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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 56

Private Bills

page 23

Private Bills.

Our wonder and admiration would be great if we were told

Municipal Duties.

that there was a company or association which undertakes the maintenance and management of water-works, telegraphs, sewage-farms, art galleries, quarries, cemeteries, policemen, docks, libraries, race-courses, gas-works, gravel-pits, telephones, Turkish baths, fire engines, museums, promenade piers, swimming baths, lavatories, recreation grounds, markets, drinking fountains, hospitals, and wash-houses; which manufactures gas pipes and water taps, and conducts the business of fire insurance, friendly societies, and advertising contractors; which supplies nurses for the sick, bands of music and shows for the healthy, gas stoves for the indigent and books for the studious; which prescribes for the size of vehicles, the width of their wheels and the speed at which they may go, for the muzzling of dogs, the lighting of streets, the mixing of mortar, the hours for bathing, the cleansing and mending of roads, the size of windows and the height of rooms, the weighing of coal, the thickness of walls and the strength of joists, the carriage of dead donkies, the height of houses, the quality of their material and workmanship and the building of ovens; which examines into the fitness of plumbers, newspaper sellers, hawkers, cattle drovers, bathing women, butchers, and dealers in old clothes; draws up routes and time tables for omnibuses, fixes the fares of cabs; and supervises the navigation of steam launches and pleasure boats, and the movements of travelling menageries and itinerant musicians; which decides what diseases are infectious, how strong halters ought to be, and when and where carters should put on their drags. That a single body of men could be found to perform all these functions would be wonderful enough even if they had received special training for page 24 the work, and if they devoted their whole time and energies to it as a means of livelihood. But when we learn that this mountain of duties is undertaken as a pleasure or as a hobby in the intervals of their daily work by men who come to the task as amateurs, mostly in middle life, our astonishment increases. At the same time, misgivings occur to onlookers as to the prudence of untrained men attempting so much, and some fears for the muddle which such heroic meddling may possibly produce.

Improvement Bills.

In the minds of the hard-working professional and businessmen who compose municipal corporations and local boards, and who are found willing to devote to multifarious public functions the residue of time and energy left over from their own private work, no such anxieties and diffidence seem to exist. Every Session of Parliament sees the introduction of the customary batch of "Corporation Improvement or Extension" Bills; and with the annual increase in their number goes an extension of the range of subjects with which they severally affect to deal. Out of some 294 Private Bills now before Parliament thirty-two are introduced by municipal bodies; seven of which are exclusively concerned with municipal schemes for the storage and supply of water, one with gas, and twenty-four fall under the general head of "Improvement and Extension" Bills, dealing in ill-digested medlies with almost every conceivable subject. The following Bills are those of the latter class that are perhaps the most remarkable, viz.:—Birkenhead Corporation, West Derby Local Board, Dewsbury Improvement, Jarrow Corporation, Leicester Corporation, Leeds Corporation, Cardiff Corporation, Windsor Corporation, Ventnor Local Board, Glasgow Corporation, Southampton Corporation, Llanfrechfa Upper Local Board, York Extension and Improvement, Bristol Corporation, Belfast Improvement, Brighton Improvement, Chester Improvement, Croydon Corporation and the Metropolitan Board of Works (Various Powers).
page 25
Amidst the diversity of ends sought after by these various bodies

Compulsory Notification of Disease

three or four are common to several of them; J arrow, Dewsbury, Croydon, Chester, West Derby and Brighton, seem bent upon stamping out infectious diseases. Judging from the dire pains and penalties laid down, and the despotic interference with individual liberty authorised by their Bills, it would almost seem that this is to be effected at all hazards. Perhaps the most elaborate machinery for this purpose is that proposed by Brighton. Brighton considers that small-pox, cholera, typhus, typhoid, scarlet, relapsing, continued and puerpural fevers, scarlatina and diptheria are infectious. But about this opinions differ. Chester rejects scarlet fever and continued fever, while admitting all the others as infectious. Dewsbury agrees with Brighton in allowing all but continued fever, in whose place it instates whooping cough erysipelas and measles. Measles is also included in the list by Jarrow, scarlatina being rejected; and Croydon, while denying the claim to relapsing fever, is not content with simple cholera but must have a special form of the diseases all to itself which it calls "infectious cholera." Each body reserves to itself the right from time to time to brand as infectious any diseases it thinks fit. On the appearance of any one of these diseases in any house the fact will have to be notified to the local authorities by the inmates and (with the exception of West Derby) by the medical man in attendance, with the alternative in both cases, if preferred, of a payment of £10 if this happens at Brighton; £5 if at Croydon, Chester and Jarrow; and of only £2 if at Dewsbury. At Brighton and Chester the municipality on their own initiative

Forcible Removal to Hospital.

