RURAL PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT 195 



Although the systems of local government in most provinces of 

 Canada were originally founded on the British system, the two coun- 

 tries have been drifting apart during the last forty years, in this re- 

 spect. In Canada local government has been subject to a powerful 

 influence of United States precedents, although conditions in the 

 United States are constitutionally quite different from those in Can- 

 ada, and municipal government has not been a uniform success in 

 the former country. In Britain the whole municipal system has been 

 overhauled during the past forty years and, since the formation of 

 the Local Government Boards in England, Scotland and Ireland 

 (the first in 1871) municipal government in Great Britain has developed 

 to a state of remarkable efficiency. A close study of the British munici- 

 pal institutions should be made before any large measure of reform is 

 introduced in Canada. It will be found to be not only efficient but 

 economical and democratic. Its defects in the past have been chiefly 

 due to its neglect of the problem of land development, but an effort 

 is now being made to remedy this defect under town planning legis- 

 lation. As an American writer has said, however, nowhere else is 

 municipal government more successfully administered than in Eng- 

 land. 



The British Local Government Board is the great loan sanc- 

 tioning authority; part of its function is to specialize in the kind of 

 knowledge and experience which enables it to prevent serious local 

 mistakes and wasteful expenditure; it is the supreme authority in 

 connection with the planning and development of land; its experts 

 hold public hearings in relation to most proposals affecting expendi- 

 ture by local authorities; it is the head of an extensive and uniform 

 audit of municipal accounts; it is the administrative body under the 

 public health acts and drafts all by-laws relating to streets, buildings, 

 fire prevention, etc.; it secures comparative uniformity of adminis- 

 tration or local improvements ; it examines all private bills relating to 

 municipal affairs and saves Parliament a great deal of time; it deals 

 with unemployment, old age pensions, the census, the fixing of ad- 

 ministrative areas of municipalities, etc., etc.* 



In England and Wales one department does the work for over 

 40,000,000 people; in some Canadian provinces, with a population 

 of a city, the same work is spread over a number of departments, 

 with resultant loss of efficiency. 



Reference is made to this central department because it is be- 

 lieved that one of the great needs in Canada, to secure the proper 



* See also "Local Government in Great Britain and Canada," by Thomas 

 Adams, Report of Ontario Commission on Unemployment, Appendix D. 



