LONDON.) For details of this long series of administrative reforms see further JUSTICE OF THE PEACE ; BOROUGH ; LOCAL GOVERN MENT; POOR LAW.
The principal reforms of recent years refer to the extension of the franchise, the reorganization of the machinery of rating and the considerable extension of the powers and duties of local authorities, especially in the sphere of the social services. Both the electorate and the qualifications for election have been broadened by the Representation of the People Act, 1918, and its amending acts (1919-26), the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act, 1928, the Sex Disqualification (Removal) Act, 1919, the Ministers of Religion (Removal of Disqualifica tions) Act, 1925, and the County and Borough Councils (Qualifi cation) Act, 1914, whereby, not only certain new classes of men have been enfranchised but, broadly, all men and women have been placed on an equality both in the matter of voting and of qualification for the exercise of any public function. By the Rating and Valuation Act, 1925, and Rating and Valuation (Ap portionment) Act, 1928, the machinery of assessment and rating has been remodelled and some 14,000 overseers of the poor, whose office dated from the 16th century, and who were responsible for the making of valuations and levying and collecting of the poor arid other rates in the rural parishes, have been abolished as from March 31, 1928, and their duties devolved upon the county and non-county boroughs and urban and rural district councils. Lastly the Local Government Act of 1929 made extensive rearrangements in the powers and duties of local authorities to come into opera tion within a given time, and the relations between local and national finance were recast.
The enlargement of the powers and duties of local authorities is evidenced by the mere enumeration of such acts and orders as those that deal with open spaces (1906), small holdings and allotments (1908-28), maternity and child-welfare (1918), tuberculosis (1921), venereal diseases (1916), mental deficiency (1913-27), housing and town planning (1909-26), etc., as well as the conspicuously social services under the Education Acts (1906 07) relating to the school medical inspection and teaching of children.
Royal Commission on Local Government 1923-28.—In 1923 a royal commission on local government was appointed under the chairmanship of the earl of Onslow, to enquire as to the exist ing law and procedure relating to the extension and creation of county boroughs, and generally into the constitution, areas, func tions and mutual relations of local authorities. The evidence, both oral and written, which the commissioners collected (published in the Minutes of Evidence, Parts i.–xii.), constitute a storehouse of information for the student of local government. In 1925 they issued their first report (Cmd. 2,506), which proposed certain reforms in the machinery and standard of population for creating county boroughs, to which effect has since been given in the Local Government (County Boroughs and Adjustments) Act, 1926. Their second report was issued in 1928 (Cmd. 3,213) and many of its recommendations are embodied in Parts III. and IV. of the Local Government Act (1929).