behalf of the latter. The extension of free-trade to agricultural produce, and the consequent improvement of agricultural science and skill which may with certainty be looked for, are likely to raise the mind and the condition of the rural population, till they may become capable of desiring and requiring for themselves a system of local government as favorable as that obtained by the men of the towns; and then some future government will have to grant to the producers and sellers of food, and the capitalists of their class, the same political scope and privilege which the Bill of 1835 secured to the producers and sellers of all other articles, and the capitalists of their multifarious class.

The other great imperfection of the measure was one only temporary in its character, but of pernicious operation during the critical years when the citizens required every aid, and no hinderance, in learning to discharge their new duties and exercise their new rights, the privileges of the old freemen were preserved, and with them a large measure of corruption. This was not the work of the Administration, but an amendment insisted on by the Lords. The preservation of the Parliamentary franchise and corporation property of this depraved body has been the greatest impediment to the purifying operation of the measure; but care was taken by the ministers and the House of Commons, that, while existing property and privilege of an objectionable character were tenderly dealt with, no new interests of a similar kind should be permitted to arise; and thus, beneficial as have been the effects of corporate reform from the day that the Bill became law, its best results have yet to be realized.

The substance of the measure, as passed, is this:

The points for review are four: the area in the State occupied Substance of by the system, the objects of municipal government, the Bill. -the municipal constituency, the municipal functionaries.1

The number of boroughs included under the Bill was 178, and the collective population about 2,000,000 at that time. Of these boroughs, 128 of the most important had a commission of the peace assigned to them; while the other 50 might obtain such a commission on a representation to the crown, by the towncouncil, that the borough needs the appointment of one or more salaried police-magistrates. London is not included under the Act, a special measure being promised for the metropolis; towards which, however, nothing has yet been done. Of the 178 boroughs, 93 were parliamentary boroughs, and their limits were taken as settled by the Reform Bill. The boundaries of the remaining 85 stood as they were before, until Parliament should

1 Polit. Dict. ii. pp. 385-3.2.

direct an alteration. Each borough was divided into electoral wards, Liverpool into 16; others into 12, 10, or fewer, till the smallest were reached, which needed no division at all. The boundaries of the wards, and the number of town-councillors to be returned by each, were settled, after the passing of the Act, by barristers appointed for the purpose.

The objects of municipal government were briefly set forth in the King's speech at the close of the session of 1833, in the sentence which recommends Parliament "to mature some measures which may seem best fitted to place the internal government of corporate cities and towns upon a solid foundation, in respect to their finances, their judicature, and their police." "1 The new Act left the old objects untouched, for the most part, except in regard to the administration of justice and of charity trusts. The administration of charity-trust funds was now placed in the hands of trustees appointed by the Lord Chancellor; and justice was made more accessible, and its functionaries more responsible, by various new provisions. As to the appointment and management of the constabulary, the paving and lighting of the towns, and other duties of the local government, they were not dictated, nor local acts interfered with, by express enactment. The thing to be done was to procure a practical amendment by giving a true constituency to the towns, by which the local authorities should be elected in a genuine manner.

Hitherto, the functionaries made the constituency, and the constituency in return appointed the functionaries; so that, if a sufficient number of corrupt and indolent men could be got into league, they could do what they pleased with the powers and the funds of the boroughs. This was now amended. The first class considered was that of the existing freemen, whose privilege, having been hitherto much restricted, was supposed to have been valuable, and of proportionate original cost. It was therefore preserved to them, their wives and widows, sons, daughters, and apprentices, who were to enjoy the same privileges in land and property, shares in common lands and public stock of the borough or corporation, as if the new Act had never been passed; but, henceforward, the debts of the corporation were to be paid before, and not after as hitherto, the claims of such persons were satisfied. The parliamentary franchise was also, as we have said, preserved to the old freemen. But the way to further abuse was stopped, not only by creating an honest constituency, which should swamp the corrupt old one, but by a provision that no rights of borough freedom should henceforth be acquired by gift or purchase, or in any other modes than those now enacted. The Act prescribes a property qualification, on the understood 1 Hansard, xx. p. 905. 34

VOL. III.

ground that the municipal funds are provided by the propertied classes, who ought therefore to have the disposal of them. The condition of a three years' residence was much objected to by men here and there of all parties; but it was believed to be necessary to obviate sudden and large creations of voters for party purposes, an evil of which government had had recent and inconvenient experience, the admissions of freemen in certain towns in England having been six times as many in 1830 as in the preceding year. If a necessity, however, the restriction is a bad necessity; and it will probably be repealed when the purification of municipal government has become assured. To be a municipal constituent, a man must be of full age; must, on the last day of the preceding August, have occupied premises within the borough continuously for the three previous years; must have been for those three years an inhabitant householder within seven miles of the borough; and must have been rated to the poor, and have paid those and all borough-rates during the same three years. Such was the constituency ordained by the new Act, a narrow one, but good as far as it goes, and understood to be so restricted on account of previous abuses.

The registration of the constituency was to be managed by an organization resembling that under the Reform Bill, with the variations rendered necessary by difference of circumstances. The overseers of parishes make the lists; the town-clerk corrects and publishes them; and, since the first year, the mayor and the assessors appointed for the purpose have revised them.

