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53
may put the question pro forma, yet he anticipates the answer
with the greatest readiness.
I believe this Town Hall of Clerkenwell is not among the last,
but among the first of many similar town-halls in London, I
do not come, then, as a Wat Tyler or destroyer amongst you.
Rather would I do everything to foster aud develop the local
spirit and energy of Clerkenwell, because through that I am
sure that I shall most readily develop the larger spirit and
patriotism of a united London. (Cheers.) In connection with
that I must remind you that one of the principal arguments
against the unification of London is this—that it would make
London so vast that no one would feel any special interest in it.
Well, on that principle no one should be able to feel any interest
in the British Empire. The interest we feel in the British Empire
arises and grows out of the interest that we feel in any particular
part. It is not that we feel that Jamaica or Ceylon are the same
to u3, or as dear to us as the parish in which we live, but it is because
through the parish in which we live we rise to an interest
in that great bond which unites our parish, our county, and our
country, in a common comprehension with Jamaica, Ceylon,
and the rest of the Empire. It is in that way that we rise to a
conception of an Imperial patriotism. (Cheers) If we were
expected at once, and without any preparation in detail, to
swallow the British Empire whole, so to speak, I think we
should feel ourselves inadequate to the task; but we begin by
local attachment, and we end by Imperial patriotism ; and that,
I believe to be the only sound and sure way in which the larger
patriotism can be cultivated. And so it is in London ; we must
rise through local attachment to a larger conception of municipal
patriotism ; and, therefore, it is not we who wish to unify
and magnify London, who wish to dwarf the Chelseas, the
Lambeths, and the Clerkenwells, for we recognise that the only
sure, strong, and healthy base for London lies in the strength,
the heartiness, and the might of these very bases of the Chelseas,
the Lambeths, and the Clerkenwells. We wish, then, that
they may be great in order that greater London may be greater
yet. (Cheers.) I wish that all could grasp this one great
central fact—that the greatness of London necessitates the
greatness of its parts, and that the limbs of London must increase
with the trunk of London.
I wish, too, that those who oppose this new movement could
understand that they are opposing an irresistible movement. It
is not a matter of party clamour; it is a great natural force.
I am not one of those who refuse their sympathy to those who
cherish the beautiful, the picturesque, and the historic relics of
the past; but it is because I value those relics that I do not
wish them used as a dam to try and oppose an irresistible flood,