, or at the instigation of any private medical practitioner, having obtained a magistrate's order, may forcibly remove the sick patient from his own house to the general hospital, or to one specially provided by the municipality for infectious diseases, at his own cost or that of his relatives. If the latter in any way impede this order being carried out they will have to pay £10 for their audacity. The authorities at Brighton or Chester, or anywhere else where parental instincts have not been scared by "State page 26 education," show a black ignorance of human nature if they imagine for one moment that even in the most poverty-stricken family £10 will count for more than nothing when the abduction or may be life of a favourite sick child is at stake. In such a case we venture to predict that the extremest penalty a man can pay would be paid by any officials who ventured to carry out such an order. West Derby and Dewsbury, probably with this difficulty before their eyes, undertake, the latter to send nurses to the sick, and both of them to provide temporary house accommodation for the healthy members of any family where an infectious disease

Closure of Private Houses.

has broken out. At Brighton the muncipality may shut up any private school in the neighbourhood of any house where disease exists, and may publicly declare such house an "infected place," and forbid anyone to enter it under pain of £5. If the house happens to be a shop dealing in "articles liable to retain infection," or a workshop where such articles are manipulated, the authorities may close it to the public. Should the householder or shopkeeper kick against any of these restrictions he will in each case have to pay-£5, and to continue paying £2 a day until he becomes compliant. In return for all these sacrifices in the interest of the public good, the muncipality, while agreeing to compensation for "direct material and pecuniary loss," will not undertake to make good any "consequential loss or damage." It would certainly puzzle many a better economist than a town councillor to decide in such a case where the

Forcible Burial.

"direct" ends and the "consequential" begins. If during life the sick person has escaped the cruelty of "forcible removal," and if in spite of the precautions of the private doctors and public authorities, the disease proves fatal, there still remains the indignity of "forcible burial" after death. At Brighton, Jarrow, West Derby and Dewsbury a magistrate on the certificate of any private practitioner may authorise the municipal authorities to forcibly remove the body for immediate burial, and to charge the expenses to the relatives; and then, without their permission, to page 27 proceed to disinfect the house. Any opposition to these outrages will have to be made at the risk of paying £5.

Of course, all these elaborate devices for summarily dragooning infection out of existence are prompted by the best intentions. But, like a great deal of the soft-hearted legislation of the present day, it could hardly be better devised for defeating its own end. The malignity and areas of all these infectious diseases are steadily being lessened in each succeeding generation by causes more radical than any spasmodic and superficial legislation can bring to bear upon them. All life tables and bills of mortality show this. Insight into the origin of disease is yearly on the increase, and with it the art of meeting it successfully in the course of ordinary medical practice. The spontaneous adoption by the mass of the population of conditions more in conformity with the laws of health, though far from universal, is slowly and inevitably becoming more general. All attempts to artificially quicken this progress towards a better state of general health are just as mistaken and mischievous as those which aim at forcing on a better state of morals by Act of Parliament. It is obvious that the first effect of this raid upon infectious diseases, as noted by this Committee when reporting upon the Infectious Diseases Notification Bill of last Session, will be "to divert a considerable amount of medical practice from qualified medical practitioners into the hands of quacks, who will have little to lose and something to gain by keeping the true nature of the malady secret." It is not likely that the petty shopkeeper or dairyman will deliberately assist in the destruction of his own business connection by playing into the hands of that branch of the profession who will consider it a matter of duty and etiquette to label his house as an "infected place." Supposing it may be that some good would be done, is it worth the price—the constant and intolerable interference it involves?

