former capacity it enacts by-laws for the better government of the Corporation, in conformity with immemorial usage confirmed by 15 Edward III., and again more recently and fully by the Municipal Corporations Act.  The charter of Edward III. authorizes the mayor and aldermen, with the assent of the commonalty, “where any customs theretofore used and obtained proved hard or defective, or any matters newly arising within the City needed amendment, and no remedy had been previously provided, to apply and ordain a convenient remedy, as often as it should seem expedient; so that the same were agreeable to good faith and reason, for the common advantage of the citizens, and other liege subjects sojourning with them, and useful to king and people.”  Vested with such powers as these, the Corporation of London are clearly competent to introduce whatever reforms circumstances may render desirable.  As practical men of business, the Court of Common Council may fairly be supposed to be the best judges as to the nature of the amendments to be made, and the right time of making them.  Persons engaged in commercial pursuits are not usually obstructive, or opposed to useful innovations.  On the contrary, being wedded to no theories, they are constantly impelled to change, and to act upon each emergency as it arises.  The past history of the City of London is one long illustration of this position,—­it is an uninterrupted series of reforms, many of them rather beneficial to the nation at large than to the Corporation itself.  On what grounds, then, is it justifiable to supersede this salutary internal action of the Corporation, and to exercise the arbitrary power of the legislature to enforce crude and inapplicable innovations?  This interference with the self-government of the City is, in fact, a vote of censure on the duly elected representatives of the citizens, with whom the majority of the citizens themselves are, however, perfectly satisfied.  But, in truth, that “self-government” is the head and front of their offence, for is it not a stumbling-block to ministerial and oligarchical influence?  In addition to the power of enacting by-laws, the Common Council superintend the disposal of the funds of the Corporation; and without their previous consent no larger sum than 100 pounds can be paid for any purpose whatsoever.  Their executive functions are also considerable.  Upon this court depends the responsibility of electing the common serjeant, the town clerk, the two judges, and officers of the Sheriffs’ Court, the clerk of the peace, the coroner, the remembrancer, the commissioner of the city police, and various other officers of inferior note and standing.

The Citizens.