ENGLAND 



2917 



ENGLAND 



merit, is the judiciary. At its head 

 is the lord chancellor, who presides 

 over the House of Lords, which is 

 the supreme court of law, save for 

 certain classes of cases in which the 

 judicial committee of the privy 

 council serves that purpose. For 

 England and Wales there is a 

 supreme court of judicature, from 

 which appeals lie to the House of 

 Lords. " This consists of two 

 branches, a court of appeal and a 

 high court of justice. The latter is 

 further divided into chancery, 

 king's bench, and probate, divorce 

 and admiralty divisions, while 

 special branches, e.g. bankruptcy, 

 have been established. The judges 

 of the king's bench go round the 

 country on circuit, there being for 

 England and Wales eight circuits, 

 and in each a number of assize 

 towns. London is outside the 

 circuit system, and for it there is a 

 central criminal court. 



Justice is administered locally 

 by recorders and magistrates, who 

 sit in quarter and petty sessions. 

 They deal with minor cases, send- 

 ing those of a more serious charac- 

 ter to the judges at the assizes. 

 County courts all over the country 

 deal with civil cases involving less 

 than a certa.in amount of money. 



LOCAL GOVERNMENT. Under the 

 supreme control of Parliament, the 

 people of England enjoy a large 

 measure of local goveniment. Here 

 again each unit is a democracy 

 working through the representa- 

 tive system. The men and women 

 of county, borough, district, and 

 parish elect certain men and women 

 to form a council which manages 

 such matters as Parliament has 

 entrusted to it. In many, but not 

 all, of these councils there is an 

 element not directly elected, the 

 aldermen. 



The County and the Borough 



The main division, as far as 

 local government areas are con- 

 cerned, is the venerable one between 

 county and borough, although the 

 demarcation is by no means com- 

 plete. The forty counties of 

 England have had some sort of 

 local government for a thousand 

 years, but the existing system only 

 dates from the Local Government 

 Act of 1888. The officials who until 

 that time governed the counties, 

 lord-lieutenant, high sheriff, and 

 magistrates in quarter sessions, 

 retain their positions, but not their 

 powers, which passed in 1888 

 almost entirely to elected bodies 

 called county councils. 



The county councils set up in 

 1888 do not correspond altogether 

 to the counties as they existed 

 before that date. For the forty old 

 or geographical counties, as they 

 are called, fifty county councils 



were set up and there are, conse- 

 quently, fifty new or adminis- 

 trative counties. Most of the old 

 counties were simply given county 

 councils without serious change of 

 boundary, but a number were 

 divided to make fresh counties. 

 The additional ten were found by 

 making the three historic divisions 

 of Yorkshire and the three of 

 Lincolnshire into counties, each 

 with a council, by dividing the 

 five counties of Cambridgeshire, 

 Hampshire, Northamptonshire, 

 Suffolk, and Sussex into two each, 

 and by creating a new county of 

 London from parts of Surrey, 

 Middlesex, and Kent. 



The County Boroughs 



The county councils hold elec- 

 tions every third year, and their 

 powers over education, police, 

 public health, and other matters are 

 laid down in the Acts of 1888 and 

 following years. Towards their 

 expenses they receive large sums 

 from the government, but the 

 balance they raise by a rate on all 

 property within the county. There 

 is no limit to the amount they can 

 thus raise, but their accounts are 

 supervised by the ministry of 

 health. They can, under certain 

 conditions, borrow money. 



The Act of 1888 affected also the 

 boroughs. It created a class of 

 boroughs called county boroughs, 

 placing them entirely outside the 

 authority of the county councils, 

 and thus established a system by 

 which every place is in a county, 

 either county proper or county 

 borough, and consequently every 

 voter is represented in one or the 

 other of the councils. A county 

 borough must have a population of 

 at least 50,000, and it is a recog- 

 nized practice that as soon as a 

 borough attains that size it is made 

 a county borough by order of the 

 ministry of health. There are about 

 70 of these county boroughs, but 

 the number is being steadily in- 

 creased. They have exactly the 

 same powers as the county councils 

 received under the Act of 1888, 

 together with any others they may 

 possess under Acts regulating the 

 affairs of the boroughs. 



We come now to areas and 

 councils which are subordinate to 

 the county councils. Excluding 

 the county boroughs, every part of 

 England is either a borough, an 

 urban, or a rural district, and every 

 one of these is part of an adminis- 

 trative county and is represented 

 in its county council. 



The borough is a place which 

 has received a charter of incor- 

 poration, and, excluding the county 

 boroughs, there are over 200 of 

 them in England. Their local 

 government is regulated by the 



Municipal Corporation Act of 1835 

 and an amending Act of 1882. 

 These made their constitutions 

 uniform. Each borough, and 

 each county borough also, is 

 governed by a mayor and council 

 consisting of aldermen and council- 

 lors. The councillors are elected for 

 three years, one -third of them 

 retiring every year, and they choose 

 the aldermen, who form one-third 

 of their number. 



Since 1888 the affairs of these 

 non-county boroughs have been 

 supervised to some extent by the 

 county councils, to which they 

 send representatives. There is thus 

 a division of authority. In some 

 the borough has its own police 

 force, in others the county council 

 provides this. Education again is 

 sometimes controlled by the one 

 and sometimes by the other. These 

 boroughs levy their own rates and 

 also raise something towards the 

 expense of the county council. A 

 special class of boroughs are the 28 

 into which the county of London is 

 divided. They are subordinate to 

 the London County Council and 

 their powers are somewhat different 

 from those of the ordinary boroughs. 

 Although of considerable size, they 

 are not county boroughs. 



Urban and Rural Districts 



The country outside London and 

 outside the provincial boroughs is 

 divided into urban and rural dis- 

 tricts, called into existence by an 

 Act of 1894. Urban districts are 

 the thickly populated areas which 

 have not yet become boroughs ; 

 rural districts are the country 

 areas. The division is not abso- 

 lutely rigid, and occasionally a 

 rural district is found to be quite 

 populous. Each is governed by a 

 council, elected for three years. 

 The head is called chairman, not 

 mayor, and there are no aldermen. 



These councils -work hi general 

 under the supervision of the 

 county council. If their population 

 exceeds 10,000 they manage their 

 own education, but the chief 

 duties of the bulk of them are con- 

 nected with the public health. 



A. W. Holland 



Bibliography. Parliamentary Gov- 

 ernment of England, 2 vols., A. 

 Todd, 2nd ed. 1887 ; Europe, vol. 

 2, O. G. Chisholm, 1902 (in Stan- 

 ford's Compendium of Geography 

 and Travel) ; Local Government in 

 England, J. Redlich (trans. F. W. 

 Hirst), 1903 ; Stanford's Geological 

 Atlas of Gt. Britain, H. B. Wood- 

 ward, 1907 ; Britain and the British 

 Seas, H. J. Mackinder, 2nd ed. 1907 ; 

 A Geography of the British Isles, A. 

 M. Davies, 1909 ; The Governance 

 of England, S. Low, rev. ed. 1914 ; 

 The Victoria History of the Counties 

 of England, ed. W. Page, 2nd ed. 

 1900, etc. ; The Statesman's Year 

 Book, publ. annually. 



