_Wasteful municipal finance._

Not only does the electoral system involve undue changes in the
personnel of the Council, but it leads to an extremely wasteful
expenditure of public money. Whether the London County Council was or
was not justified in establishing a steamboat service, nothing can be
more wasteful than that one Council should establish such a service at
great cost, and that its successor should immediately reverse that
policy. The steady development of a works department by one Council and
its abandonment by a succeeding Council similarly involves useless
expenditure. A fully representative Council would not display such
violent alterations of policy, and it is of the utmost importance that
the objects on which it is decided to spend public moneys should be the
deliberate and considered choice of a Council on which all interests are
fairly represented.

_No continuity in administration_.]

The Metropolitan Borough Council elections tell a similar tale. The
Lewisham Borough Council consisted in 1900 of 35 Moderates and 7
Progressives; in 1903 of 34 Progressives and 8 Moderates and
Independents; in 1906 of 42 Moderates, no representatives of the
Progressive or Labour parties being elected. In three successive
elections there was a complete change in the composition of the Council.
Lewisham's experience is typical of that of several other London
boroughs. Many councillors of the widest experience in municipal affairs
lose their seats at the same time, and there is in consequence no
security of continuity in the administration of the business of the
Metropolitan boroughs. Dr. Gilbert Slater, in giving evidence before a
select committee of the House of Lords, said: "I found, of course, when