THE TOWN COUNCIL.
The council chamber in the Town Hall has of late years undergone many
alterations. In my early experience it occupied only part of the present
site, and at the eastern end we had a luncheon room. It was a shabby
chamber, badly heated and ventilated; the Mayor's chair was placed on a
raised dais at the western end, and the members of the Council sat at
long mahogany tables running lengthwise. It was a comfortless room, and
very cold in winter.
The Council met at eleven in the morning, adjourned for lunch at one
o'clock, and usually completed its labours by four or five o'clock in
the afternoon. But we had periods when party feeling ran high, and
obstructive tactics were adopted. At such times we not infrequently sat
until ten o'clock at night. Most of these battles took place upon
licensing questions in which the late Mr. Alex. Balfour, Mr. Simpson, of
landing stage fame, and Mr. McDougal took a leading part.
It was the practice to deliver long and well considered speeches. Some
of these were excellent, many very dreary. The present conversational
debates would not have been tolerated. We had some very able speakers,
of whom I think the most powerful was Mr. Robertson Gladstone, the elder
brother of the late Premier. He seldom spoke, but when he did he gave
utterance to a perfect torrent of eloquence which seemed to bear
everything before it. He was a remarkable man in many ways, very tall of
stature, and broad in proportion, he wore a low-crowned hat and used to
drive down in a small four-wheeled dogcart. He delighted to give any old
woman a lift, and every Saturday morning he visited the St. John's
market, and took infinite pleasure in bargaining with the market folk.
Mr. J. J. Stitt was also a very fluent and effective speaker, perhaps
too much after the debating society style. Mr. J. R. Jeffery was a good
speaker, so was Mr. William Earle. One of the most useful men in the
Council was Mr. Weightman, who had been the Surveyor to the Corporation,
and became a most efficient Chairman of the Finance Committee. One of
the most laborious members was Mr. Charles Bowring, the father of Sir
William Bowring, Bart. Mr. Bowring was for years Chairman of the Health
Committee. He had a big and difficult work to do, but he did it well,
and was always courteous and considerate. Mr. Beloe was at that time
Chairman of the Water Committee, and was largely responsible for the
Rivington water scheme. I think Mr. Sam Rathbone was one of the most
cultured and able men we ever had in the Council. He spoke with
knowledge and much elegance, and everything he said was refined and
elevating. Mr. John Yates--"honest John Yates"--was a frequent speaker,
and always with effect. Mr. Barkeley Smith was our best and most ready
debater, Mr. Clarke Aspinall our most humorous speaker.
The first important debate which took place in the Council after I
entered it was on the proposal to purchase land from Lord Sefton for the
purpose of making Sefton Park. It was a prolonged discussion and the
decision arrived at shows that the Council in those days was long
sighted and able to take large views and do big things. Not only was
power taken to purchase land for Sefton Park but also to make Newsham
and Stanley Parks, costing in all £670,000; and this movement to provide
open spaces has continued to this day, and has been supplemented by
private munificence, until Liverpool is surrounded by a belt of parks
and open spaces containing upwards of 1,000 acres, and in addition many
churchyards have been turned into gardens, and small greens have been
provided in various parts.
I have often been asked if the work of the city was as well done with a
Council of 64 as it is now with a Council of 134. I think the smaller
Council took a more personal interest in the work. The Committees were
smaller and better attended, and the Council more thoroughly discussed
the subjects brought before them. With the larger Council and larger
Committees more work and more responsibility falls upon the chairman and
the permanent officials. I fear the larger and more democratic Council
scarcely appreciates this fact, also they fail to see that if you want
good permanent officials you must pay them adequately. We have
fortunately to-day an excellent staff who do their work well with a full
sense of their responsibility.
One peculiarity of the larger Council is the time given to the
discussion of small matters, and the little consideration given to large
questions of policy and finance. This I attribute to the fact that the
Council contains many representatives who have not been accustomed to
deal with large affairs, and who refrain from discussing what they do
not fully understand. In this respect I think the present Council shows
to some disadvantage.
An immense work has been done municipally during this period in
re-modelling and re-making Liverpool. In the 'sixties the streets of
Liverpool were narrow and irregular, the paving and scavenging work was
imperfectly done, the system of sewerage was antiquated, and the homes
in which her working people had to live were squalid and insanitary;
cellar dwellings were very general. To change all this demanded a great
effort and a large expenditure of money, but in the 'seventies and
'eighties we had men in the Council capable of taking large views.
