TRAKSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 635 



which already are, to all intents and purposes, the municipalities of the rural 

 districts. 



How nearly the system thus sketched out a priori may be trougrlit into actual 

 working under the existing law and practice, can be illustrated very well and 

 appropriately by the state of things which prevails at this moment in the county 

 of Southampton. 



The twenty-five poor-law unions into which Hampshire was divided fifty years 

 ago, have been, with the exception of three or four parishes, only one of which is 

 of importance, brought within the county area. The magistrates with wise fore- 

 thought identified, many years ago, their own magisterial divisions with tho.se of 

 the poor law imions, and more recently they established, under the Acts of 1862 

 and 18G4, highway districts conterminous with the same administrative areas. 

 Quite recently the guardians of several of these unions have taken on themselves, 

 by a process permitted and encouraged imder recent legislation, the ofiice and 

 duties of highway authorities. We thus have, in the county of Hants, twenty- 

 five subordinate areas, completely exhaustive of the county map, the governing 

 bodies of which are poor law guardians, sanitary authorities, valuers and assessors 

 of real property, waywardens of the highways, supervisors of public vaccination 

 and of elementary education ; and they discharge these multifarious duties for the 

 ratepayers, to annual election by whom they owe their existence, and in the 

 general interests of the public, on whose behalf Parliament has imposed them. 



These representative governing bodies levy and expend for the purposes above- 

 mentioned a sum of about 300,000^. annually, which is equal to a rate of about 

 2s. 'id. in the pound on a ratable value of about two and a half millions. The 

 Court of Quarter Sessions, on the other hand, levies annuallj^ about 35,000^., in the 

 shape of county and police rates, in nearly equal moieties. In other words, the 

 ratepayers control directly about 2s. 8d. in the pound, while the magistrates expend 

 about 4d. under these two heads. But, of the monej'S levied for the county, apart 

 from the police, one-third goes to the payment of debt ; so that the other items of 

 expenditure, including a heavy contribution to the coSt of the main roads, is 

 covered by a rate of about 1-^d. in the pound. The ratepayer's grievance being thus 

 exhibited in its true proportions, the problem for solution becomes difficult in pro- 

 portion to its minuteness. On the one hand, it is undesirable to establish an electoral 

 machinery more important and extensive than in proportion to the duties which 

 have to be discharged; and, on the other hand, any attempt to add new obligations, 

 or to establish a centralised county authority, having a status and jurisdiction 

 paramount over the elective guardians, will be certain, as it becomes appreciated 

 in all its bearings, to excite jealousy and alarm amongst those whose grievances 

 it is presumably inteiided to redress. 



If I may venture, in conclusion, to draw a moral, it would be by way of caution 

 and advice to those who may be desirous of taking up this subject, to inform them- 

 selves exactly what alterations and improvements in our system of local areas and 

 administration are permissible under the existing law, and then to inquire why 

 they are so rarely effected. The fact is, that no such changes can be made without 

 touching vested money interests according as the effect will be to increase or diminish 

 the ratio of rateable value to pauperism ; and this difticulty is aga'ravated where 

 loans have been raised on the security of the rates. Besides this, the disturbance 

 of local institutions such as must accompanj^ departmental or legislative activity 

 is always unpopular; and unpopularity in these days enormously facilitates the 

 proceedings of the Parliamentary Obstructionist. The fate which has attended all 

 the endeavours hitherto made to reform county government bears melancholy testi- 

 mony to the influence of that formidable personage. 



It may be nseful to give a few figures in particular illustration of the sums 

 devoted to diflerent heads of expenditure in the comity of Hampshire, as regards 

 the union area and the county area respectively. 



