This anomalous position of the Metropolitan Police, governed as it is by a Chief Commissioner appointed by the Home Office and independent of municipal control, has ever since been a subject for controversy amongst local politicians. Members of the progressive party have held that the control of the police ought to be transferred from the Government to the London County Council; and, in support of the desired change, argue that as the ratepayers find the money they should have a voice in its expenditure; they contend that it is an insult to London that she alone amongst the great towns of England is debarred from the management of her own constabulary. At first sight it would appear reasonable to extend to London the same measure of self-government in police matters that provincial towns enjoy; but the answer of those who are content with the present arrangement is that the Metropolitan Police is an Imperial rather than a local force--provincial towns and districts have only provincial interests to guard, London has responsibilities as wide as the Empire; and however public-spirited local authorities may be, the danger will always remain that they may be induced to prefer local to national interests. The Houses of Parliament, the British Museum, public offices and foreign embassies happen to be in London, but they are not local institutions: the head-quarters of the Criminal Investigation Department is no more inseparable from Scotland Yard than is parliament from Westminster: London is the focus of crime and it is convenient that it should also be the head-quarters of the machinery for its prevention, but that is no reason why the principal detective agency of England should be subordinated to Spring Gardens influences. The inhabitants of Canterbury might as well aspire to the control of the National Church on the strength of their pride of See, as Londoners insist that the Metropolis must bear the responsibilities of the National Police. It is repeated that the ratepayers of London pay for the Metropolitan force; but this is only partly true. It would be more correct to say that they pay half the bill, and, in return, they obtain the protection they pay for, the Imperial Treasury providing the balance.[268] It has been suggested that a fair compromise might be found in a division of the responsibility, by giving the London County Council control over a moiety of the force for local purposes, and transferring to that body the authority to license hackney-carriages, pedlars and lodging houses together with the management of street traffic, &c., &c., whilst retaining a separate police establishment for imperial purposes; but there is little doubt that such a change would only lead to friction, and might conceivably bring about a recrudescence of that jealousy which was the bane of the old parochial system.