The Municipality of Georgetown. 229 



The Mayor and Town Council have had a few occasional " brushes " 

 with the Government during its career, outstanding amongst these being 

 that of 1839-40. when it was sought by special legislation to restrict cer- 

 tain rights and privileges conferred by the Ordinance of Incorporation ; 

 but on the petition of the Mayor and Town Council to the Crown, these 

 restrictions were disallowed by Her Majesty Queen Victoria by an Order 

 in Council issued on the 5th March, 1840, thereby " re-affirming the 

 "Chartered Eights and Privileges of the Corporation as granted by Her 

 " Majesty's predecessor King William IV." 



Again about the mid-seventies we find the Hon. W. A. G. Young, 

 Government Secretary, in the Court of Policy somewhat rudely threaten- 

 ing the powers of the creating authority to wipe out of existence the 

 thing created, if ever the necessity arose, with special application to the 

 Municipal Corporation ; and in or about the years 1902-03 under the 

 Swettenham-Ashmore Administration there were somewhat strained rela- 

 tions between the Government and the Town Council over the questions 

 of " subventions " and water rates, happily adjusted through arbitration 

 and wiser counsels of moderation. About the same time there was a 

 lawsuit between the Government and the Town Council in reference to 

 the possession of and title to the streets, dams and trenches of Charles- 

 town forming part of Le Repentir Estate : this was decided in favour 

 of the Mayor and Town Council by judgment of the Supreme Court. 

 Again at the present day the proposed legislation for the reconstruction 

 and reformation of the Council seems not unlike a repetition of the atti- 

 tude taken up by the Government on previous occasions. 



I admit that a fair representation of the Government on the Council. 

 as a large property-owner and taxpayer of the city, as well as that of 

 joint stock companies holding property and large commercial stakes in 

 the city, is a reasonable proposition and one tending to the extension of 

 the Council's dignity and influence for good in the community ; but any 

 attempt towards lessening the number of Councillors, or the representa- 

 tion of the several wards of the city, and taking away the powers of the 

 Council in the nomination and appointment of its chief executive officers 

 and the general management of its own affairs, seems to me but another 

 attempt to restrict the "Chartered Rights and Privileges of the Corpora- 

 tion," and as such should be resented, and resisted by petition to the 

 Crown, as was successfully done seventy five years ago. 



Curiously enough, Georgetown's chief structural improvements have 

 followed on disastrous fires : first that of Newtown in 1828, the district 

 being rebuilt under the very restrictive provisions of the Newtown Ordi- 

 nance of 1829, which in addition to special regulations governing the 

 erection of business premises, prohibited the establishment of spirit 

 shops, cooperages and other dangerous trades within the district. This 

 Ordinance was, amongst others, repealed by the present Town Council 

 Ordinance, No. 25 of 1898. Then we had the great Robbstown fire of 

 1864, burning out an area of over ten acres, followed two and there 