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Artisans' Dwellings

It would seem that the recent sensational exaggeration connected with the question of the "Housing of the Poor," and the "Bitter Cry" of the metropolitan slums, has not been without its effect in some of the provincial centres, where we find what are probably premonitary symptoms of future wholesale socialistic action in the matter. The Belfast Improvement Bill, the Leicester Corporation Bill, the Dewsbury Improvement Bill, and the Birkenhead Corporation Bill each contain sections identically worded, whereby the several municipalities, previous to demolishing, for the purpose of public improvements, fifteen or more houses occupied by the "labouring classes," are authorised to provide sufficient accommodation for them elsewhere. Should it be deemed necessary, the municipality may, out of the funds and rates, and on land belonging to the town, build industrial dwellings, and let them out in tenements to the working-classes. In the particular case of the Metropolitan Board of Works (Various Powers) Bill, the Board (and, in a certain contingency, the South-Eastern Railway) is bound to find similar accommodadation on land of their own for the working-classes unhoused by the demolitions for the street between Southwark Bridge Road and Blackman Street. Until this is done the new street is not to be thrown open to the public; and in no case can any buildings be pulled down without the consent of the Home Secretary. It is very doubtful whether this well-meant solicitude for the comfort of the inhabitants of condemned rookeries will not defeat its own purpose. Nothing has done more to open up squalid districts, and to bring into their midst purer air and better food supplies, than the street and market improvements and railway extensions of late years. As far as the element of cost is concerned, and other things equal, the direction of least resistance for these reforms is through the lowest class of urban property. The temporary discomfort of the comparatively few displaced is out of all proportion to the permanent benefit conferred upon the surrounding districts by these clearances for new arteries. The red tape and the costly responsibilities, which in page 29 these Bills meet the street and railway reformers almost before their work is begun, will only serve to protract the existence of a class of dwellings it is as much the interest of the inhabitants themselves as of the general public to efface unconditionally and as quickly and with as little friction as possible.
Judging from the charge of "over-pressure" brought against

Casual Employment of Children.

the School Board system, one would have thought that the State has already more than sufficient control over the hours of childhood. This is evidently not the opinion of some portions of the community. Chester, York, Dewsbury and Cardiff do not consider it a healthy tendency that the pupil of the State pedagogue, after spending the greater part of his day indoors in qualifying himself for clerk's work should, during the few remaining hours before he goes to bed, go in for a little light trading on his own account or on that of his parents in the open air. In the above towns no

Newspaper Boys.

boy, unless he is ten years old, can sell matches or newspapers in the streets at any time of the day; and until he is fourteen he cannot do so after nine in the evening in summer and seven in winter at Cardiff and Dewsbury, and eight at York and Chester, unless he has a certificate of efficiency from the School Board. If he has the bad luck to be caught in the act, his father or mother will have to pay £2, and he may have to spend the night in the custody of the police or a "School Board man." The idea, of course, in all this is that the boy will probably be driven to stay at home to learn his lessons for the next day, or will go to bed; whereas the certainty is that he will loaf about listlessly, picking up bad habits in the slums and back alleys instead of turning honest pennies in the street. At Belfast, if after emerging from

Newspaper Licenses.

the mill of the Elementary Education Act he takes permanently to the business of a street newsvendor, he will not even then find himself free from official control. Every year he will have to take out a licence costing him 2s. 6d., or, if he dispenses with it, will have to pay £1 every time he is caught selling a newspaper. And it is to be remembered that all this is to be in an Act of page 30 Parliament—the law of the land, which cannot be undone by bye-laws, however inconvenient.

Marine Store Alers.

The web of officialism certainly seems to be enveloping every duty in life. The study of these private Bills, equally with that of the public Bills, almost opens up the prospect of an age, when in this country, like in China at the present time, worth will be estimated by the number of certificates possessed; and when the history of the individual's life will be that of the examinations he has undergone from childhood to old age. At Jarrow and Dewsbury yearly licenses will be required by dealers in marine-stores and old clothes, rag and bone merchants, and sellers of old metal. The first attempt to transact any business of this kind without a license will cost £20 if discovered; and for every succeeding attempt £5 will have to be paid. Similar penalties will visit the dealer if, after having secured his license he fails to conform to the conditions it carries with it. Fines of £20 and £5 per day will stare him in the face if he omits to enter in a book a minute description of every article he buys, the time at which he bought it, and the name and address and occupation of the person who sold it to him; or if he fails to point out to the authorities the particular rooms in his house he intends to use for business purposes; or if he does not notify to them within twenty-four hours, any change in his address or even the appropriation for trade uses of any room in his own house not previously specified; or if he does not take good care to have his name in full painted on the shop-front "in Roman capital letters, six inches in height, and of a proportionate and proper breadth, at all times plainly and distinctly visible and legible." It is hard to see how the latter condition can be completely fulfilled unless luminous paint be used. By Section 61 of the Jarrow Bill, those who "only occasionally deal in second-hand marine stores," are to be exempt from all the above regulations; and it is just, of course, to these "occasional dealers," that the burglar, cracksman, and pickpocket page 31 will resort to dispose of their "occasional" windfalls. This proposal to forcibly enlist the members of a special trade as supernumerary police detectives, must be recognised as the local outcome of the same motive which inspired the abortive Pawnbrokers' Bill of last Session. No doubt there is a small percentage of traders engaged in the by-ways of commerce through whose hands a certain amount of property of questionable pedigree finds its way into the regular market. The energies and ingenuity of the police cannot be better employed than in attempting to intercept this illicit traffic at its source. It is a difficult task probably. Still society is justified in expecting them to rise to the occasion with improved organisation and methods of their own. The authorities at Scotland Yard, and in the local centres, show a lack of resource, and a great ignorance of proportion, when they call in outsiders to their aid; and when in order to detect, without extra trouble to themselves, a fraction of evil doers, they subject a whole mass of honest traders to most irksome and degrading regulations. At Jarrow, West

