The govern ing bodies' devotion to duties of like the untiring ant, they have returned to the ruins of their confided trusts, and with no other motive than devotion to duty have bought back and redeemed, by proceeds of hard individual toil, their properties, or as their confided in the instance of devastation by the Great Fire of 1666, reproduced them in greater beauty and enhanced usefulness, so that their honour and just dealing should be handed down in untarnished lustre to their successors. History affords no other such noble example, the eloquence of a Macaulay is vainly sought to afford any other such illustration of the perfectitude of trust in every its highest aspect. trusts with. out any parallel. The late Earl of Derby and Lords Chancellors Eldon and Lyndhurst would have proved foremost de nunciators of the spoliators of City Companies. duties and re acted out, as have been those of the City of London Livery Companies through their past and present representatives. The chivalrous and justice-loving late Earl of Derby would have stood forth foremost with words of burning eloquence, of which he was so consummate a master, denunciatory of present marauders, who eagerly seek their hoped-for prey and with unholy hands to clutch the properties of these Companies of grand historic fame, the depositaries of the goodness and virtues worthy of imitation in these present days. A Lyndhurst would have rushed to the rescue with indisputable legal denunciation worthy of the occasion, as would an Eldon pour out on the heads of to-day's communists a vial of vituperative utterances worthy of the occasion, and fitting the wickedness of the design such as would stir the nation to its heart-deepest recesses. It is no question of party, it is the cause of the faithful and just steward against the robber and ill-doer. Once admitted and carried out, there ceases to be any or the smallest security for any holder of property, however small, the principle involved being of universal application. Expression of In connection with this Inquiry the fair-judging portion of the public hope that the will ask, What difference is there between much of the properties held by sponsibilities the City Livery Companies and the properties controlled by his Grace attaching to the Duke of Bedford, or the Earl of Derby, the Commission Chairman ? owners oflarge Are the moral obligations in either instance greater or lesser than in the properties other? Or, Have the London Livery Companies ever exhibited less sense may be as con- of public or individual duty in becoming discharge of their responsibilities scientiously admitted aud than has been evidenced by the eminent noblemen appointed to sit in as faithfully judgment upon them? Does the Duke of Bedford handle or deal with his great property around the site of Covent Garden Market, one of the leading centres of the Metropolitan food distribution, with any or the smallest eye to the public advantage? Are not all the streets and thoroughfares adjoining it one acknowledged chaos and traffic block, and subject of universal condemnation? Is there any regard paid to the public good in these or many thousands of other properties controlled by private individuals in and around England's Metropolis? Has not the Earl of Derby within the last few years received huge sums of money from the Dock Board of Liverpool in payment for land needed for docks construction at that port? Has any one questioned his perfect right to pocket those money proceeds and deal with them as being positively his own? Pursuing these analogous cases a little further, -may it not be asked, Has Lord Derby set aside considerable portions of the receipts from these land sales and applied the same to the creation of charitable or educational trusts? Looking at the population everywhere surrounding the Liverpool Dock precincts, is the same not of a class needing every help, whether in shape of hospitals for assuaging human suffering, or institutions for the hoped for prevention of vice, or any of the other philanthropic forms of our times? Have such duties and responsibilities been discharged? and how does the account compare with that of the City of London Livery Companies? Without any desire or intent to call in question these noblemen and their fellow large property owners' conscientious discharge of the many duties and responsibilities attaching to wealth, and for which they will on the Great Day be called to solemn account, it shall serve present purposes to venture the hope that in their cases it may be seen to have approached, even though distantly, the acts of the worthies of old, founders of the City Companies, or their successors and to-day representatives whose honour and character have been so infamously traduced. One feature is eminently and irrevocably certain. If the time has arrived for dealing with the properties and incomes of the London City Companies in accordance with the schemes of Messrs. Firth, Beale, Phillips, and men of their ilk, then all may feel