Although the improvement of Liverpool has been so remarkable, it is
difficult to say to whom it is mainly due; there have been so many
active public-spirited men who have given the best of their time and
thought to the promotion of municipal undertakings. Liverpool has been
fortunate in possessing so many sons who have taken an active interest
in her welfare, and have done their work quietly and unobtrusively. The
re-making of Liverpool has been accomplished in the quiet deliberation
of the committee room, and not in the council chamber.
THE TOWN HALL--ITS HOSPITALITY.
The hospitalities of the Town Hall were in my early years limited to
dinners, and most of these took place in the small dining room, which
will only accommodate about forty guests. When the fleet visited
Liverpool the Mayor gave a ball, but these occasions were rare. To
Dowager Lady Forwood, who was Mayoress in 1877, the credit belongs of
introducing the afternoon receptions, which have proved so great an
attraction. The Town Hall and its suite of reception rooms are unique,
and although built over 100 years ago, are sufficiently commodious for
the social requirements of to-day. The late King, when Prince of Wales,
on his visit to Liverpool in 1881, remarked to me that next to those in
the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg he considered them the best
proportioned rooms in Europe.
The Lord Mayor receives an allowance of £2,000, and is in addition
provided with carriages and horses. In olden time this allowance was
ample, but it is no longer so, and it is impossible to maintain the old
traditional hospitality of the Town Hall unless the Lord Mayor expends a
further £2,000 out of his own pocket, and many Lord Mayors have
considerably exceeded this sum. It has often been urged that the
allowance should be increased. I doubt if this is desirable. The
invitations to Town Hall functions might be more strictly limited to
representative people, or the entertainments might, as in Manchester, be
placed in the hands of a Committee, but it must not be forgotten that
more is expected of the Lord Mayor in Liverpool than in other places. He
is not only the head of the municipality, but of all charitable and
philanthropic work. The initiation of every undertaking, national as
well as local, emanates from the Town Hall. All this throws upon the
Lord Mayor duties which directly and indirectly involve the dispensing
of hospitality, and I do not think the citizens would wish it should be
otherwise.
Although Mr. Alderman Livingston was always supposed to have a candidate
ready for the office of Mayor, and loved to be known as the "Mayor
maker," the finding of a candidate for the office has not been always
easy. I remember in 1868 we had some difficulty. The caucus decided to
invite Mr. Alderman Dover to accept the office. I was deputed to obtain
Mr. Dover's consent. I found him at the Angel Hotel smoking a long
churchwarden clay pipe; when I told him my mission he smiled and replied
that his acceptance was impossible, and one of the reasons he gave was
that if his wife once got into the gilded coach she would never get out
of it again. However, after much persuasion he accepted the office, and
made a very good and a very original Mayor. In those days we had a
series of recognised toasts at all the Town Hall banquets:
"_The Queen_,"
"_The Prince and Princess of Wales, and the
other Members of the Royal Family_,"
"_The Bishop and Clergy,
and Ministers of other denominations_,"
"_The Army and Navy and Auxiliary Forces_,"
and very frequently
"_The good old town and the trade thereof_."
This was a very serious list, as it involved two or three speakers being
called upon to reply for the church and the army. Mr. Dover prepared
three speeches for each toast, which he carefully wrote out and gave to
the butler, with instructions to take a careful note of those present,
and to hand him the speech which he considered had not been heard before
by his guests. So the butler, after casting his eye over the tables,
would hand a manuscript to the Mayor, saying "I think, your Worship, No.
2, 'Royal Family,' will do this evening." At the close of his mayoralty
he offered to sell his speeches to his successor, and he handed to the
charities a cheque for £500, which he had saved out of his allowance as
Mayor.
WORK IN THE CITY COUNCIL.
On entering the Council in 1868 I was placed upon the Watch Committee,
and remained on that committee for fifteen years. The work was of a very
routine character; we had, however, an excellent chairman in Mr. F. A.
Clint, and I have never forgotten the lessons I received from him in the
management of a committee, and how to get the proceedings of a committee
passed by the Council. "Never start a hare" was his motto, "you never
know how it will run, and the amount of discussion it may provoke."
