LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL. The county of London, nearly 120 square miles in area, is split up into 29 districts for local ad ministrative purposes. Of these, two are cities, those of London and Westminster; one is a royal borough — Kensington — and 26 are bor oughs. Each is self-contained and self-gov erning for all purely local matters and the dif ferent districts are clearly defined and recog nized. There are other areas for other pur poses — for instance, the Poor Law is admin istered by 31 duly elected hoards of guardians, but the districts controlled by these hoards do not exactly correspond with those governed by the borough or city councils. It is expected that future legislation may do away with this anomaly and make the Poor Law areas the same as those of the boroughs, possibly also abolishing the hoards of guardians and trans ferring their duties to the borough councils. On the other hand there are those who predict the abolition of the borough councils also and the unification of London under one central authority. The present system leaves much to be desired, if only for the equalization of rates, each borough differing from the others in the amount annually required — the inhabitants of the poorer districts, with their smaller rateable value, having as a rule to pay much higher rates than their more fortunate fellow-citizens in dis tricts where better conditions prevail.
Up to 1855 there was no uniformity of any sort for local administration. The city of Lon don, the °one square mile," had from time im memorable of course been a recognized unit, with well-defined duties and responsibilities, hut round it had grown up a number of districts, north and south of the river, each with differ ent forms of administration, obtained in most cases by special acts of Parliament. In 1855 the Metropolis Management Act attempted to reduce chaos to cosmos. It created 23 admin istrative vestries and 15 boards of works elected by the smaller vestries, in addition to the city corporation. These bodies again elected
representatives to serve on the metropolitan board of works. The latter gave place to a directly elected body— the London county council — in 1889. In 1899 the London Gov ernment Act was passed and came into force on 9 Nov. 1900. It has 118 elected members. This act left the London county council and city corporation untouched, but abolished all the vestries and local boards of works (of which there were 29 and 12 respectively at the date of the act), setting up in their places 28 bor ough councils, of various sizes, rateable values and population. The smallest one is Holborn, with 405 acres, and the largest Wandsworth, with 9,285. In point of view of population, Holborn is the smallest with 49,357, and Isling ton the largest with 327,403. The death-rate varies from 11 to 18 per 1,000; the valuations between a maximum of f63 and a minimum of f4; the rating between 6/ in the f and 11/-. The heaviest rates are in the poorest and least healthy districts.
Each borough is governed by a mayor, al dermen and councillors, the numbers of the two latter being fixed by an order in council. The maximum number of members of the councils are 10 aldermen and 60 councillors in addition to the mayor, who need not previously have been a member of the council, but must be qualified to be one. The mayor may receive any remuneration the council may think rea sonable. He is also, by virtue of his office, a justice of the peace for the county borough for the year of his mayoralty and the succeeding one. No one can be elected to any council un less he is either a parochial elector, or has re sided in the borough for 12 months preceding his election. It is 'noticeable that by a special provision in the act no woman is eligible to hold any of the above offices, although this was not the intention when the bill was Introduced. Once elected the councils remain in office for three years. The first councils took office on 9 Nov. 1900.