assured that the day is close at hand for application of the same principle to all property, be it whose or what it may. It is not needed to pollute pages of this volume with extracts from Messrs. Firth, the foul stream of vilification of the London Livery Companies poured Beale, and out continuously by one of the Livery Companies' Commission, Mr. Phillips untirFirth, who had the grace to allow his name association on it. He and his ing in their attacks on the coadjutors, Mr. Beale and Mr. J. A. Phillips, have been unceasing revilers governing of the honourable men associated as Masters, Wardens, and Court of bodies of the Assistants of these ancient Corporations. One libel from the pen of Livery Companies, chargMr. Phillips is a sufficing example of his venom and purpose. Who ing them as shall say what are the hopes of these untiring zealots of wrong and criminals. redistribution, should the aimed-at seizure be accomplished! He it is who has vilified the whole body of high-minded, right-doing men, whose lives have been devoted to such management of the City properties as enables them to yield as bountifully as they have done in the cause of benevolence. He has stated that "The conduct of the Companies has been such in their trusts as, if they had been private individuals, would have subjected them to be treated as criminals." boldness to their enemies. How often it happens that men, through the extreme wickedness of The long-perplots carried out almost to the verge of successful realization, and when sisted daring attacks all seemed smooth and about to yield fruit through the prize being at permitted by the grasp reach, and yet at the last moment some weak and ill-advised step Companies to confounds the purpose of the machinations, and the evil-doing is not only go on unchalfrustrated, but laid bare to the world. Dynamitards have hatched many lenged, gave devilish plots, but He who rules over all has hitherto rendered their fiendish acts unavailing, so far as inflicting the proposed horrors. So in the case of the conspiracy against the City of London Livery Companies, which has for years past been working at its evil designs, and which at last through wholesale slander and false statements made headway, so far as to secure the appointment of a Royal Commission of Inquiry, heralded by great flourish of trumpets proclaiming the immediate disclosure of an amount of wholesale plunder and wrong-doing in the past administration of those Companies' acquired wealth that would astonish the world. So loud and persistent was the blast, that the public had generally been brought to believe that these time-honoured institutions were in " a bad way," and that great malversation of funds had been the feature of their past existence, and that its perpetuation continued the characteristic of present management. the case of Without imputing even in the smallest degree any wrong desire on The official the part of any members of the Commission, save in the instance of an Secretary avowed enemy of the Companies arraigned, the main body being com- should be unposed of men of the purest motives and intentions, and above all sus- biassed, but in picion; yet who shall say that the fountain of justice has been free from this Commiscontamination, looking at the fact that a bitter partisan acted as Secre- sion was a tary and mouth-piece to the Commission, and had daily opportunities of partisan. furthering the ends of the Companies' enemies. The official Secretary is The Secretary issues an apparently official circular, on stated authority of the Chairman, urging agitation against theCompanies The circular in every such Commission the chief adviser, as he is the instrument of expression in words, of every act of the Commission; he it is who frames and records its opinions and resolves. In this peculiar instance it is, however, seen that the Secretary was far more. The person who acted as Secretary to the City Companies' Livery Commission turns out to have been no mere friend and coadjutor of the attempting spoilers, but the head and front of the agitation. After the evidence before the Commission is completed, the decision recorded and signed by its members, and its books closed and sealed, this self-same man is found affixing, as is stated without authority, the names of the chairman and certain of his colleagues to a circular of an infamous character, associating them with the most virulent enemies of the Companies in an unlawful conspiracy, and of which he makes them the leaders. No other construction can be put on the following document bearing the signature of the Secretary in his official capacity, apparently issued from the judgment-seat and clothed in all the panoply of Lord Derby's dignity and grace. Audacity could by no possibility go further; it, however, has one merit-that of damnifying every recommendation of the Commission in so far as any hostile intent is enunciated. Such is the mildest reading of the following circular, which, happily for British Parliamentary history, is destitute of any other such outrageous example. The words in italics are as in the original. [PRIVATE.