Licenses.

Derby and Dewsbury, no slaughter-house in future is to be conducted without a license from the municipal authorities. At Ventnor, Chester and York every one who intends to sell marketable commodities from door to door will have to be licensed and to pay for the privilege. If the fishwife or costermonger at

Market-women.

Chester venture out in an unlicensed condition with a basket or hand-cart, they will have to pay £2 a time for doing so, and to look on while their goods are seized and forfeited by the corporation officers. Those who undertake to drive cattle for hire

Cattle Drovers.

within the boundaries of Bristol or York will have to buy a license and obtain a badge from the city authorities, the latter in return fixing their hours of work and scale of payment. A

Bowling-greens.

justice's license, fixing the days and hours of opening, will be required by any one at Bristol who intends to open a bowling-green or skittle-alley, or to accomodate the public with facilities for playing at bagatelle, dominoes, quoits or "brasses" (whatever these may be), even although he does not seek for permission to page 32 sell fermented liquors on his premises. For doing so without authority he will have to pay £5 a day. The same danger awaits the too venturesome caterer at Chester, York, Leicester and Dewsbury. Any one before going in for the luxury of a steam aunch or private pleasure boat on the Dee, at Chester, will have to obtain a license from the city authorities, who will impose conditions as to the speed he may travel and the mode of

Bathing-women.

navigating his craft. If a bathing-woman ventures to ply her calling at Brighton without a certificate she will have to pay £2. Should any keeper of a common lodging-house at Croydon go away for a night he will have to leave a registered substitute in his place "to manage, control and exercise proper supervision "over the

Plumbers.

lodgers. At Cardiff no one will be allowed to practice as a plumber unless he can get himself licensed as a "competent person;" and a license will be required by any one who lets out for hire a cart or waggon for the conveyance of "merchandise, goods or chattels."

Building Regulations:—

Municipal supervision of the planning and construction of private houses is, and has been for a long time past, everywhere the rule. Still, novelties and new refinements in the minuteness of regulations seem to be prevalently on the increase. In some

Wooden Buildings.

places it is clearly the opinion that the "age of wood" in the evolution of habitations is a thing of the past, and that wooden buildings, and even half-timbered construction, are survivals or reversions calling for extinction. At Birkenhead no wood is to be used "in or about any external wall." At West Derby the erection of a wooden building will bring with it a penalty of £20; at Dewsbury the offence is more heinous, the fine being £50; while at Jarrow it is rated as low as £5 in the first instance, and £2 a day during continuance. Both at the latter place, and at Dewsbury, the corporations, on demolishing buildings of this description, do not promise to compensate the owner, as with more justice is the case at Birkenhead and West Derby. They even go to the extent of actually proposing, for the purpose page 33 of compensating the occupier, to defraud the owner of the holding of the ground rent due to him in respect of the land on which the condemned tenements stood. One would almost have thought that wood as a material for walls might have been left to die a natural death, without being thus hustled out of existence in its last moments. The size of the joists and rafters; the quality of

Materials and Workmanship.

all the building materials and of their workmanship; the arrangement of the tanks and cisterns; the height of the building and of the rooms; the construction of the oven; the laying of a damp course; the materials for the roof; the ingredients of the mortar; all or some of these details in connection with the construction of each private house it is the part of the municipal authorities to regulate at West Derby, Bristol, Chester, Belfast, Brighton, Dewsbury, and Birkenhead, armed with penalties ranging from £5 up to £5°. By Section 172 of the Chester Improvement

Materials and Stables.

