Of the realization of the idea of the metropolitan unification under county control the London County Council[20] is the world’s most striking and instructive example. London, through the centuries, as some of our American cities have done in a lifetime, had grown from a multitude of small independent local communities into a single, continuous metropolitan district. However, the constituent units, of which the ancient city of London is but one, retained their historic identities and clung to their historic institutions. In this peculiar way London perhaps resembles the metropolitan district of New York or Boston or Essex County in New Jersey. From time to time new units of administration were laid down to correspond to modern needs, until the system of local government was complexity itself. In 1855, Parliament took the first step toward adjusting this situation, creating the Metropolitan Board of Works which, in the thirty-three years of its life, was responsible for much of the city’s physical improvement. But corruption and scandal entered its ranks and it was legislated out of existence. The London County Council was then established with a membership composed of one hundred and eighteen councillors, two members being chosen from each of the fifty-seven “parliamentary boroughs” or election districts and four from the city of London. From within or without its own membership the councillors select nineteen aldermen who serve for a six-year term. Through its committees the Council gets into touch with its various problems of the county, while engineering, medical, financial and other experts are held responsible for actual administration. A “clerk” who is chosen by the Council is in fact the coördinator of the whole system, somewhat in the manner of a city manager in the United States. A comptroller serves as the fiscal agent of the Council. Upon the county of London thus organized are imposed many of the functions which in America are almost universally entrusted to cities: extensive authority over public health, all matters relating to fire protection, all metropolitan street improvement projects, the construction and maintenance of bridges that cross the Thames, the administration of the building laws and the maintenance of tenement houses. The Council has also limited powers over what we in this country term “public utilities”; it has power to establish technical schools and to build and maintain parks and recreation centers. Its financial powers, while subject in their exercise to the control of the Home Office, are comprehensive. Nor is the county of London but a city by another name. The metropolitan boroughs have their separate identity and a very real authority, including a certain control over public health and public lighting. In any conflict between the boroughs and the county the Home Office acts as the final arbiter.