Old London.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLV, Issue 22, 30 November 1910, Page 62

Old London.

; SOME ASTONISHING FACT& (From “Scribner’s Magazine”) Nowhere in the world doe® the glamour of age count for so much as in England, •nd nowhere is it more jealously guarded than in the corporation of London. This of itself is sutlicient to explain the desire of men to preserve these ancient institutions. But critics not a few have hinted that other reasons explain the tenacity with which the livery companies fight for their existence. For the guilds are very rich —nobody knows how rich they really are. They own landed estates in the city, in Hammersmith, Essex, Kent, and Surrey; in Ireland and Wales —• in fact, all over the United Kingdom. Their funds are invested in consols and other securities. The 12 great companies own the Ulster estates in Ireland. Much of this property came by gift or bequest for public charities, and the critics insist that the revenue should all be used for public purposes. But the guilds invest their funds and use their revenue as they will. They account to nobody but themselves. A royal commission was appointed by Mr. Gladstone in 1884 to investigate the companies. The commission ineluded such men as the Duke of Bedford, the Earl of Derby, Viscount Sherbrooke, ami the Lord Chief. Justice of England. Centainly these men were not dangerous radiciels. Yet the commissioners declared that the funds of the guilds were public property, and urged the immediate intervention of Parliament to prevent their alienation, and to assure their use for public purposes. The report stated that 1500 self-ap-pointed committees of the guilds took fees from the estates amounting to over £40,000 a year. In addition they spent '£ 100,000 a year in banquets, while £ 150, 000 was paid for balls and the expenses of the management. It east at least £300,000 to administer an income of nearly £833,500 derived from trust funds. The estates of the 74 guilds were estimated to be worth a good deal more than £ 15,000,000. The commission said they would be worth £20,000,000 by 1905. But the recommendations of the Parlia mentary Commission came to naught; the City Corporation was so powerful in Parliament that nothing was ever done. Even to-day the management of the affairs of the livery companies is conducted in secret by committees, which nominate themselves and their successors and acknowledge responsibility to no one. . The guilds, it is true, expend substantial sums for charity. About £200,000 is used for purposes specified in the trust created by the donors. The drapers support the Crystal Palace; they have given largely to the University of London Radcliffe Library, at Oxford, has received large donations from the livery companies Professorships are maintained in various institutions, and substantial contributions are made to technical education. Gresham College is maintained by the corporation of London, as are many other charities for the poor, for orphans and the blind. The city itself is also tremendously rich. In addition to such property as a municipality usually owns, the city is a large landlord. It owns one-tenth of the real estate within its limits. It rents its buildings just as does a private owner. It controls the Irish Ulster estates, which were acquired in 1609 during the reign of James 1., although the rents and revenues are paid to the livery companies in proportion to the investment made by them at the time the estates were acquired. The city also owns Epping Forest, a great stretch of woodland. 12 miles long east of London, acquired at a cost £400.000. It also owns the celebrated Burnham Beeches, and has the right of patronage of many city churches. It further owns one of the largest and most beautiful cemeteries in or around London. The corporation has also a inuuopoly of the market rights of the city of London. By the terms of a contract entered into with Henry 111. it was agreed that no one els® should even be given any market rights within seven miles of the eity And Parliament has protected this ancient monopoly, even though the needs of 7,000,000 of inhabitants of London have been sacrificed in consequence. The London County Council lias never been able to secure the right to open a market within its jurisdiction, and only in eno instance, if it be an instance, has thia monopoly been invaded. In 1552

Charles *fl. glinted to tie Earl of Bedford permission to establish a market in the old fields of the Convent of Westminster, near by the fields known as Seven Dials, or Long Acre. This is now the Covent Garden Market, owned by the Duke of Bedford. By virtue of this ancient grant the Duke still levies tribute on the metropolis of the United Kingdom. No huckster, market-gardener, costermonger or child with a basket of flowers, may offer his produce about the market, or upon the street, without the consent of the Duke, and upon sueh terms as his agent exacts. For the market privilege is not limited to the side of the market itself, for by the terms of the original grant—made, it is true, nearly four centuries ago—no other market may be e* tablished within seven miles of Covent Garden. Neither the London County Council, the borough councils, nor any other individual or corporation may open a market in Greater London, so sacred is this ancient grant. No one knows the amount of the tribute collected through this monopoly, but it is colossal. Along with rights of the City Corporation the market profits are £200,000. It costs 6d. a day to stand a basket of flowers upon the streets within the confines of the market radius, and three times this sum to baek a cart against the kerb. The stalls- within the market are very expensive, for all of the South of England competes for them, while all London comes here to buy vegetables fruits, and flowers. Dynasties change and generations come and go, but grants gifts and contracts, with no higher sanction than the thoughtless whim of a king to a dissolute favourite remain immune from alteration or attack, so sacred is the name of age in the United Kingdom. The markets of the City Corporation alone are capitalised at £3,600,000. They include Billingsgate, the great fish market fronting on the Thames below London Bridge, where the language is as refined as the odors which emanate from it. The Metropolitan Cattle Market of the city is said to be the largest cattle market in the world. Here more than 4,000,000. cattle are sold every year Other markets are also maintained under grants which the city obtained centuries ago for the sale of hay. grain, provisions, and vegetables. The revenues of the city from these markets as well as from the real estate which it owns, amount to over £833,000 a year. The city of London is but one of the many political, educational, religious, and social institutions which linger on in England, untouched by the progress of democracy. They are protected by that veneration for the past that characterises the country. The wealth of ths guilds and of the city is, for the most part, expended in inconsequential charities. The great metropolis with its millions of poor, its awful tenements, its ignorance and squalor, needs schools and hospitals and breathing-places the worst way. And were the £20,800,000 odd of trust funds devoted to some big useful purpose a substantial decrease could be made in the misery of the eity. But inertia and privilege are strong in Great Britian, and nowhere are they stronger than in the city itself. Its power radiates into Parliament and the church, and effectively prevents any interference with its abuses.