TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE COUNTY GOVERNMENT BILL.
IF any proof were needed that the present two-headed Government is a strong one, capable of doing most effective work, it would be found in the County Government Bill presented to Parliament on Monday night. Not content with a reform in the Rules of Procedure which has restored to the House of Commons all its working power and nearly all its freedom, or with the conversion of the entire National Debt at one blow, the Government propose what is really a revolution in the local government of England. In the form of an ordinary Bill crowded, perhaps overcrowded, with • details, the Ministry bring forward a measure which radically changes the whole system of administering the country districts. The old central idea of that administration is superseded by a new one, while the machinery through which it is carried out is entirely transformed. The Crown loses, for the first time in our history, all its theoretic power over the rural administration, which hitherto has been singularly complete. At present, every person, except a Guardian or a member of a Highway Board, who is entrusted with administrative powers, is appointed directly by the Crown, and may be dismissed without reason assigned, by the same authority. In practice, of course, this enormous power, as great as that of most Continental Sovereigns, has since the Revolution been wielded by responsible Ministers, guided by strict precedents, and under the controlling supervision of the representative body ; but still, that was the theory, and it has disappeared. Henceforward, though the Crown retains the appointment of all persons (Coroners excepted) wielding judicial power, and a partial control over the police, all administrative authority passes away from it to County Councils elected by the ratepayers, female as well as male. The country gentlemen are deposed, and the democracy is installed in the vacant place. The area selected, the only one possible, is the geographical "county," with the single modification that if a borough stands in two counties, it will belong to the one which contains its larger part. The number of councillors will vary with every "county "—and will nowhere, we trust, exceed fifty—but all will be elected by the ratepayers for three years, and will add to themselves one-fourth their own number from among any ratepayers they please, the " optated" members sitting for six years. The Council thus formed will become a local House of Commons, with power to tax and borrow, with control over the whole revenue derived from licences, and with functions which it will take many lines of print even to enumerate. The Bill transfers to them "all the existing administrative powers of the Justices in respect of county rates and financial business, county buildings, county bridges, the provision and the management of the county lunatic asylums, the establishment and maintenance of reformatory and industrial schools, the granting of licences for music and dancing, the granting of licences for the sale of intoxicating liquors, the division of the county into polling districts for Parliamentary elections, the cost of the registration of voters, power for executing the Acts relating to explosives, the execution of the Acts relating to the contagious diseases of animals, the adulteration of foods and drugs, weights and measures, and various other matters." It also transfers to them the control and maintenance of all main highways, and "the power of making all provisional orders under the Pier and Harbour Acts, the Tramways Act, the Electric-Lighting Act, and the Gas and Waterworks Facilities Acts as regards Com- panies." The Councils, moreover, will exercise all sanitary powers, and all the powers of the Local Government Board as regards "sanctioning market tolls, fixing the scale of charges in respect of water-supply, the investment of a rural authority with the powers of an urban sanitary authority, the settlement of disputes as to boundaries and other matters under the Public Health Act, the Public Health (Water) Act, the Arlisans' Dwellings Acts, the Valuation (Metropolis) Act, the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, and certain other duties." This recital of itself shows the extent of the powers transferred ; but it does not exhaust the list. Not only are the Councils certain to arrogate to themselves further powers as naturally arising from their representative position, but it is expressly provided in the Bill that the Government of the day may, by a mere Order in Council, and without any special Act, "transfer to the County Council of a county such powers, duties, and liabilities under any statute of her Majesty's Privy Council, a Secretary of State, the Board of Trade, the Local Government Board, or the Education Department, or any other Government Department, as are conferred by or in pursuance of any statute and appear to her Majesty to relate to matters arising within the county, and not to be of a judicial character ; also any such powers, duties, and liabilities of any Commissioners of Sewers, Conservancy authority, or other public body, corporate or unincorporate (not being a municipal corporation or sanitary authority), as are conferred by or in pursuance of any statute." In truth, it is intended that gradually, as the Councils learn their work and solidify their methods, they shall, as regards all local business whatever, except judicial work, become the governing power, unrestrained by central authority, and subject to nothing except Parliament and the common law of the land. The control of the Poor-Law is as yet refused them, and that of Education, and they divide that of the police with Quarter-Sessions ; but it needs no historian to- tell us that if the Councils succeed, all local power, all local patronage, and all local initiative in every kind of improvement, together with much strictly legislative power, will be transferre& to their hands. Every Radical Government will try to earn support in the counties by some new proposal for "devolu- tion," until we at last reach the American idea that a repre- sentative municipal body ought to be able to do anything not forbidden by the law of the State or the general Constitution.