-Not for publication.] City of London Livery Companies' Commission, DEAR SIR,-A copy of the first volume of the report of this Commission issued by the is posted to you herewith. Secretary, purporting to be an official I am directed by Lord Derby and his colleagues, who sign the principal report, respectfully to draw your attention to it, and to request that you and authorized will do them the favour of commenting on it in an article or articles in document. your very valuable paper. The subject is one with which the Government intend to deal in the parliamentary session of 1885, and nothing is consequently more necessary than to educate the opinions of the Liberal electors of the provinces, who have little acquaintance with London matters. The recommendations are explained on pp. 42-44. The damnify. An interesting feature of the case is the attitude of the Lord Chaning circular cellor [see pp. 42-64, 69-71, 189-190], 'who is a distinguished member plainly a of the Mercers' Company; but it is not supposed that he would oppose usage of the Commission's the Government measure, which is to be based on the recommendations. authority for The recommendations are themselves based on the legislation with agitation. respect to Oxford and Cambridge, and are thus strictly in accordance with precedent. I shall be very glad to receive a copy, if you will be so kind as to send one, of your article or articles. Lord Derby and his colleagues will be greatly obliged to you for giving them your valuable assistance. To the Editor of the I am, dear sir, very faithfully yours, This circular is plainly an announcement from the chairman of the Commission, Lord Derby, that a Government measure hostile to the Companies is at once to be submitted to Parliament, backed by the authority of the Commission, and that its members will lend their authority and influence thereto, and Lord Derby is made to exhort an agitation to promote its passing into law. Worse than all, the name and high office of the Lord Chancellor of England is sought to be dragged into the conspiracy, and brought forward and degraded into an ally of the nefarious conspirators as a party presumed not to oppose the Government measure, which is to be based on the recommendations of the Commission. It is stated that newspaper articles have been prepared and submitted Further for adoption to more than one chief controller of Metropolitan and assigned leading organs of important Provincial centres, through which the purposes through scheme disclosed in outline by Mr. Warr, the Official Secretary of the wrong usage City of London Livery Companies' Commission, in his extraordinary of the Comand unprecedented "private and not for public circulation" circular, is mission's "more fully developed." authority. Mr. Secretary Warr's entreaty "to educate the opinions of the Liberal electors of the Provinces, who have little acquaintance with London matters," was to bear fruit in "a new flood of light." The colourable though utterly unauthorized announcement of the crafty, and as it would appear unauthorized document (an apparently forged usage of the names and authority of high personages who by Royal Command were constituted a solemnly Impartial Court of Inquiry) was to be the instrument giving weight to all inspirations of the wire-pullers it was designed to shelter, and under shadow of whose wings it was to work its designs. The unmistakable assurance that "An interesting feature of the case Unauthorized is the attitude of the Lord Chancellor, who is a distinguished member of usage of the Lord Chanthe Mercers' Company; but it is not supposed that he would oppose the cellor's name, Government measure, which is to be based on the recommendations," was to and perversion be relied on to open the road, so that nothing could stand in the way of of his evian entire success of the long-worked-for overthrow and spoliation of dence. London's great City Companies, whose deeds of benevolence, public hospitality, and wisely and honestly discharged duties and trusts are the admiration and envy of the whole world. organs to be The "Metropolitan and leading Provincial Centre Organs" were to Metropolitan announce that the leading feature in the Government New Bill was to be and Provincial the appointment of Commissioners who were to take in hand the pro- availed of to perties so that they should be dealt with under semblance of allocation, excite public or in official language, that "the Companies shall be compelled by such opinion in Commission to allocate their incomes to the support of objects of public favour of utility." These Commissioners were to effect an entire change in the spoliation. management of the City Companies' properties and to "relieve the Courts and Liveries from the labours known to attach to properties and charities the accumulation of ages, now grown into a magnitude only to be dealt with under a