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MR. A. W. FLUX, M.A., ON CITY GOVERNMENT AND

effective the comparison. Hence I must be understood as measuring Copenhagen by the Manchester yard-measure rather than the opposite. That is what I mean by speaking of the point of view of a resident in Manchester. If the process is occasionally reversed, it is because it is hardly possible to avoid, in making a comparison, the measuring of each of the compared objects by the other in turn. A serious danger in our modern life is at intervals urged on our attention, the danger of a form of popular govemment where the members of the community take insufficient interest in the work done on their behalf by their elected representatives. Interest in the details of civio administration seems too much to expect from the ordinary citizen. The meagre interest in municipal matters is illustrated by the want of energy to take a share in the election of councillors. At the recent elections in Manchester but little over half of the citizens lived in contested wards, and in the contested wards but little over half of the voters went to the poll. Attention is at present diverted from local politics. Unfortunately, even when attention is given to a local election, it is too often not on account of matters of municipal importance but on account of the position of candidates in reference to Imperial politics. One way of realising the interest and importance of matters of our own local government is to compare them with similar matters elsewhere. In venturing to follow this course this evening, I desire to be clearly understood to have no desire to find opportunity for unpleasant reflections on any regrettable features of the situation in Manchester. That purpose is very far from my design. If I omit to mention the many things of which Manchester can proudly boast, it must not be thought that I ignore them. The faet is quite the opposite. Neither, on the other hånd, is it my desire to indiscriminately belaud the city of which I purpose to speak. No city lacks serious defeets; no city, probably, is deficient in some features of interest or of value to the social inq-uirer. If reflection on any features of cities elsewhere lead us to work better for the