natural gifts like that in which Chicago has sprung up, may run ahead of London in population and wealth, and outshine the ancient capital of Britain in many ways. It is more than possible, it is quite probable, that the next hundred years will see some such experience as this; for who can measure the resources which lie almost untouched in lands like America and Australia? I would not hazard the prediction that in wealth and population no city, new or old, will run past London. All I anticipate is that, within the period set down, this great city will go on increasing, in all that makes her famous today, at the steady pace at which she has been moving within our own time.

If I were looking forward for a thousand years I should hesitate to make any prediction with regard to London. The possibilities of the next ten centuries are as far beyond conception almost as the conditions of life on another planet, and though I have no belief whatever in the picture of the sketching New Zealander, and am disposed to think that in coming times only earthquakes or great geological changes can sweep away civilisation from any of its strongholds, I do not think that there are in existence elements of probability enough to lend interest to a speculation upon what this capital may be at a date so long distant. But the materials are considerable by which the likelihoods of the short period of one hundred years may be weighed, and the inference seems to me a fair one that London will continue at least for so long to grow as she has grown before our eyes.

A population of about thirteen millions-that is the first result I find if these inferences are good. The figures are a little startling. A city of thirteen millions of inhabitants is altogether outside the range of our experience or knowledge. Probably not a third of that number were ever yet settled on one spot. The population of the capital of China has been guessed at four millions, but nearly all authorities place the figure much lower, and no other city has ever been known to contain so many people as are returned as the actual number in London on the 3rd of April, 1871-viz., 3,254,260. It is true that one Grimaldi, some hundred and fifty years ago, set down the population of Pekin at sixteen millions; but that was a leap in the dark. In our time the numbers are thought to be under rather than over four millions; while Jeddo, the next most densely populated city of the East, has probably less than two millions. The inhabitants of old Rome, the capital of the civilised world, were never thought to exceed two millions; they were estimated by Gibbon at about a million and a quarter in the fifth century.

But

Rome was artificially incapable of extension in area. Villas and gardens and other private possessions surrounded the city like a barrier, and in order to make the most of the space within these limits houses were built so lofty that, to prevent frequent accidents, the Emperors were compelled to put in force a decree that private buildings should not run higher from the ground than seventy feet. Pekin is even more rigidly walled in, and its area is not more than fourteen square miles; while the whole of London covers a hundred and twenty-two square miles, and may expand itself, without hindrance, in any direction. The English capital, indeed, adopts now a policy which, until a comparatively recent date, was never thought of it lays itself out for an unlimited growth of population. The old districts are widened up, and the new are constructed to be loosely peopled. The ancient close-packing system has ceased, and light and space are being let into overcrowded localities. There are now half a million more people than there were in 1861, but the traffic in the chief thoroughfares is easier. There are fewer dead-locks in the streets, and business and pleasure are managed with greater facility. These are the results of the simple fact that London has within the last quarter of a century recognised the coming of the stress of an unparalleled population, and made preparations to meet it. Three hundred years ago Queen Elizabeth issued a proclamation forbidding the erection of new buildings "where none such had existed within the memory of man ;". for the extension of the metropolis was not only calculated to encourage the increase of the plague, but was thought to create trouble in governing such multitudes-a dearth of victuals, the multiplying of beggars, an increase of artisans more than could live together, and the impoverishment of other cities for lack of inhabitants. At that time the whole population of England and Wales was probably less than five millions, of whom certainly not more than half a million lived in London. But the inhabitable area then was very limited. Without any of the modern machinery of speedy communication and protection from depredation, a city stretching upwards of eleven miles from north to south and from east to west would have been an impossibility.

The estimate of a population of 13,000,000 in 1973 is based upon the increase of the ten years from 1861 to 1871, which was one and a half per cent. per annum. The increase would be much greater— showing a population of something like 16,000,000-if calculated on the rate of accretion in the first fifty years of the present century, and still more if reckoned upon the percentage of the last twenty or thirty years. The ratio of increase of the last ten years, which gives the

result of 13,000,000 in 1973, is the lowest since 1841. But that the rate has fallen somewhat since 1861 can hardly be taken to indicate a permanent turn in the tide. The decade in which occurred the American civil war, the stoppage of our cotton manufacture, the greatest financial crisis of the century, and a general depression of trade, is not a fair gauge of the tendency of the population of a great city which suffered severely from all those causes. The fact that in such a time the people of the capital increased by 447,000 is evidence of the determined growth of London under difficulties. Judging from the state of things since the census was taken nearly two years ago, the increase of population between 1871 and 1881 will be at a greater rate than one and a half per cent. Thirteen millions, therefore, a hundred years hence, is a very low estimate for the population of London, and I can imagine nothing short of irretrievable national calamity, or a complete and wholly unlooked for revolution in the conditions of civilisation in this part of the world, that can prevent the realisation of that estimate.