Bill, rooms lighted solely by a borrowed light will cease to exist; and in every room that has no fireplace there will have to be some special method of ventilation. In the same city no one will be able to keep pigs unless the stye is at least fifteen yards away from the house. By Section 154 of the Brighton Improvement Bill no room over a stable is to be used as dwelling, sleeping, or even working room. The penalty for so doing is fixed at £5, and £2 per diem during the continuance of the forbidden practice. If this enactment should ultimately extend to London, there will certainly be a large eviction of the dwellers in the mews of the West-end; and nothing but the exemption of Government estabments from the control of the local authorities would save Knightsbridge and half the cavalry barracks in the country from the necessity of thorough internal re-arrangement.
In spite of the rigid limits within which cabmen and omnibus

Omnibus Drivers.

drivers are universally confined, we find here and there indications of a spirit of originality still surviving. At Bristol, Belfast, Brighton and Dewsbury bus-drivers have apparently developed a propensity for emphasising their presence in the streets by the page 34 beating of drums, a practice which the Bills of those places now before Parliament seek to stamp out by a penalty of £5. The Croydon bus-driver has hit upon an entirely unique idea in "the ringing of bells," which the corporation Bill, if it passes, will nip

Coal Dealers.

in the bud. Unless he wishes to pay £10, the coal-dealer at York will have to label all the heaps of coal in his yard by their proper names. Inspectors will, when requested, weigh the coals for the buyers to see that they do not get short measure; and coal-porters will carry the coals to the customers' houses at rates fixed by the city authorities. At Brighton and Dewsbury the coals will not be weighed at the dealers' yards, but at the door of the customer in scales which the dealer must carry with him. At Chester

Advertisements.

and Belfast the authorities will regulate the posting of advertisements on hoardings and on the backs of" sandwich men," and the size and construction of advertising vans; while at Dewsbury

Carriage of Dead Animals.

they will provide and maintain advertisement boards themselves. The carriage of the body of a dead animal through the streets without a "sufficient cloth" will be treated as an offence at Belfast, Brighton and Dewsbury.

Specialities.

In the midst of many ideas of municipal duties held in common by two or more of these bodies, there are some crotchets peculiar to one or the other. At Jarrow it will in future be dangerous for the greengrocer to pluck a fowl or skin a rabbit in the front shop, for the Bill enacts that if anyone dresses any animal within public view he will be fined £5. At Ventnor a penalty of £2 will await the hotel porter, lodging-house keeper, tradesman, bathing-machine proprietor, carriage driver, or boatman, who, by word of mouth, hand-bill, or otherwise, solicits any visitor for his patronage. To loiter in the streets there, or to burn garden refuse in the open air, are offences that will be assessed at a £5 penalty. A penalty will be visited upon anyone who exhibits an entire horse in the streets of Chester. We would advise the authorities at Brighton to call to mind that what is food to one man is poison to another (and conversely) before enforcing page 35 Section 159 of their Bill, which will visit with imprisonment

Unwholesome Food

any one who sells "unwholesome" food. In the same Bill penalties of £2 will be meted out to any one who ties his horse to any pillar, post, tree, or railing; or who throws any soap-suds or potato-peelings into the street; or who bathes at any times other than those appointed by the municipality. In future the triumphal entry of the circus or the menagerie within the boundaries of Brighton will only be made on sufferance. By Section

Processions.

169 of the Bill, without the consent of the Corporation, no assembly of persons will be allowed to meet or join "in procession, on foot, or on horses, elephants, camels, dromedaries, mules, or other animals, or in vehicles." By Section 57 of the Croydon Corporation Bill, if any one in the markets or fairs makes use of "any expression of cursing or swearing," he will be fined £2. By Section 73 of the same Bill, the municipality will regulate the width of vehicles, and of the tires of their wheels, the use of skidpans on descending hills, and "the leaving of stones

Use of Drags.

in the streets of the Borough for the scotching of wheels." Should any one on Sunday cry any goods for sale, or ring any

Sunday Hawking.

bell for that purpose in the street, Section 77 will let him in for a: £5 fine.
Perhaps the Belfast Improvement Bill is the best instance of

Belfast Improvement Bill.

