THE SERVICES ADMINISTERED BY LOCAL ITIES.
The government at present entrusted to local authorities in England and Wales may be divided into four great classes, which we may term respectively the collective organiza tion of public services, the collective regula tion of individual conduct, the collective provi sion for special classes of the community,. and the collective taxation upon individual citizens by which the net cost of the whole of the local government work is met. It has been a con sequence of the great development of local gov ernment during the past three-quarters of a century, and of the absence of any logical or deliberately thought out plan of organization, that this or any other systematic analysis of local government functions does not correspond exactly with any definite classification of local governing bodies. We must therefore describe separately function and structure.
The collective organization of public serv ices, though later in its great development than some other branches, now make up the largest part of English local government.
1. Protection.— We have first the funda mental service of the protection of the in dividual citizen against aggression, for which there is, from one end of England to the other — not excluding even the most rural or the most desolate regions—a • series of salaried, professional and highly organized local forces of preventive police. In marked contrast with thepractice of most other European countries (and, indeed, with that of Ireland), these pol ice forces, nearly 200 in number, are (with the exception of that for the metropolitan area) exclusively under the control of the respective local authorities, and are subject neither to orders from, nor to control by the national ex ecutive. They are (outside the metropolitan area) entirely appointed, controlled, and paid by particular local authorities; in municipal boroughs, the town councils by their "watch committees"; in counties, by what are known as °standing joint committees," of which half the members are chosen by the County Council and half by the Justices of the Peace in Quarter Sessions. The total cost of maintenance of the provincial police forces is about three and a half million pounds, and that of the two metropolitan forces two and a half million pounds per annum, for which nearly 50,000 men are maintained. A separate grant of part of
this cost (at first a quarter, latterly one-half) was long made from the national exchequer, conditionally on the local authority (1) per mitting the Home Secretary to have its force inspected annually by an officer appointed for the purpose, (2) maintaining it at such a stan dard of strength and efficiency as the Home Secretary might consider satisfactory. No separate police grant is now made, the amounts (aggregating over 0,000,000 per annum) hav ing been merged in larger general contributions in aid of local authorities; but a certificate by the Home Secretary that the above conditions have 'been fulfilled is still annually required before payment is made. In the metropolitan district (which for this purpose extends to an area of more than 15 miles radius from Char ing Cross) there are two police forces; one of small size, maintained by the Corporation of the City of London, without exchequer aid or Home Office inspection, for the protection of the one square mile of the old city; and the other the largest in the world, organized as a local force, but commanded without any shadow of local control, by officers appointed by the na tional executive itself (Home Office) ; at the cost, partly of a fixed local rate of six pence in the pound, which meets about half the ex pense, and partly of the national exchequer; for the protection of the 900 square miles of the metropolitan area. Home Office Reports as to Police' ; of Police in England,' by W. L. M. Lee, 1902).
While the central courts of justice form part of the national government, some of the minor tribunals are (though the judges are never elective) supplied by local government, either in form of (a) petty criminal courts held by the local justices of the peace; (b) the more important Courts of Quarter Sessions, held by the same, (c) stipendiary police magis trates in various cities, appointed by the national executive, but paid for by the cities themselves; and (d) a few- local civil courts maintained in the city of London and some other of the older cities. The stipendiary police magistrates in the metropolitan district (outside the old city) are maintained in the same way as the metropolitan police force. and by F. W. Maitland).