It is a change to take one's breath away, and cordially as we approve it, we do not wonder that the mouthpiece of the Tory Party almost revolts, and that the country gentlemen feel as if the world were drawing to an end. Their position is, indeed, radically changed. It is all very well and quite true to say they can enter the Councils, and if they enter them will find themselves stronger than ever ; but they will enter by the favour of their neighbours, and not by right of property ; they will enter under tacit or avowed contracts with their con- stituents which will fetter them at every turn ; they will enter to debate all questions in public ; and they will enter to dispute with opponents who will have none of the sym- pathies of caste to moderate their opposition. They will be required to argue in a novel way, to display new capacities, and to bear the insults of low men. Instead of taxing their own properties, as they do now, they will have to submit to taxation imposed by men who care nothing about their interests, or, in many cases, will owe them a deep personal grudge. The difference of position will be enormous, will be quite equal to the difference between a seat in the Lords and a seat in the Commons ; and we do not wonder that the Squires, conscious as they are of having governed well, regard the innovation at the best with a sigh of resignation. Nevertheless, they will do well not to resist the Government proposal. There are two weak points in their position which are hopelessly incurable. Nominee government is inconsistent with the principle enthroned in the State, and nominee government, with all its uprightness and kindliness and economy, kills public life. The country dis- tricts are, as compared with the boroughs, dead bodies in which no sound of life is heard, in which all careers are closed except to the wealthy, and in which the most powerless of all influences is the public voice. With democracy accepted as the basis of government alike for the nation and its boroughs, it is vain to expect that the rural districts will con- sent to be governed by the country gentry. They want to govern themselves, to feel a more active life stirring in them as well as the boroughs, to terminate the monopoly of county activity and prominence now enjoyed by the estated class. With the hold they possess on Parliament, they are sure to have their way, and the country gentle- men had better accept the position cheerfully, and try to become, as they easily may, the most acceptable of all candidates. None of their plans for mitigating the change have now a chance of acceptance. The ex-officio idea, always an illogical and inconvenient one, because it impaired the representative character of the Boards, and because it made it a point of caste for the best men to avoid electoral contests, has been surrendered, and cannot again be revived. From the moment Mr. Ritchie introduced his Bill, nothing remained possible except its rejection or the acceptance of the democratic principle ; and its rejection would only make the country gentry so unpopular in the counties, that for a generation they would be refused as candidates for the Councils. There is nothing for them to do but to submit, to make the Bill as good as possible, and 'hen it has passed, to endeavour to become the most active, the most popular, and the most hardworking of all county representatives.
We have said nothing as yet of the financial part of the scheme, thinking it better to wait for the fuller account which must appear in Mr. Goschen's Budget. We are not sure that we quite comprehend some parts of it; but so far as we do, we approve its principles, with a reserve in one respect. It is quite right to abolish the system of grants in aid of rates, which never was anything but a clumsy method of getting along till a reform of internal taxation could be attempted with some prospect of success. It is quite right to give up all receipts for licences to the Councils, as the only sources of revenue which do not press upon the whole community ; and quite right to add to them a tax to be levied upon personal property, which ought not to escape as it does from con- tributing to local wants. But is it wise, or even right, to assign a fifth of this money, as it is proposed to do, specially to the relief of the poor-rate? It has hitherto been considered that poor-relief was the special mortgage upon realty, and land and houses have been bought and sold for three hundred years subject to that condition. Is it quite fair just now to lift up a sixth of that burden ? It seems to us, writing, as of course we do, before discussion has begun, that poor-relief ought to have been left as it was, and that personalty should be taxed to provide for new rates, and especially for all rates to be levied for education, sanitary reform, and, generally, all ameliorations in public civilisation. The problem may be toc difficult, but we feel sure that this is the right principle, and that it is most dangerous to open to Guardians a new purse from which to draw. This, however, is but a detail in a scheme so large that it could hardly be proposed in any country but England, and so well considered that already, before it has been debated, it is, as regards its essential parts, accepted at once by Parliament and the people.
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