well-devised system of centralization and management in conformity with the spirit of the age, and commensurate with the vastness of the possessions requiring to be dealt with.” Who so eminently suited to be the Commissioners for this purpose of Probably relief as the agitators through whose skill and misrepresentation its hoped- hoped-for for realization had been brought about? Towering over all other can- advantages to the agitators. didates, they would of necessity be the men of all others best adapted to fill the doubtless well-endowed offices. Their presumed versedness in all the details and alleged mysteries of the various Companies' concerns acquired through the Commission Inquiry, would in a marked manner designate them for the duties, and they would possibly not have reckoned vainly in a hope of seeing themselves installed as Dispensators of the revenues towards which their eager eyes and longing hearts have The silence and dignified bearing of the Members of Courts of the Companies, stimulants to the agitators, and leading to their over. throw. Is brought under notice of the House of Commons. The Secretary of State's explanation of the circular being entirely unauthorized and issued without the so long yearned. What more fitting or better-carned reward for their disinterested, patriotic labours in a cause yielding a very Danaic shower of gold amongst hungry malcontent followers, utterly antipodian as channels. to those into which these boundless gifts of benevolence and mercy were intended to be poured? It would almost seem that the silent dignity with which the Courts of the City Companies have comported themselves during the long years through which the clique of would-be spoilers have been prosecuting their machinations, was an indication of their entire conviction that "God would defend the right." Enough of rope only was needed for committal of complete self-vengeance, and a suicide bringing with it the entire demolition of the agitators' fabric of falsity and wrong. The hand of the spoiler was too eager for the prey. The gang selected an unwise instrument. The cloven foot has been too plainly disclosed. The daring usage of the names of the Lord Chancellor and Lord Derby, and wrongly putting them forward in the unrighteous cause, is almost beyond credence, and but for the matter having already engaged the attention of Parliament, few would believe it. Never before has there been such an abuse of authority, the more serious looking at its great issues. The matter was brought under notice in the House of Commons by Sir S. Northcote, who asked Sir W. Harcourt, the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he would have any objection to lay upon the table a copy of a letter written by Mr. H. D. Warr, Secretary to the City of London Livery Companies' Commission, by the direction. of the Commissioners, and addressed to the editors of certain Liberal newspapers, with a view to "educate the opinions of the Liberal electors of the provinces " upon the recommendations of the Commissioners in their report. Sir W. HARCOURT said that since the right hon. gentleman had put that question on the paper he had communicated with Mr. Warr Secretary to the Commission), and also with its chairman. On seeing the Secretary, that gentleman frankly admitted to him that substantially what was stated in the question was true; but he also stated that he had no authority from the chairman of the Commission, or from any one upon it, to write such a letter. He had also communicated with the Commission's chairman, who wrote that he never directed Mr. Warr to write letters knowledge. to the newspapers, or to call attention in any way to the subject of the report of the Commissioners; nor did he know that Mr. Warr had done so; and Mr. Warr certainly had no right to use the name of the Commission in connection with any correspondence of that kind. He himself had told Mr. Warr that it was a most indiscreet and improper proceeding on the part of the Secretary of a Commission, who ought to be absolutely impartial in the matter, and ought to obey their directions in what he wrote and did. Mr. Warr, he thought, recognized that that statement on his part was well founded. He thought, therefore, that the right hon. gentleman would see that it was impossible to lay any papers on the table. He had not seen the letter in question, but Mr. Warr admitted that he wrote it without any authority from the Commission or the Chairman. Consequently, it would not be an official document at all; and it was written after the Commission was functus officio, and its report had been made. Mr. Warr could only allege a slight communication from one of the Commissioners at all relating to communications with the newspapers. The circular bearing Mr. Warr's name is about as great an outrage on the fairness which is presumed to be the unvarying characteristic of a tribunal bearing the high-sounding title of "Royal Commission," as can be imagined, and although when brought under the notice of the |