The functionaries of town corporations and their constituents had hitherto borne a strange variety of titles in different places. Henceforth they were everywhere to be called "the mayor, aldermen, and burgesses." This body was henceforth a constituted corporation, empowered to do all legal acts as a body, and not as individuals; to sue and be sued by the corporate name; and to transmit their corporate rights to their corporate successors. The town-council is the great ruling body of the borough. The wards elect the councillors; whose number was, as has been said, apportioned, after the passing of the Act, by barristers who visited the boroughs for the purpose. The council administers, by its committees, all the local business, the constabulary appointments, and the paving and lighting; and the body in conclave appoint their own officers, decree the expenditure of the borough fund, and the leasing of land and buildings; and they have the power of making by-laws for the prevention and suppression of nuisances, and other objects of minor legislation. All needful safeguards against corruption are provided by making committees responsible to the whole council, by the appointment of auditors of accounts, who shall not themselves be councillors at the time,

and by the regulations that all town accounts shall be published; that two-thirds of the council shall be present at the passing of any by-law, and that forty days shall be allowed to the Secretary of State to object to such by-law, and procure its disallowance by the sovereign. A property qualification for the office of councillor is requisite. One-third of the council go out, and are supplied by annual election on the 1st of November.

The mayor is chosen from among the councillors; and he must serve, or pay a fine of 1007. He presides over the public acts of the borough during his year of office; is, for that time and the next year, a justice of the peace; revises the registration with the assessors, and sanctions the lists by his signature in open court; and is made returning-officer on occasion of election to Parliament.

The function of alderman is somewhat anomalous under the new Act; into which it was introduced by the Lords, more, as it appears, from a clinging to old names and forms than from any clear idea of what there was for aldermen to do. By their remaining in office six years, and half going out every three years, while their body includes one-third of the whole council, the regulation for replenishing the council by new members to the number of one-third annually is set aside. They are little more than councillors having precedence of others, and being removable at the end of six years, instead of three.

The town-clerk and treasurer are appointed by the council. The first has to keep in safety the charter-deeds and records of the borough; to make out the registration lists; keep the minutes of the council, and be subject to their direction. The treasurer is responsible for his accounts to the auditors, to whom he is to submit them half-yearly. The auditors are annually elected by the burgesses on the 1st of March. The assessors are elected in like manner.

The power was reserved to the Crown of appointing such justices of the peace as Government may think proper, also such salaried police-magistrates as the borough may apply for; and, again, a recorder for a single borough, or for two or more in conjunction, provided the councillors of such town or towns desire to have a recorder, show cause for such an appointment, and prove that they can pay his salary. Boroughs having a recorder have separate courts of quarter-sessions of the peace; such courts being co-equal in powers with similar courts for counties.

All church property in the hands of the old corporations was required to be sold under the direction of the ecclesiastical commissioners; the proceeds to be invested in government securities, and the annual interest to form a part of the borough fund.

Towns not at that time incorporated might obtain a charter of incorporation by petition to the Privy Council. Some of the largest towns in England obtained charters by this method within a few years after the passing of the Act.

The Bill in

It was on the 5th of June that Lord John Russell introduced the Municipal Reform Bill to the House of Commons. the Commons. By the cordial union of the Whig and Radical parties, it was passed rapidly and safely through the Lower House. The difficulty was with the Peers, who carried one amendIn the Lords. ment after another against ministers; and among others, a decision to hear counsel for the existing corporations, which delayed the progress of the measure for some time. The opposition was, as might be expected, about the rights of property, ― the property of poor men, it was insisted, and therefore to be the more carefully regarded; and about the overthrow of ancient practices and observances. But the case was too bad for a destructive opposition. As for the rights of property of the poor, in the city of Norwich, there were 3225 resident freemen, of whom 315 were paupers; 808 more were not rated. In Lincoln, nearly four-fifths of the population were excluded from the corporation; and of the corporate body, three-fourths paid no rates. At Cambridge, out of 20,000 inhabitants, there were only 118 freemen. At Ipswich, of 2000 rate-payers, only 187 belonged to the corporation.1 In the face of these facts, it was a mockery to talk of the rights of property being disregarded by the Bill. As to the ancient practices and observances, it was only necessary to look back into history to see that the existing state of things was in fact a mass of modern innovation and corruption, and that the Bill was a restoration of ancient rights,

a recurrence to the true old municipal principle. From a conviction that the fact was so, and that the true old principle would, in a generation or two, work itself clear of the mischief of the Lords' amendments, the ministers, after due consideration, adopted those amendments rather than lose the measure. So they preserved the existing race of poor freemen, who must die out in a few years; let in the anomalous aldermen, in the hope that their uselessness, and the evil of breaking in on the rotation of the town-councillors, would be ascertained before long; yielded some points in regard to qualification, and induced the Lords to yield some of their points; and finally passed the Bill on the 7th of September. On the 9th, it became law.

It becomes

law.

The passage of the Bill was a severe and unexpected blow to the high Tory party, who had confidently reckoned on its being rejected by the Commons when returned from the Upper House.

1 Corporation Commissioners' Report.