In spite of simplifying statutes, English local government is still shared among various strata of different authorities, constituted for different purposes under different statutes. The county of London, with 4,750,000 of in habitants, has a local government of its own, and must be considered apart. We take first the network of local authorities administering the more obvious services of municipal govern ment, including sanitation and education. To begin with the narish, we see this ancient eccle siastical area in the rural districts forming the lowest unit of government; administered, if small, by the parish meeting open to all adults; if large, by a parish council triennially elected by the householders. The parish meeting or parish council may light the village, protect the footpaths and village green, establish libraries and reading rooms, baths and public laundries; but its power to tax is limited. Next to it stands the rural district council, dealing with roads and sanitation, triennially elected by and acting for the householders of a group of par ishes. Places in which the population has be come aggregated together, needing greater and more varied local government services, are (by Local Government Board order) given the status of urban districts. The householders of these urban areas elect an urban district coun cil, which combines the functions of the parish council and the rural district council, with greatly extended powers.. A steadily increas ing number of urban districts (now over 300 in number) have, sometimes because of past his torical importance, sometimes because of present populousness, been given by the Crown (now adays the Privy Council) the status of char tered municipal corporations; these elect their councils annually by thirds instead of trien nially; their councils elect to preside over them, not a chairman but a mayor; and they co-opt into their own bodies additional members styled aldermen. Such of them as have any considerable population (about 130 in number), have their own police forces, under the control of their own town councils. Apart from minor technicalities there is practically no other dif ference between an urban district which is, and one which is not, a municipal corporation. The words °town' and it may be men tioned, are used in England, for any urban irrespective rrespective of size. The word °city" is of equally lax usage, but it ought to be re stricted to those towns, large or small, which have been specifically termed or created cities by statute or royal enactment, together with some others, usually the seats of bishoprics, which bear it by old usage. Above all these bodies stands the county council; elected trien nially by the occupiers of houses or lands within the county, whether residing in rural parishes, urban districts or municipal corporations. The county council is the authority for education; it provides the public lunatic asylums; it either pays for or itself maintains the main roads; it administers various minor services for the county as a whole; and it exercises a certain amount of supervision and criticism and some slight control over the minor local authorities. It contributes half the members (the justices of the peace nominating the other half) to the standing joint committee, which controls the county police force.
Most of the boroughs over 50,000 inhabitants (and some ancient towns below that popula tion) stand outside the area of the adminis trative county, and are neither represented in nor controlled by the county council. These, the so-called county boroughs (now just 75 in number) are entirely autonomous municipal corporations, which have, in addition, the powers of county councils. The town council, elected in the same manner as that of other municipal corporations, and presided over by a mayor (or in 12 of the larger cities a lord mayor) is (apart from the administration of justice and of the Poor Law) the sole local governing authority of the city, with practically unlimited autonomy within the scope of the statutory authority entrusted by Parliament to local authorities generally; and except in a few cases, not even subject, as regards its expendi ture on all but one or two subjects, to the gen eral Local Government Board audit. It is an
important feature of these county boroughs that they (like the other municipal corporations of any size) mostly have their own police forces, exclusive) under the control of their own town councils the °watch committee).
The 4, 50,000 persons who inhabit the county of London have a more complex local govern ment than the citizens of. Liverpool or Man chester. London is divided into 29 metropolitan boroughs, one of them being the ancient city, preserving still its Corporation, its lord mayor, and other dignitaries and various other pecu liarities. These metropolitan boroughs have each a council, elected triennially by the house holders, which independently administers the paving, cleansing and lighting of the streets, the minor house drainage, the removal of refuse, the suppression of nuisances and the collection of all the municipal taxes. The City Corpora tion, in addition, manages, with its own consid erable estates, the central markets, some of the bridges and the special city police force. Above these local bodies stands the London County Council, with annual receipts and expenditures exceeding #12,000,000 sterling, with 118 members elected triennially by the householders of the whole administrative county of London, to gether with 19 co-opted aldermen; and respon sible for education, main drainage, parks and recreation grounds, the lunatic asylums, the tramway service, the ferry steamboats, the great street improvements, the demolition of aslumo areas and the erection of new dwellings, the administration of the stringent Building Act and a host of miscellaneous county services, to- gether with the management of the debt of Lon don, not only for its own needs, but also for those of the other local bodies (except the City Corporation). The water supply of the whole metropolitan district, extending to much more than the county area, is in the hands of the Metropolitan Water Board, a body made up of representatives of all the local authorities con cerned. The port and river in the hands of the Port of London Authority is constituted in a similar manner. The upper Thames is adminis tered by the Thames Conservancy Board, a body of 28 members, appointed by the Corporation, the Board, the County Council and the Board of Trade.
The foregoing survey of English local gov ernment omits two branches, which, from historical causes, still retain their separate or ganizations. Nearly the whole of the collec tive provision for special classes (but not that for lunatics, nor that for persons suffering from infectious diseases) is in the hands of what are called the Poor Law authorities. The country is for this purpose divided into 653 unions of parishes, often not corresponding with the boundaries of urban districts, munici pal corporations, county boroughs or counties. The householders of each of these unions elect either annually or triennially, a board of guard ians, which administers the public provision for the aged and infirm, the orphan and deserted children, the indigent sick, the tramps or vagrants, and the destitute of every kind. These boards of guardians levy, for the cost of their schools, infirmaries, work-houses and "outdoor relief?' an unlimited tax on house holders, the celebrated poor rate. They have complete discretion as to the amount of money that they will spend, and as to the amount of the relief that they will afford (above the legal "national minimum") of preventing death by starvation) ; but their discretion as to the mode of relief, as to the erection of buildings, as to the appointment of officers, and as to the rais ing of loans is guided, and, in the last resort, controlled, by the Local Government Board, which has (in this branch of local government more than any. other) the power of issuing peremptory orders having the force of law. In London, where there are about 30 boards of guardians, these have also a joint body, the Metropolitan Asylums Board, made up chiefly of their nominees, which manages the infectious disease hospitals and the asylums for idiots.