the minuteness with which it is possible (or thought to be possible) for municipal foresight to make things pleasant for every one all round in the streets and public places. According to this Bill no one, unless he is willing in each case to pay £2, will be allowed in the streets to feed, train, or break his horse or other animal, nor to rub up any part of his carriage, nor to lead his bull unless with a "sufficient" halter, nor to frighten his sheep with his collie, nor to drive a cart used for goods faster than at a "common walk," nor to draw any weighty article except on a wheeled cart "proper for that purpose," nor to drive a timber waggon unless he is more than eighteen years old, nor to leave a basket on the pavement, nor (and so good-bye to the Belfast muffin-man and page 36 old clothes buyer) to ring any bell or shout for the purpose of selling or collecting any article whatever, nor to blow a horn or any other "noisy instrument," nor to burn any cork or wash any tub, nor to beat any rug or mat between eight in the morning and six in the evening.

Public Amusements and Conveniences.

As a set-off to the stepmotherly severity of municipalities we must note the grandmotherly solicitude some of them evince for their protege's comfort and amusement. If with one hand they apply pains, penalties, and imprisonment; with the other, at any rate, they supply panem et circenses. At Jarrow, Chester, Dewsbury and Brighton, baths, wash-houses and lavatories are to be maintained out of the public rates, while Jarrow and Brighton, in addition, undertake respectively to supply Turkish baths and drinking fountains. Ventnor and Brighton are prepared to provide bands of music and "exhibitions performances and amusements for the recreation of the inhabitants." Glasgow is to make, maintain and work tramways. Brighton is to acquire and keep up all cemeteries, and (dismal conception!) to lay them out as "pleasure grounds." The Llanfrechfa Upper Local Board and the Dewsbury Corporation are to supply water pipes, valves, cocks and cisterns. Jarrow is to erect warehouses, sheds, cranes and other machinery. Belfast will contribute to the support of the hospital, and Cardiff to that of the local university out of the public funds. The former will establish works for making and supplying gas stoves, meters, pipes and gas engines, as will also Dewsbury. Leicester will provide out of the rates a free library, museum and art gallery; and Brighton will build and maintain arcades, bazaars, conservatories, recreation grounds, reading rooms, lifts and elevators for the use and amusement of its inhabitants, and will purchase and manage the race-course.

Water and Gas.

For many years past the manufacture of gas and the storage and supply of that and water have been falling into the hands of municipal bodies. In addition to the seven Bills now before Parlia page 37 ment dealing exclusively with municipal water-works schcmes, three of the above-mentioned places, Llanfrechfa, Croydon, and Cardiff, besides the miscellaneous mass of duties sketched out in their Improvement Bills just noticed, intend to take over from private companies, or themselves make and maintain complete systems of water supply. But in these and all other municipal Improvement Bills of this Session, it is instructive to note there is not a word about gas; and of the six Private Bills dealing exclusively with gas, only one, that of the rural sanitary authority of King's Norton, has been promoted by a public body. Until the struggle now proceeding between gas and electricity is decisively brought to a close, we may be tolerably sure that a waiting game will be the order of the day. At the finish, the victor may confidently look forward to being swallowed up by the ogre of municipal monoply; and Parliament will be flooded by a torrent of Corporation Electric Lighting Bills. The Electric Lighting Act of 1882 may be regarded as the first step in this process. Its provisions which virtually empower municipal bodies to force electric companies to sell to the community their works at a loss, have a twofold effect of completely paralysing further private enterprise in this direction, and of depreciating the value of the plant already erected. This suspense is no doubt agreeable to municipalities who are hatching their schemes; but, meantime, London and other large towns have to put up with experimental and fragmentary systems of electric lighting, or to do without it altogether. Many who have not yet reached middle-life can remember the time when trading in gas and water was not yet deemed a municipal function; and when each community relied upon private enterprise and competition for the supply of these commodities. Beyond the general modern craze to substitute collective action for that of the individual, there never was any reason why municipal bodies should have taken it into their heads to thus overstep their normal duties. The companies did their work with satisfaction to the page 38 public and profit to themselves; and this cannot be said of their monopolist successors. Anyone who has had any experience of provincial towns, knows that in many instances if the corporation gas is cheap it is at the same time nasty. That economy of management is not an accompaniment of municipal trading is shown by the fact that the corporation of Manchester, since they first acquired the monoply of supplying the city with water in 1858, have up to September last contrived to lose £110,000 in the experiment. The only argument of any weight against allowing these public wants to be supplied by the competition of private companies, is that of the inconvenience arising from the frequent breaking up of the streets. Perhaps if municipal bodies, instead of interfering with other people's business, had twenty-five years ago turned their ingenuity to devising some system of subways for the conveyance of gas, water, and other necessaries by private companies at competition rents, this difficulty would long since have disappeared, and they would now be in possession of a source of revenue independent of taxation.

