390 



GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND, UNITED KINGDOM OF. 



Middlesex, and the powers and duties of the 

 Court of Quarter Sessions and justices of the 

 city are divided between the Court of Common 

 Council and the county council. The Metro- 

 politan Board of Works is extinguished, and 

 all its great powers and responsibilities devolve 

 on the county council of London, which also 

 has charge of reformatory schools, industrial 

 schools, pauper lunatic asylums, and the licens- 

 ing of places for music and dancing, and of race- 

 courses within ten miles of Charing Cross, exter- 

 mination of cattle-disease, prevention of fires, 

 inspection of food, regulation of the storage 

 of explosives and petroleum, and matters con- 

 nected with tramways, railways, and gas and 

 water supply, besides the assessment and levy- 

 ing of county rates. The commissioners of 

 sewers remain the sanitary authority, and in 

 other matters of local management no change 

 is made in the government of the city, while 

 in other parts of the metropolis the vestries 

 and district boards will still have the direction 

 of branch sewers, street-cleaning, lighting, pav- 

 ing, and the abatement of nuisances, until by 

 a future enactment these powers are transferred 

 to district councils elected by a body of electors 

 corresponding to the burgesses of a municipal 

 borough. The county council of London con- 

 sists of nineteen aldermen, chosen at a special 

 meeting of the council, and one hundred and 

 eighteen councilors, or double the number of 

 parliamentary representatives, who are elected, 

 like these, by direct suffrage, whereas under 

 the old system the rate-payers elected the 

 vestrymen, the vestry the members of the dis- 

 trict board, and each district board a member 

 of the Metropolitan Board of Works. The 

 Metropolitan Board of Works had recently 

 been the subject of an investigation by a royal 

 commission, and the revelations of bribery and 

 corruption insured a smooth passage for the 

 London clauses of the bill. In the elections 

 for the county council, even members of the 

 Metropolitan Board of Works against whom no 

 charges had been brought shared the disgrace 

 and discredit attaching to the old body through 

 the actions of the culpable members, and were 

 invariably defeated. 



The Government intended to combine the 

 reform of local government with temperance 

 reform by conferring on the county councils 

 the power to license public-houses and to abro- 

 gate licenses, thus introducing the principle of 

 local option. The Liberals approved this part 

 of the bill, but opposed the proposition to com- 

 pensate liquor-sellers whose licenses should be 

 taken away. On this question some of the 

 supporters of the Government in Parliament 

 took the side of the Opposition, and in some 

 of the parliamentary elections many votes were 

 lost. The ministry could not strike out the 

 compensation clause without sacrificing the 

 powerful support of the licensed victualers, 

 and therefore abandoned the main part of the 

 intended reform, and restricted the judicial 

 powers of the county council in this matter 



to the granting of music and dancing licenses, 

 The elections for the county councils were ap- 

 pointed for January, 1889, and the new bodies 

 enter on their functions on April 1, 1889. 



The Adjourned Session. The House of Com- 

 mons was occupied with the local government 

 bill and the bill for the investigation of charges 

 and allegations against members of Parliament 

 till the usual time for separation. The rail- 

 way rates bill, which was introduced in the 

 House of Lords, re-establishes the railway 

 commission on a new basis, compels companies 

 to frame a classified schedule of charges, and 

 prohibits undue preference in freight rates. 

 When the local government bill had finally 

 passed through all the stages, and the tithe 

 rent-charge bill, which was finally abandoned, 

 the employers' liability bill, which with many 

 others was also thrown over, and other meas- 

 ures had been discussed and some progress 

 made with the budget, the House adjourned 

 on August 13 to meet again on November 6 

 in order to finish the votes in supply and other 

 necessary business. The proposed employers' 

 liability act was not pressed because Mr. Broad- 

 hurst and other workingmen representatives 

 declared that it was worthless. The old act 

 was therefore continued. The determination 

 of the Parnellites and Gladstonians to bring 

 forward the arrears question and expose the 

 cruelties and abuses of coercion was the main 

 cause of the extraordinary length of the ses- 

 sion. The questions raised in Mr. Morley's 

 vote of censure, which was rejected in the 

 latter part of June by a majority of 93, were 

 gone over again in the debate on the estimates 

 for the Irish administration. Mr. Labouchere, 

 who was one of the most pertinacious assail- 

 ants of the ministry, about three weeks before 

 the close of the session moved the adjourn- 

 ment of the House in order to call attention 

 ironically to the unsatisfactory state of public 

 business. A libel law amendment bill, intro- 

 duced by Sir Algernon Borthwick, removes 

 some of the hardships to which owners of 

 newspapers are subjected by vexatious prose- 

 cution on account of statements that have been 

 published in good faith. Mr. Bradlaugh's par- 

 liamentary oaths bill was a compromise with 

 the ministry, and provides that members who 

 desire to affirm in lieu of an oath must state 

 beforehand that they either have no religious 

 belief, or that "their belief forbids them to take 

 an oath. Mr. Morley and some of the extreme 

 Radicals objected to this proviso, and Dr. Hun- 

 ter and Mr. Picton joined with the ultra-Con- 

 servatives in an unsuccessful effort to defeat 

 the bill. Sir Edward Watkins's channel tun- 

 nel scheme was again defeated. A large ma- 

 jority voted against an early closing bill intro- 

 duced by Sir John Lubbock. A merchant 

 shipping bill presented by Lord Onslow and a 

 bill offered by the Lord Chancellor for consoli- 

 dating the mortmain acts were passed without 

 opposition, as were also Lord Herscheirs bill 

 to exempt tools and bedding from the law of 