Another lesson which he taught me was always to take the Council into
your confidence. "Tell them everything, and if you make a mistake own up
to it;" and there can be no doubt that there is great wisdom in adopting
this course. Deliberative assemblies are naturally critical and
suspicious: but treat them with confidence and they will return it; once
deceive them, or keep back what they are entitled to know, and your task
thereafter becomes very difficult.
Mr. Alderman Livingston was the deputy-chairman, and was quite a
character in his way. In personal appearance he resembled Mr. Pickwick,
and his ways were essentially Pickwickian. In the selection of Mayors he
was always very much in evidence, and he was before everything a Tory of
Tories. Politics were his delight, and even when quite an old man he did
not shirk attending the November ward meetings, where his oracular and
often amusing speeches were greatly enjoyed by the electors.
At one period during the agitation against licensees of public-houses,
the Watch Committee was composed of all the members of the Council with
Mr. S. B. Guion as chairman; and the committee met in the Council
Chamber, but a committee of this size was too unwieldy for
administrative business, and the arrangement did not last long.
THE BURNING OF THE LANDING STAGE.
The original George's Landing Stage was replaced by a new one in 1874,
and this was connected with the floating bridge and the Prince's stage,
the whole forming one floating stage, 2,200 feet in length. On the 28th
July, a few days after the completion of this work, I was attending the
Watch Committee when word reached us that the landing stage was on fire.
We could scarcely believe the report, as it was about the last thing we
thought likely to be burnt. We hurried down to find the report only too
true; huge volumes of dense black smoke enveloped all the approaches.
The fire, commencing at the foot of the northern bridge leading to the
George's stage, spread with great rapidity. The fire engines were
brought on the stage and immense volumes of water were poured upon the
burning deck, but the woodwork was so heavily impregnated with tar that
the flames were irresistible. We worked all afternoon and all night, and
in the end only succeeded in saving the centre of the stage at the foot
of the floating bridge, for a length of about 150 feet. And this was
only done by cutting a wide gap at either end, over which the fire could
not leap. It was very arduous, trying work, as the fumes from the tar
and creosoted timber were very nauseating. The portion salved was very
valuable in preserving a place for the Birkenhead boats. The other
ferries had to land and embark their passengers from temporary platforms
and the adjacent dock walls.
THE WATER COMMITTEE.
In the 'seventies I joined the Water Committee, at a time when further
supplies of water for Liverpool had become a pressing necessity. We had
opened the Beloe "dry dock" at Rivington (so called because many people
believed when this reservoir was being made it would never be filled),
and it was felt that no further supply could be obtained from this
source; nor could we rely upon any further local supply from the red
sandstone, although Mr. Alderman Bennett made long speeches in his
endeavour to prove that the supply from the red sandstone was far from
being exhausted.
[Illustration: LAYING THE FOUNDATION STONE, VYRNWY DAM, BY THE EARL OF
POWIS, 1881.]
When it was decided to seek for a new watershed our attention was first
directed to the moors round about Bleasdale, some ten miles north of
Preston, but the prospective supply was not sufficiently large. We then
turned our attention to Hawes Water, in Cumberland, the property of Lord
Lonsdale, and appointed a deputation to inspect this lake. We dined and
stayed all night at Lowther Castle, and drove to the lake next morning.
We came away much impressed with the quality of the water and the
cleanness of the watershed, as there were no peat mosses or boggy lands
to discolour the water.
Mr. Deacon, our young water engineer, had however a more ambitious
scheme in view; he proposed to impound the head waters of the Severn in
the valley of the Vyrnwy. The battle of the watersheds, Hawes Water
_versus_ the Vyrnwy, was waged furiously for several years. The
committee made many visits to the Vyrnwy, taking up its abode at the
Eynant Shooting Lodge, a very picturesque spot (now submerged) standing
at the western end of the lake. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Anthony Bower, the
chairman and deputy-chairman of the committee, were strongly in favour
of the Vyrnwy scheme.
Alderman Bennett continued to be the persistent advocate of obtaining
additional supplies from the wells, and his opposition to every other
scheme was only set at rest by the Council authorising Mather and Platt
to put a bore-hole down at Bootle at a point which he selected; with the
result that no water was found. During all this period Mr. J. H. Wilson
had a very arduous task, demanding great patience and endurance, and to
him and to Mr. Deacon belong the credit of ultimately securing the
adoption of the Vyrnwy scheme.
