade and local prosperity of all England; the nature and consequences of which measures it is certain that he is not himself aware of; and which are so long and intricate that parliament cannot possibly understand or discuss them. They have been referred to a select committee, of which he is himself made chairman-exactly as if a railway bill were referred to a committee of which its own managing director was made chairman ! But the bills are too long to be, even there, understood without the utmost attention and full practical experience. They are too intricate, in themselves

and their relations, to be able to be rightly dealt with except by the utmost patience, and the most elaborate sifting of evidence on every point. To do justice to the bills would be difficult for the best committee. To have it attempted would be fatal to many of the objects of the real authors of the bills. So the chairman is reduced to the necessity of checking all evidence that may seem to touch any doubtful points, and of even refusing to let what touches the most material part of the case be heard at all! The committee have, as the result, already turned out one of the bills referred to it, with the emasculation of what would make local authorities truly responsible and the act effective, besides containing several monstrous and inconsistent enactments; and will turn out the other without the possibility of that consideration which only a very full, patient, and impartial consideration of all the facts bearing on all its parts could enable them to give. Such is the result of the existing system, which "administrative reform," in the seuse of this association, will never help.

Honourable men will always differ in their opinions. But no man having the slightest pretensions to statesmanship can do other than admit that the great need is-the permanently-secured sound action of institutions, not reliance on the accident of

men.

Sound institutions will always turn up the best men. The system that has tampered with, and been let undermine, all our institutionsfor the last quarter of a century more particularly— will, while it remains, paralyse the best men, and— what is of the most vital practical importance-can never give certainty. It leaves change, and perpetually shifting experiment, as the game which the secret movers of the unseen influences systematically play off against the welfare of the state and the dignity alike of parliament and the executive. Parliamentary institutions can only thus grow into contempt; and confidence, the soul of enterprise and of a nation's prosperity, cannot be maintained.

As regards the means followed by the founders of the Anti-Centralisation Union, I can only say that, though not ostentatious, they have been persevering, earnest, and practical. They have already borne much fruit. Holding the institution of parliament in respect, they seek not to overawe it; but, when the occasion seems fitting, they appeal to it by argument and illustration. The course of the Administrative Reform Association differs most widely, while no practical aims are put forth by it (for the mere change of men cannot be called such). That Course I would not criticise, though to me it seems even incompatible with a sound appreciation of the mischief to be grappled with, and inconsistent with the respect due to institutions from parliament, to the smallest parish vestry-which would not have proved deficient in their adaptation to every emergency, whether of home affairs or foreign, but for the self-engrossed default of so many who now, when heads of administration have broken down, raise the bare cry of "Administrative Reform." It seems to me that the present course of this association is calculated to hinder rather than to help what the times most need ;-inasmuch as it can only serve to divert attention and energy from the permanent to the temporary, from the essential to the accidental, from sound and true remedies to a mere question of lace-filling.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
Highgate, May 19, 1855.
TOULMIN SMITH.

M. W. 1 me 1855

THE ADDRESS TO THE NATION BY THE ADMINISTRATIVE REFORM ASSOCIATION.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE MORNING HERALD. SIR,-In a letter which appeared in your columns of the 7th of this month, I pointed out symptoms that the loudly-paraded new association, whose first meeting had been held on the day on which I wrote, had been "got up for the purpose of checking any healthy development and expression of public feeling;" and of "being a diversion by which it is attempted to draw off public indignation from its right channels." The clear proof that this was a sound view has been since given.

The association have issued an "address" to the nation, wherein, if they have any purpose, we must look to find it. They have sent this to every newspaper, with a separate circular, stating that they will themselves re-publish and circulate whatever notices appear of this "address"-a promise which it may be safely said that they will not fulfil.

This "address" can only delight those who may have wished, with Solomon, that their adversary might write a book. How the friends of the association esteem it, the Times affords the best illustration. That journal sounded the trumpet by which the coming into life of the new association was heralded. Its leading columns, as well as its reports, gave all aid. But the Times is far too clear-sighted not to see that this "address" must settle the claims of the association to anything like confidence or respect in the mind of every intelligent man. The Times has not even noticed the publication of the "address." Yet this was a thing to have been dwelt on. Had it been what, if the pretensions of the association had any foundation, it must have been, it would have been a state paper not only worthy but certain to secure the attention and marked notice of every journal and every statesman in Europe. It would have struck the chord that would at once indicate the want of the time, and announce its speedy filling up. But this "address" fails utterly in both. It can only remind us of a volume of "addresses" far more read and celebrated than ever this will become,—though no less "rejected" than they,—the grand climax of one of which it is impossible to help being reminded of as one recalls the pretensions, and reads the most lame and impotent conclusion of this. Assuredly it is but a variation upon

"In the name of the prophet-figs!"

One of two things is clear:-either the City men who boast themselves of being such men of business have no real claim to those pretensions,-or the whole association is a deliberate sham. No doubt they are familiar with the prices current, know something of the markets, and have a keen eye to the main chance. But they have, no less undoubtedly, made a grand mistake in thinking that these qualifications are what constitute the statesman. A far wider range of knowledge is necessary for the latter; a far more comprehensive consideration of circumstances and conditions; a far broader scope of aim; a far more unselfish impulse and motive. Heretofore it was considered, and rightly, that every man who aspired to a seat in parliament needed to have a knowledge of the institutions of his country, both theoretical and practical: and it is because this knowledge was then possessed, that the legislation