recalled will suffice to teach the way. James I.'s spoken wish for a rebuilding which would result in a beautiful city; Charles II.'s royal command to proceed at once with the task presented by the genius of Wren; Colonel Birch's proposal before Parliament, these combine in themselves the necessary principles which should govern the making of the future London. In There are cities which do not appeal to one. There are those which appeal to every fibre of one's nature. London is of this latter class. spite of its many deflections from the ideal of continuous history, its record is one long catalogue of praise from visitors, inhabitants, statesmen, poets, painters, and artists. The Romans who looked to it for defence stayed in it for "love of the place." At every stage of its history where such expressions are possible they have been made, and when the change from mediævalism to modernism was accomplished there is not a single foreign traveller who, if he recorded or criticised details, did not also proclaim his feeling for London. London produces a feeling, stands for a soul community, compels people, citizens and visitors alike, to a recognition of qualities and powers which nothing but its history can explain. CHAPTER XII THE GREATNESS THAT IS LONDON I HAVE now finished the story of London's continuity in English history from a great position in Roman history. I have shown that it is continuity of historical influences, not a mere survival of custom and usage. I have shown when and how it lapsed and when and how it revived, and have traced the last echo of that continuity to modern days in the march of the citizen army on its way to the battlefields of South Africa. I have shown that on the great emergency London has answered to the call on her historical influence. There is no city in Europe which has preserved its historical continuity so faithfully as London has preserved hers-not Lyons, Trier, Nîmes, Arles, Turin, not Paris or even Rome herself. If these are continuous by actual occupation; if they show remains of the forum, the bath, the theatre, or even the temple; they show no continuity of historical influences - they are not constitutionally continuous. They may possess here and there a municipal rite, a social custom, but they never reveal their original position as a city-state of the Roman Empire. Their mediæval history is wholly municipal and never contributory to the formation or the government of the state. This, on the contrary, is what London reveals throughout the ages, the something more which is always present. Her prominence as a city-state with more power and influence than a municipal town is shown from time to time, and the silence between the several manifestations is all the more eloquent because of the expression which comes out so strongly and decisively when it is called forth by events. London is the only example of a city-state in modern history exercising her state powers as strongly as her civic powers, in connection with the personal sovereignty of early English and mediæval times, in connection with Parliament in modern times, and in connection with military and other functions at all times. The essential difference between London and other cities beginning in the Roman Empire, lies in the fact that London has acted the part of city-state throughout, in modern as in ancient days. No other city has played this part. It was revolutionary Paris in a sea of blood which helped to form the modern state of France; but it is constitutional London acting continuously and not tumultuously which has performed this service for modern England. A great city in two empires, the Roman and the British, she stands now in front of world changes and developments in which the greatness that is London must be called upon to take its part. What, then, are the special problems of modern times, problems unknown to the mediævalist, only just beginning to be known to ourselves, problems which affect the history of cities, and of London first and foremost amongst cities? They must be considered from two points of view. The problem of empire comes first-what is the empire of the future in which London will find a place? The problem of the city in relation to empire comes second-what will be the position of London in this new order of things? This is not the place to deal fully with a subject so full of complexity and with such a vast outlook, but it is necessary to state the outlines of the case because it is only within these outlines that we finally bring ourselves to understand what the future position of London may be. The concentration of human activities and the mastery of civilisation over the productions of the whole world is the note of the future. Its first expression will be the peace of Europe, and this will bring into existence an empire of the West founded not on conquest but on economic justice. The peace of the world will be the policy of the world. Civilisation is moving inevitably in this direction. For the first time in the world's history man has become conscious of the whole world's existence, and becoming conscious he is gradually grasping at the power which lies at his feet. The produce of the whole world at its best centres for each production is now being commanded by methods peculiarly foolish and uneconomical. Capital has risen to the knowledge of this, and has changed its outlook. It has ceased to be nationalised and become cosmopolitan. Labour will soon follow suit, and, instead of fighting capital on the old lines, will learn to assist it on the new, and will then in turn become cosmopolitan. It will assume its right relationship to capital, and capital will correspondingly answer. The world then will become a reality to its civilised inhabitants principally, to its backward races in a less degree. It will be governed not in territorial states by kings and ministers of state, but by kings of capital and kings of labour in combination, and all the glories that the world possesses, the glories of its past history, as of its natural features and beauties, will be at the disposal of its inhabitants. This is not mere idealism. The consolidation of the civilised world is a greater thing than the building up of the nationalities of ancient political states, and it must come; and with it will come the application of civilised methods to bring about the happiness of all within the fold. The science of administration as well as natural science will place at the disposal of this civilisation the food products and the industrial products grown or manufactured wherever it is best for them, and the entire world will be at the command of man's highest needs. The Suez Canal, the Panama Canal, the Euphrates Valley railway, the East African railway, are the material signs of this. Livingstone and Stanley, Cecil Rhodes and General Botha, are the pioneers |