I led the section of the committee in favour of the Hawes Water scheme.
There was no question as to the Vyrnwy yielding an abundant supply, but
the opposition contended that it was brown peaty water, and would remain
brownish after being treated by filtration, and the cost would greatly
exceed that of Hawes Water. I spent days on the moors at Vyrnwy
collecting samples of water. My samples were brown and bad; the samples
collected by Mr. Deacon, on the contrary, were clear and translucent.
The committee were divided as to the relative merits of the two schemes,
and the Council were equally divided.
When the question came for the ultimate decision of the Council the
debate lasted two days, and I spoke for one hour and a half. We thought
the Hawes Water scheme was winning, when the Mayor, Mr. Thomas Royden,
rose and spoke for half an hour all in favour of the Vyrnwy. His speech
turned many waverers, and the Council voted in favour of the Vyrnwy by
a small majority of three.
It was a great debate, perhaps the most important we have had in the
Council, certainly in my time. Mr. Royden (now Sir Thomas Royden, Bart.)
was an effective speaker, both in the Council and on the platform; his
voice and his genial smile were a valuable asset of the Conservative
party.
I was greatly assisted in drawing up a pamphlet in favour of Hawes
Water, and in conducting the opposition, by the town clerk, Mr. Joseph
Rayner. Mr. Rayner was an exceedingly able man, but unfortunately died
comparatively young.
It fell to my lot, as Mayor in 1881, to take the Council to lay the
foundation stone of the great Vyrnwy dam. It was on a very hot day in
July; the stone was laid by the Earl of Powis, who made a very eloquent
and poetical address, comparing the Vyrnwy with the fountain of Arethusa
which would spring up and fructify the valley, and convey untold
blessings to the great community in the far-off city of Liverpool.
The building of the dam, and the laying out of the banks of the lake,
called for many charming visits to the Vyrnwy; and although I was not in
favour of the adoption of this scheme I now believe on the whole the
Council did the wisest thing, as there can be no question of the
abundance of the supplies secured by the city.
PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE.
For twelve years I was chairman of this committee, and had much
interesting work to carry through Parliament. The widening of St.
Nicholas' Place and the throwing of part of St. Nicholas' churchyard
into the street was a great improvement, relieving the congestion of
traffic at this point.
We also endeavoured, during my term of office, to extend the boundaries
of the city. We had a fierce fight in the House of Commons. The local
boards of the districts we intended to absorb assailed us with a perfect
torrent of abuse, and criticised severely our system of local
government. We failed to carry our bill, the chairman of the committee
remarking that Parliament would not grant any extension of city
boundaries when it was objected to by the districts to be absorbed; but
he added, "We are quite satisfied from the evidence you have given that
Liverpool is excellently governed in every department." We made a
mistake in pushing forward this bill on "merits" only, we should have
done some missionary work beforehand, and arranged terms and conditions
with our neighbours. My successor in the chair of this committee, Sir
Thomas Hughes, profited by our experience, and succeeded where we
failed.
We were greatly assisted in our Parliamentary work by Mr. Harcourt E.
Clare, who was most able and diplomatic, and an excellent negotiator.
His appointment as Clerk of the County Council, though a gain to the
county, was a serious loss to Liverpool.
MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL.
With the attitude of Liverpool in regard to the construction of the
Manchester Ship Canal I was very prominently identified. I had to
conduct the opposition to the Canal Bill through three sessions of
Parliament, six enquiries in all. The Dock Board took the labouring oar,
but it fell to me to work up the commercial case, to prove from a
commercial point of view that the canal was not wanted, and would never
pay. I prepared a great mass of figures, and was under examination
during the six enquiries altogether about thirty hours. Mr. Pember,
Q.C., who led the case for the promoters, paid me the compliment of
saying I was the only witness he had ever had who had compelled him to
get up early in the morning to prepare his cross-examination.
