TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 633 



fifty years ago on the attention of Parliament and the puhlic by circumstances into 

 ■which we need not enter. Under it the fifty-two counties of England and Wales, 

 containing about 15,000 parishes, have been divided into about 650 unions. These 

 were marked out and settled in a somewhat bureaucratic and centralising spirit, no 

 doubt, but still with due regard to the essential object of convenient local adminis- 

 tration, a convenience which could not be found in symmetry with county areas. 

 County boundaries were, accordingly, disregarded to such an extent that fully one- 

 third of the unions overlap the borders of two, or even of three, counties. The 

 desired objects were, nevertheless, for the most part attained, and may be compre- 

 hensively stated under two heads : iirst, the interests of the poor — the possible 

 recipients of relief — as regards the accessibility of the workhouse; and secondly, 

 the interests of the ratepayers as regards economical management and equitable 

 grouping of parishes in proportion to their greater or less rateable value, and to their 

 more or less pauperised condition. 



To whatever criticism the mode in which these unions were laid out may be 

 open in detail, and although there is ample legal power for their alteration and 

 amendment, there can be no question but that they are so far stereotyped, as a 

 great national settlement, that they do not admit of comprehensive re-settlement : 

 not because of any difficulty in drawiug an area map of the kingdom on ditlerent 

 lines or principles, or with more regard to county and other local boundaries ; but 

 because the local interests which have grown up during half a century, and which 

 have been recognised by innumerable Acts of Parliament, are bound up with them, 

 and are of far greater importance actually, and still more from the point of view of 

 those locally interested, than any importance which can be quoted as attaching to 

 the coimty, or to central government considerations. 



Parliament has so far recognised this, and so far committed itself to the union as 

 the administrative area of the future as contradistinguished from the county, that it 

 has from time to time attached new functions to the guardians and new importar.ce 

 and value to the district within which they hold sway. Briefly, they are as follows : 

 1. Each union was composed originally of many parishes, which retained a certain 

 amount of independent action, and, in particular, the right and duty of the valuation 

 of property and its assessment to the local rates. These functions were transferred 

 to the guardians of the union by the Union Assessment Committee Acts. 2. Each 

 parish was originally made responsible for the cost of its own pauperism ; but, by 

 the Union Chargeability Act, not only was the expense spread equally, or, rather, 

 ratably, over the imion, but the management and control of the board of guardians 

 as a whole over the pauperism of the union became greatly more effective. 3. In 

 process of time, as the need for sanitary legislation became recognised, each union 

 was made a separate and complete administrative area for sanitary purposes, with 

 officers and machinery for carrying out the Public Health Act (which wisely dis- 

 criminates between the rural and urban districts as regards the stringency and 

 character of its provisions). 4. Each union has been more recently constituted 

 a centre of administration under the Education Act, and is charged with the im- 

 portant duty of enforcing compulsory attendance at elementary schools, and of 

 paying school fees for the poor under certain circumstances. Here, again, it may 

 be observed that Parliament has specially provided for the rural districts a machinery 

 different from that which is adapted to the populous places where the School Board 

 system may more properly prevail. 5. Each union has functions assigned to it 

 under the Registration Acts, and is charged with the important duty of enforcing 

 primary vaccination over the whole kingdom. 6. Lastly, by the 'legislation of 

 1877-8, the entire management of the highways of the rural districts has been 

 placed within the power of the guardians, and "the areas of highway management 

 may become identified with those of the poor law unions. 



It may fairly, therefore, be laid down, that local government for the rural 

 districts is actually or potentially provided by these means — that it is already too 

 stereotyped to be shifted without such a wrench as would be of revolutionary se- 

 verity, and too important, even if that were otherwise, to be subordinated or inter- 

 fered with for any practical or theoretical objects which have as yet been assigned 

 as a reason for the constitution of a system of county government. 



