Accordingly, in about a year after the passing of the ' Act to amend the Repre sentation of the people in England 'lid Wales,' the king issued .(July, 1833) a Commission under the Great Seal to twenty gentlemen " to proceed with the utmost dispatch to inquire as to the ex isting state of the Municipal Corporations in England and Wales, and to collect in formation respecting the defects in their constitution—to make inquiry into their jurisdiction and powers, and the adminis tration of justice, and in all other re spects; and also into the mode of elect ing and appointing the members and officers of such corporations, and into the privileges of the freemen and other members thereof, and into the nature and management of the income, revenues, and funds of the said corporations." The commissioners thus appointed di vided the whole of England and Wales into districts, each one of which was, in most cases, assigned to two commission ers. Their reports on individual corpo rations occupied five folio volumes ; ab stracts of information relative to important matters occupied a portion of a sixth (the first printed), and the results of the whole inquiry were presented in a general Re. port signed by sixteen of the commis sioners, who thus conclude their observa tions : " Even where these institutions exist iu their least imperfect form, and are most rightfully administered, they are inadequate to the wants of the present state of society. In their actual condi tion, where not productive of positive evil, they exist, in the great majority of instances, for no purpose of general uti lity. The perversion of municipal insti tutions to political ends, has occasioned the sacrifice of local interests to party purposes, which have been frequently pursued through the corruption and de. moralization of the electoral bodies.
" In conclusion, we report to your Ma jesty, that there prevails amongst the in habitants of a great majority of the in corporated towns a general, and, in our opinion, a just dissatisfaction with their municipal institutions, a distrust of the self-elected municipal councils, whose powers are subject to no popular control, and whose acts and proceedings, being secret, are unchecked by the influence of public opinion—a distrust of the muni cipal magistracy, tainting with suspicion the local administration of justice, and often accompanied with contempt of the persons by whom the law is administered —a discontent under the burthens of local taxation, while revenues that ought to be applied for the public advantage are di verted from their legitimate use, and are sometimes wastefully bestowed for the benefit of individuals, sometimes squan dered for purposes injurious to the cha racter and morals of the people. We therefore feel it to be our duty to repre sent to your Majesty that the existing municipal corporations of England and Wales neither possess nor deserve the confidence or respect of your Majesty's subjects, and that a thorough reform must be effected before they can become, what we humbly submit to your Majesty they ought to be, useful and efficient instru ments of local government."
Two of the commissioners, Sir Francis .1) al gr av e and Mr. Hogg, dissented from the views presented in the Report. Their protests were urgently called for by the opponents in Parliament of the reform proposed by the ministers, and they were accordingly printed ; but no great weight was attached by any party to their con tents after they were made public.
On the 5th of June, 1835, Lord John Russell brought in a bill to remedy the defects complained of ; and on the 9th of September, the royal assent was given to "an act to provide for the regulation of municipal corporations in England and Wales." (5 & 6 Wm. IV. c. 76.) We shall here briefly notice the principal features of this measure.
I. The LIMITS to which the provisions of Lord John Russell's bill extended, in cluded in round numbers a population of about two millions. This number was not materially altered by the modifica tions introduced in the bill in its passage through parliament. The number of boroughs originally proposed to be di rectly included in the operation of the bill, was 183. This number was reduced to 178. The names of these boroughs are enumerated in two schedules appended to the act ; to those more important bo roughs contained in schedule A, amounting to 128 in number, a commis sion of the peace is assigned by the act, while those contained in schedule B, amounting to 50, were only to have a commission of the peace granted on ap plication to the crown, as will be here after explained.
Many boroughs, on account of their small importance, are not included in the operation of the act. London was to be made the subject of a special measure, which, however, has never been intro duced.
The application of the act to the bo roughs in schedules A and B, is deter mined by the fact of the places having been before subject to the government of municipal corporations. The objects of such government are equally important and necessary for all inhabited districts, whether rural or urban. The rural dis tricts are, however, now subject to the jurisdiction of justices of the peace of counties, and the divisions of counties. The existence of prejudices supposed to be based on the different interests of the two populations may be an obstacle, but it must be admitted that the keeping the two populations separated in all that con cerns the administration of government is a very effectual means to perpetuate their mutual independence and estrangement.
The boundaries of the individual bo roughs were settled as follows, by the act for corporation reform. Those in the first part of schedule A amounting to 84, and those in the first part of schedule B, amounting to 9, being parliamentary boroughs, their parliamentary bounda ries were taken as settled by the boundary act (2 & 3 Wm. IV. c. 64) until altered by parliament. In the remaining bo roughs the municipal boundaries remained as before, until parliament should other wise direct.