Bureaucracy

Local

character of a system of local administration depends chiefly upon (a) the mode in which the country is distributed into administrative areas ; (b) the constitution of the administrative authorities ; (c) the functions entrusted to them ; and (d) their relation to the central administrative authority. (a) In modern states it has generally been found advisable to divide the territory into at least three species of administrative areas, the smallest being the TOWNSHIP, PARISH, or COMMUNE, the intermediate being the hundred or UNION or arrondissement, and the largest, the COUNTY, province, or DEPARTMENT. The whole territory is thus divided into three systems of areas. But certain parts of the territory, especially towns and cities, differ so much from the rest in requirements and resources that they are usually constituted into special administrative areas. The space covered by these areas may or may not be withdrawn from the general subdivision. Thus many of the larger English cities and towns possess all the attributes of counties, but they are distributed into parishes.

Again, the larger areas may be formed by grouping the smaller areas, or they may have no reference to them. Thus in England the union area has always been made up by grouping a number of poor-law parishes ; but these parishes may be in more than one county, so that the boundaries of the union often intersect those of the county. Again, the union area and the area of a municipal borough may coincide, but generally they have been traced without reference to each other, and a municipal area may contain fragments of two or three poor-law areas. Besides these, many other administrative areas have been created at different times and have not been harmonised with one another. This confusion of areas is, however, almost confined to England, and is being gradually mitigated. In England and elsewhere different methods of division have prevailed in different periods. The county has always remained the largest administrative area ; but the HUNDRED has almost disappeared, whilst the POOR LAW union is quite modern ; and in the lowest range the township has in many instances been succeeded by the MANOR, and this again by the parish, civil or ecclesiastical.

(b)

The constitution of the local authority in each area admits of much variety, but is generally reducible to one of four types ; an assembly of all householders in the area, an assembly of elected representatives, a comparatively small ruling body recruited either by co-optation or by the selection of the supreme government, and a staff of officials paid by, and immediately controlled by, that government. Thus the Anglo-Saxon township and the township of New England had as their authority the assembly of householders, and the same type of authority appears modified by feudal influence in the courts of the mediaeval manor, and modified by ecclesiastical influence in the general vestry of the modern parish. Some

thing similar is seen in the village council of eastern Europe and of Asia. But this type of authority is suitable only to the smallest area The second type of authority, the elective assembly, is seen in the English select vestry, board of guardians, and modern municipal and county councils, and generally in the urban communities of the civilised world. Unlike the popular assembly, it is compatible with an extensive area and with multifarious administrative duties, and as it harmonises with democratic sentiment, it is coming into more general employment. The third type of authority, the exclusive body, was seen in many English municipal corporations before the act of 1835, and in the English county authorities before the act of 1888. Some of the municipal bodies of this class renewed themselves by co-optation. The Quarter Sessions were recruited by the appointment of the crown from a list presented by the lord-lieutenant, and composed of persons having a certain property qualification. The fourth type of authority, the staff of government officials, is almost unknown in England and is not common anywhere. But in many countries the head of the administrative body, and the possessor of all real administrative power, the prefect or mayor, is a government official, and his elective colleagues exist chiefly in order to disguise the fact that there is no real self-government.

(c) As regards the functions of the local authority, these have undergone many changes. In England they originally comprised, besides certain legislative and judicial duties, the duty of maintaining a police, the duty of keeping up public communications, the duty of taking certain precautions for the public health by removal of nuisances, eta, and the duty of enforcing a multitude of regulations as to weights and measures, the quality of goods offered for sale, especially provisions, and other matters connected with manufactures and commerce. A series of statutes culminating in the poor law of Elizabeth passed in 1601 added the function of relieving the poor, formerly left to ecclesiastical or to private charity. The duty of providing for the public health, which had been little more than nominal, has become in our time a great branch of local administration. The duty of providing for elementary education is still more recent. Besides these functions local authorities have acquired, under a number of general or special acts, power to provide almost everything which can minister to the health, decency, comfort, or amusement of a dense population—gas and water works, markets, museums, galleries of art, libraries, parks, gardens, baths, lodging- houses, and burial grounds.