We defeated the bill in the first two enquiries. At the close of the
second enquiry Mr. Lyster, the engineer to the Mersey Docks and Harbour
Board, completely gave the Dock Board case away. Mr. Pember remarked:
"Mr. Lyster, you have told us that if we make our canal through the
centre of the estuary of the Mersey we shall cause the estuary to silt
up and destroy the bar. What would you do if you had to make a canal to
Manchester?" Mr. Lyster jumped at the bait, and replied, "I should enter
at Eastham and carry the canal along the shore until I reached Runcorn,
and then I would strike inland." Next year the Manchester Corporation
brought in a new bill carrying out Mr. Lyster's suggestion, and as
Liverpool had no answer they succeeded in getting their bill.
There can be no doubt that the railways had for long years greatly
overcharged their Liverpool traffic. The rate of 12s 6d per ton for
Manchester goods for the thirty-two miles' carriage from Manchester to
Liverpool was a gross overcharge. I had headed deputation after
deputation to the London and North-Western Railway to represent this;
Mr. Moon (afterwards Sir Richard Moon) always received us with much
civility, but nothing was done. The Dock Board had the remedy in their
own hands; they could have bought the Bridgewater Canal, and made a
competitive route; but the prosperity of Liverpool was great, and they
altogether failed to see that Manchester, with its Ship Canal, might one
day be a serious competitor to Liverpool.
The promoters of the Ship Canal secured an option over the Bridgewater
Canal, and this was really the backbone of their scheme. At the close of
the first parliamentary enquiry, when the Canal Bill was thrown out, Mr.
Wakefield Cropper, the chairman of the Bridgewater Canal, came to me
and said, "The option given to the Ship Canal people has expired; can
you not persuade the Dock Board to buy up the Bridgewater Canal, and
this will put an end to the Ship Canal project?" I walked across the
Green Park with Mr. T. D. Hornby, the chairman of the Dock Board, and
Mr. Squarey, the solicitor, and told them of this conversation, and they
both agreed with me that the Dock Board ought to make the purchase, but,
unfortunately, nothing was done. In the following year the Ship Canal
Bill was again thrown out, and Mr. Cropper again urged that we should
secure the Bridgewater Canal. I called at the Liverpool Dock office in
London and saw Mr. Hornby and Mr. Squarey; they both agreed that the
purchase of the Bridgewater Canal ought to be made, but again no step
was taken, and the Ship Canal made their third application to
Parliament, and succeeded. I have always felt that the Dock Board thus
missed a great opportunity, which in years to come may prove to have
been the golden chance of securing the prosperity of the port.
CORPORATION LEASEHOLDS.
One of the most important enquiries in which I engaged was into our
system of fines on renewals of the leases of the property belonging to
the Corporation.
The Corporation owns a very large estate within the city. The first
important purchase was made by the Corporation in 1674, when a lease
for 1,000 years was obtained from Sir Caryl Molyneux, of the Liverpool
Heath, which bounded the then town of Liverpool on its eastern side.
This land had been sold on seventy-five years' leases, and as the leases
ran out the lessees had the option of renewal on the payment of a fine;
and in order to encourage the frequent renewal of these leases the fines
during the first twenty years of a lease were made very light. It has
been the practice of the Corporation to use the fines received as income
in the year in which they are received. The fines received in the fifty
years, 1835 to 1885, amounted to £1,762,000. This system of finance is
radically wrong. The fines ought to be invested in annuities, and if
this had been done these fines would now have returned an income of
£66,000 per annum, and would have gone on increasing.
The committee, of which I was the chairman, held a prolonged enquiry,
and examined many experts and actuaries, and our report is to-day the
standard authority on the leasehold question. Our conclusions and
recommendations are as sound to-day as they were then, but unfortunately
the Council declined to accept or adopt them, and we still pursue the
economically bad system of spending in the first year the fine which
should be spread over the term of the lease.
When I retired from the Library, Museum, and Arts Committee in 1908, I
was invited to take the chair of the Estate Committee, and found myself
again face to face with the leasehold question. The revenue of the
Corporation from fines on renewal of leases had fallen off to so
alarming an extent that something had to be done to stop the shrinkage
in revenue and restore the capital value of the estate. We had for so
long used the fines as income that the position was a difficult one, and
one only to be surmounted by a self-denying policy of accumulating a
large portion of the assured income from fines for at least twenty-five
years and encouraging leaseholders to extend their leases from
seventy-five to ninety-nine years.