In no community, homogeneous or heterogeneous, can public affairs be managed successfully when the supreme Legislature always stands ready to remodel the Charter whenever the minority in the City can command the support of the majority in the State. It is bad enough in London when the minority in the County Council can appeal to the majority in the House of Commons. But the House of Commons only interferes by way of obstructing legislation desired by the Progressive majority. It never attempts to revolutionise the constitution of the Council, because the majority at Westminster does not agree with the majority at Spring Gardens. It would not be a very great exaggeration to say that in the past the only effective government of the City of New York has consisted of Tammany Hall Executive as a Lower House, and the Legislature at Albany as an Upper Chamber. These two bodies were not shadows. They were both governing realities. When Tammany did not control the State Legislature, Albany was the only hope of the despairing Republicans. How constant was the interference of the State Legislature may be inferred from the fact, vouched for by a return presented to a State Commission on the Government of Cities, that in the ten years between 1880-9 no fewer than 399 different amending laws were passed at Albany affecting the Charter of New York City. A State Legislature which passes nearly forty laws every year changing or amending the City Charter is a factor to be reckoned with. The demand for Home Rule for the city, often repeated, does not seem to be supported in earnest by either party. Both admit the need for it. But neither seem willing to risk anything to obtain it. The Charter of the Greater New York sprang from the Commission appointed in 1896 to consider and report upon the proposed consolidation and unification of the government of the great urban area now known as Greater New York. The subject had long been under discussion, but when the Charter came to be drafted many drew back. Mr. Croker asserted that if the citizens had been permitted to vote yea or nay upon the adoption it would never have come into force. The Referendum was not permitted, and the Charter came into force this year without the preliminary of a popular mass vote. General Tracy, the Republican candidate at the recent election, was President of the Charter Commission, with Mr. De Witt as Chairman of the Committee. Among the other members were Mr. Strong, the Mayor of New York; Mr. Seth Low, the first Tsar-Mayor of Brooklyn; Mr. Gilroy, Tammany comptroller of the City of New York, and several other influential men. They unanimously agreed to recommend the Charter as it stands at present, although Mr. Seth Low and Mayor Strong dissented from one or two of its provisions.