Local Government.

A great deal of all this reads like an ancient chapter out of the statute-book. It has its amusing side, no doubt; but, taken altogether, it does not suggest very hopeful reflections. We can afford to laugh at the overlegislation of the middle ages, as an amusing reminiscence. But when we find a recrudescence of a similar state of things in our own clay, and in which we are the unwilling actors, it is not so easy to make merry without misgivings. It is true that the development of local self-government now, as heretofore, is the growth of decentralisation at the expense of centralisation. Equally true is it that local government, rightly interpreted, has appropriate functions, distinct from those of central government. If decentralisation were travelling on in a direct line to complete development under the conditions peculiar to itself, its motion might without harm persist until it was spent. But this is not so. Local self-government, as opposed to central government, no longer repre page 39 sents, as at the outset, the antagonism of two classes with conflicting political interests. At the present clay the direction of each is vested in the same hands, and the motives and ends in view are identical in both cases. At the same time the functions which exclusively belong to local government have not been parted off from those which are foreign to it. If there is any difference still left between local and central government it is nothing more than that of degree, of greater and less.

The unsoundness of the prevailing notions as to the limits of State duties, and the evil effects of political action based upon them, have been continuously insisted upon during the past two years by the Liberty and Property Defence League. The foregoing examination of a certain class of Private Bills makes it clear that the imperial government has in the various local centres an increasing number of faithful imitators. The absurdities of overlegislation, and the first essays in Socialism as perpetrated at Westminster, are copied and multiplied in miniature in every guildhall and council chamber throughout the country. The reaction going on between the central and the local governments only seems to exaggerate the tendency everywhere to indiscriminate official supervision and interference. To a considerable extent already municipal centres have become the nurseries for parliament; and, in the future, we may expect this to be still more the case. In face of this it is of the highest importance that the limits of local autonomy should be approximately defined. Decentralisation, as at present practised, is little else than the reversal of the process of integration which has given us our comprehensive national life. The breaking up of uniformity in the administration of the laws of the land and the concession of "local option" in reference to questions in which all parts of the community are identically interested cannot continue indefinitely. If national unity is to be maintained a line must be drawn somewhere in this process of what physiologists term "retrograde metamorphosis." Unless we look forward to the time when decentralisation shall have page 40 reached its limits in reducing us again to the family unit as the centre of government, we must make a stand against this tendency of every Great and Little Peddlington to become a law unto itself. With this possible outlook before us the consideration of Bills promoted by local bodies attains an importance equal to that of the consideration of Bills initiated by the central legislature. That is to say, before passing judgment on any Private Bill we must ascertain whether it creates any new offences not recognised by the general law of the land. With this precaution Private Bills may be left to take care of themselves, and decisions as to the general question of overlegislation will be confined to the area covered by Public Bills.

Definitions.

In concluding this survey, the extension of the principle of "local option," even into the domain of our mother tongue, deserves a passing notice. If the definition of terms, as practised by the draughtsmen of these Bills, is to be allowed to go on in its capricious course unchecked, we may possibly find ourselves by-and-by landed in a babel of dialects where our common language is no longer understood. Partly owing to the slovenly practice of stuffing old Acts with new offences, and partly owing to their eagerness to manufacture as many criminals as possible at the expenditure of a single word, the promoters of these Bills are driven to strange shifts. The new connotations thus acquired by some familiar terms are ridiculous enough. Thus a hansom becomes an omnibus, a cart becomes a wheelbarrow, a bicycle becomes a tricycle, and a tricycle becomes a carriage. A warehouse is transformed into a foundry, a house into a factory, an outhouse into a "domestic building," an omnibus conductor into a driver, and a garden into a disorderly house. The Ventnor Local Board degenerate into "undertakers;" while the Llanfrechfa Upper Local Board, in the course of their struggle with the phraseology of their own Bill, come to regard the "centre of the railway" as the same thing as the "centre of the reservoir;" where for the present we propose to leave them.