632 KEPORT— 1882. 



to certain aspects, hitherto little regarded, of what is undoubfedly a difficult and 

 important subject, but one as to ■which, perhaps, we shall find, on examination, 

 that the difficulty and importance have been exaggerated, confused, and ob.^^cnred 

 by misleading conceptions and imperfect appreciation of its bearings. 



Many people, and those not always the best acquainted by experience with the 

 workmg of our local institutions, have committed themselves a little hastily to a 

 condemnation of the chaotic condition and nuschievous working of the existing 

 system ; and these are just the class of thinkers who, from the bias of their minds, 

 are impatient of anything short of scientific rearrangement and completeness, the 

 bureaucrats of a centralising government, or the fanatics of political philosophy. 

 The urgent need of a ' root and branch ' change, again, has been exaggerated by 

 the jealousies and rivalries of political partisans. 



In singular contrast with these it is interesting and profitable to notice how 

 little the local authorities who are engaged in the administration of the rates, or 

 the ratepayers themselves, have responded to the attempts which have been made 

 from time to time, and particularly of late years, to get political capital out of 

 these questions. Common sense and practical knowledge teach them to mistrust 

 platform oratory on such humdrum subjects, which attract little real interest 

 amongst politicians ; while the)' know from their own experience that many of the 

 complaints (not all) are beside the mark, and instinctively feel that some of the re- 

 medies proposed may turn out worse for their interests than the evils complained of. 



Ambiguous language in this, as in many other things, is the cause of a number 

 of current fallacies. Local government means quite a different thing as applied to, 

 firstly, rural, secondly, semi-rural, and thirdly to urban communities ; but this is 

 forgotten in the eagerness for uniformity and simplicity of system. The genius, 

 however, of the English people is not favourable to a highly scientific organisation 

 like that of the French, who have much more of the form, with less of the reality, 

 of local self-government than is to be found in this country ; and even in France it 

 required no less formidable an instrument than the great Eevolution to obliterate 

 the old names and landmarks which had prevailed during the monarchy. The 

 demand for mimicipal government in our counties, which is derived, perhaps, 

 from the present French system, involves the fallacious assumption that the sort of 

 administration which is needed for towns is required, or even possible, in rural 

 districts. 



If we find a thorough system of municipal government established for cities 

 and towns, and provisions of law in constant and useful operation for the 

 gradual introduction of the same into growing or inchoate urban communities, 

 (which is really the case), it may fairly be argued that tlie rural and scattered 

 population of the counties, whatever may be needed in the way of improved 

 representation on their governing bodies, do not really require, and are not, in fact, 

 in a position to profit from such local government as is primarily adapted to the 

 wants of towns and cities, and such as is within their reach as and when the want 

 of them is experienced. 



As population increases in compactness and wealth it begins, of course, to 

 require municipal government for many purposes apart from the primary objects 

 of police supervision and the maintenance of order. The householders in common 

 council together find they can provide better and more cheapl}' through such 

 means for their common health and wealth, for the cleanliness and convenience of 

 their dwellings, and for the luxuries which rapidly become the necessities of town 

 life, such as water-supply, lighting and scavengering of streets, sewerage, building 

 regulation, fire-prevention, &c. These are objects which householders in rural 

 districts must provide separately for themselves. Common to both are (1) police 

 supervision, in so far as that service is borne or assisted by local taxation and 

 management ; (2) road repair, though of a less expensive sort in rural districts ; 

 and, (3) above all, the poor law administration, which forms the real difficulty in har- 

 monising local government for town and country, and which stands in the way of 

 those who fancy it easy to reconcile conflicting or intermixed local government 

 areas. 



The Poor Law system, as we now know and have experience of it, was forced 



