_Hints from the Chancellor of the Exchequer's correspondence._
SIR,--If you wish to immortalise yourself as Chancellor of the
Exchequer, now is your opportunity. You have a surplus, I believe, of
eight or nine millions? This is about the figure required to provide the
Members of the London County Council with a moderate-sized palace, not
perhaps entirely suited to their exalted dignity, but, at least,
sufficient to house them in something like proper and fitting style. A
site should be secured on the Embankment, by clearing away Somerset
House, and the intervening buildings, including the blocks of the Inner
and Middle Temple, which could all be carted away and re-erected further
down, say, at Millbank, and on the space thus secured a white marble
structure could be reared with an adequately imposing facade facing the
river, that would in some slight degree represent the majesty of the
illustrious body destined to occupy it. I don't say that nine millions
would be enough thoroughly to carry out the design I have in view, but
your surplus might serve as a central fund to begin upon, to which
Parliament, no doubt, would cheerfully add another five or six millions
if required. Such an obvious use for your money, I feel, needs no
further argument from yours encouragingly and suggestively,