ABSTRACT
The thing we aim at is neither more nor less than this,-to get rid of the state of almost anarchical confusion by which the administration of the Metropolis is at present disgraced, and to bestow upon her 3,000,000 inhabitants a wellbalanced, well-organized system of representative self-government. The only attempt at an approach to it is the Metropolitan Board of Works; but the functions of that Board are so limited that it cannot, for a moment, be regarded as a municipal government of London. One of the plans that has been propounded is that advocated by the Metropolitan Board of Works, who very naturally wish the vestries and so forth to remain as they are; that the boroughs should not be endowed with municipal functions, but that the powers of the Board of Works itself should be enlarged, so that it should become the supreme authority over all the affairs of the Metropolis.