A population of not less than thirteen millions, and a hundred years more of progress in the arts, in science, literature, the drama: from this date a century of inventions, discoveries, new modes of increasing productions and sparing toil, new pleasures and comforts, higher knowledge of all knowable things, inestimable improvements in the art of health, better laws and principles of government-Who can form a conception of Life in London at the end of that hundred years? In point of time the period is short; but there have been no ages of the past by which may be measured this century forward. A hundred years ago the machinery which regulates our habits and modes of living to-day was not thought of, and we were still struggling, not very hopefully, to emulate the highest civilisation of old Greece and Rome. In all, except pure art, we have now gone far past those ancient standards, and so close have we run once or twice on the heels of the divine masters of the past that the next high wave of genius or the next after that may land us far ahead of old history, even in the accomplishments in which the first civilised nations most excelled. If the story of the human race thus far may teach us anything, it tells us now that we are past the dangers which three or four times thrust back the advanced races and rendered necessary the beginning of the work of civilisation afresh. Blunders so gigantic and irreparable as those of old cannot be repeated.

On this foundation, I think we may fairly speculate on the prospects of Life in London in 1973.

RICHARD GOWING.

THE REPUBLICAN IMPEACHMENT.

N his pamphlet, "The Impeachment of the House of Brunswick," Mr. Bradlaugh says: "The right of the members of the House of Brunswick to succeed to the Throne is a right accruing only from the Act of Settlement, it being clear that, except from this statute, they have no claim to the Throne. It is therefore submitted that should Parliament in its wisdom see fit to enact that, after the death or abdication of her present Majesty, the Throne shall no longer be filled by a member of the House of Brunswick, such an enactment would be perfectly within the competence of Parliament." In the November number of this magazine I maintained that for enacting purposes the Parliament consists of the Sovereign, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons-a Bill does not become law until it is voted by the Commons, voted by the Lords, and assented to by the Sovereign, and that therefore Parliament could not constitutionally deprive the Prince of Wales of the reversion to the Crown without the assent of the Sovereign. I also said that an Act barring the succession of the lawful heir to the Throne, even if it were duly passed and assented to by Parliament, would be a revolutionary proceeding. Mr. Bradlaugh replies: "That the British Parliament can prevent the succession of the lawful heir to the Throne is certain." He refers to the revolution of 1688, and says: "If Parliament has and had no right to exclude or prevent the succession of a lawful heir,' then the members of the present House of Brunswick are illegally on the Throne-in fact, usurpers. I contend that they are lawfully on the Throne, and may be as lawfully ejected from it." Mr. Bradlaugh says that the number of persons who think with him is not scant. If the constitutional history of England were taught in schools, the number of those who assented to Mr. Bradlaugh's historical argument would be countable on his thumbs.

With regard to Mr. Bradlaugh's quotations from the Parliamentary debates in 1788, it will be enough to remark that I have not denied the authority of the two Houses of Parliament as set forth in the dictum of Mr. Pitt: "That no person had a right to the Throne independent of the consent of the two Houses." The component parts of Parliament are conjointly and severally creatures of the

law. Neither the Sovereign nor the Houses of Parliament are above the law. Mr. Bradlaugh might have cited more formally definite authorities than extracts from debates in Parliament. Sir Edward Coke, referring to the power of Parliament, says it is "so transcendent and absolute that it cannot be confined, either for causes or persons, within any bounds." Bracton says of the Sovereign, "the law makes him king." The 12 and 13 William III. c. 2 (the Act of Settlement) recites that "whereas the laws of England are the birthright of the people thereof, and all the kings and queens who shall ascend the Throne of this realm ought to administer the government of the same according to the said laws.” The 6 Anne, c. 7, makes it high treason for any one to assert "that the kings or queens of this realm, by and with the authority of Parliament, are not able to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to limit and bind the Crown and the descent, limitation, inheritance, and government thereof."

Here, then, I have given the highest authorities as to the power of Parliament-that is to say, I have quoted from Acts of Parliament. So far, then, Mr. Bradlaugh and I are agreed, or rather it seems that Mr. Bradlaugh was hardly aware of the constitutional enactments which assert the power of Parliament. But, we must now ask, What is Parliament and what is an Act of Parliament? Parliament is not the Sovereign only, or the House of Lords only, or the House of Commons only, or the two Houses, but is the Sovereign and the two Houses. An Act of Parliament is not a resolution of the Commons, or a resolution of the Lords, or an edict of the Sovereign. It is not a Bill that has been voted by the Lords and the Commons. It is a Bill that has been voted by the Commons and by the Lords, and been assented to by the Sovereign. Mr. Bradlaugh says: "However absurd any statute may be, the English judges are bound to enforce it." Precisely; but what is a statute? Suppose the Lords and the Commons passed a Bill declaring it treason for any person to affirm orally or by writing that the House of Brunswick ought to be ousted from the succession to the Throne; and we will further suppose that Queen Victoria, for the first time in her reign, exercised her right of veto, and refused her assent to the Bill. If Mr. Bradlaugh were prosecuted according to the provisions of the Bill, the judges would not allow the prosecution to proceed, because a Bill of the two Houses of Parliament is not a statute, is not law, until it receives the assent of the Sovereign. Mr. Bradlaugh refers us to the revolution of 1688. It would be sufficient for me to reply that what is done in a period of revolution is not a precedent to be followed in a time of settled government; but if we glance at the events of the last