Local government and taxation

Front matter

m'

P.

DATE DUE

Preface

In order to fall in with the plan of the Series,

it has been decided not to encumber this volume

with references or quotations. But it has not

-.been intended to take, without acknowledgment,

the fruit of other men's labour. For the basis of

their work, the authors have taken the invaluable

memoranda upon Local Government and Taxation

drawn up by Messrs. Wright and Hobhouse in

1884. They have derived much useful information

from Mr. Goschen's reports and speeches on Local

Taxation ; from the Cobden Club series of essays

upon Local Government and Taxation ; from Mr.

Chalmers' work on Local Government in the

"English Citizen" series; and from various papers

by Major Craigie, well known as one of the chief

authorities upon these subjects. Without the assist-

10 PREFACE.

ance thus obtained, they could not have framed any brief or simple statement from the very numerous and very lengthy statutes and parliamentary papers , relating to Local Government and Taxation.

Contents

PArE

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS . - - 13

Part I. Local Government And Taxatlon As ,_

ri-IEY ARE. '^^

Chapter I. The County And Its Authority - 21

,, II. THE SMALLER ADMINISTRATIVE AREAS

AND THEIR AUTHORITIES 34

,, III. FUNCTIONS OF THE AUTHORITIES OF SMALLER ADMINISTRATIVE AREAS 52

,, IV. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS UPON THE

SMALLER ADMINISTRATIVE AREAS AND THEIR AUTHORITIES - - 63

„ V. LOCAL FINANCE - - "70

Part II. Local Government And Taxation As They Ought To Be

CHAPTER I. CONSOLIDATION OF THE SMALLER

ADMINISTRATIVE AREAS, AND OF

THEIR AUTHORITIES - - - 99

,, II. THE COUNTY BOARD III

,, III. THE REFORM OF LOCAL FINANCE - 121

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

AND

TAXATION.

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS.

BEFORE entering in detail on the subjects of Local Government and Taxation, it seems advisable to state exactly their limits as discussed in this volume. County Government is often understood to mean the government of counties, as distinguished from the government of the smaller areas which have been marked out for purposes of local administration. We all know that counties have their own organization ; that in each there is a county authority which levies a county rate for county purposes ; and that the proposed remodelling of this authority has, for a quarter of a century back, excited a great deal of interest. But the relation in which the county and its authority stand to the smaller areas and their respective authorities, is such that the one cannot be understood apart from the other. The County, no less than the Union, or the Municipal Borough, is a member in the frame of local government ; and out of connection with them and with the other members its real significance cannot be understood. And if the organisation of the county cannot be understood by itself, still less can it be improved by itself. Any comprehension, and, still more, any improvement of local administration, must be of local administration as a whole.

Almost all the failings of the local administration may be traced back to the mode in which it has grown up. Throughout the present century new social wants have been multiplying. Whenever a particular want became so clamorous that it could no longer be ignored, the Legislature provided for it as if it were the only want of society. For almost every new administrative function the Legislature has provided a new area containing a new constituency, who by a new method of election choose candidates who satisfy a new qualification, to sit upon a new board, during a new term, to levy a new rate, and to spend a good deal of the new revenues in paying new officers and erecting new buildings. Thus there has been created, not a system but a chaos ; a chaos of areas, a chaos of elections, a chaos of authorities, a chaos of rates, a chaos of returns. This chaos cannot be accurately depicted by any expert without a tediousness and complexity of description which would repel any inquirer. Yet to abate this chaos is a matter of real and momentous interest to every

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 15

ratepayer and to every inhabitant of the kingdom. Government is only the highest form of business ; and, as in every other form of business, so in government, the absence of unity, simplicity, method, and constant intelligent control by the persons interested, means weakness, indolence, extravagance, and, very often, dishonesty on the part of their agents. Our local administration has proved no exception to this rule. It lays heavy burdens upon the ratepayers, who content themselves with murmuring in a useless, undignified fashion. It often does, and often does not, make a considerable return for the impositions which it levies. But, in the one case, unrequited public servants labour for a constituency which hardly understands what they are doing. In the other case, unconvicted culprits waste at pleasure the resources of a people too busy to mind its own business.

The only way to amend our local administration is to simplify it. It cannot be simplified by any one who has not taken a comprehensive view of its present state, as well as of the needs which it ought to satisfy. Thus, no useful account of County Government and Taxation is possible apart from an account of the entire system of local administration in England and Wales. There is only one exception to this statement, and that exception is furnished by the Capital. London is so vast a city that its administration would afford superfluity of material for another volume of this series. London has its peculiar problems, its peculiar resources, its i6 LOCAL ADMINISTRATION.

peculiar and admirable abuses and absurdities in administration. Some of the bodies which take part in the local government of London are of types common in other places ; others are of types perfectly unique. The School Board for London is one of many school boards ; the Metropolitan Unions are of kin to Unions elsewhere. On the other hand, the Corporation of the City of London is the last Municipal Corporation which has escaped reform ; and the Metropolitan Board of Works and Metropolitan Asylums Board are wholly exceptional bodies. Thus an account of local government and taxation in the rest of England could not fail to mislead, if taken as an account of local government and taxation in London also.

Again, for those who turn from the present to the future, the same distinction recurs. The reform of local administration cannot proceed upon quite the same lines in London and in the Provinces. Suggestions for improvement in the counties may not admit of application to London ; and suggestions for improvement in London will have still less application to the counties. The government and taxation of London are subjects beyond the scope of this volume. They will not be dealt with here, although incidentally statements made here may have application to them.

The plan of this volume may be briefly stated. The first part will deal with local administration as now existing. It will begin with a brief description of the government of the county. It will then review the

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 17

smaller administrative areas, the authorities which severally preside over each, and the distribution of administrative duties between them. It will conclude with a sketch of the present condition of local finance, the natural and necessary result of the present condition of local government. This survey of the' actual state of affairs will suggest some ideas for its amelioration, which will be stated in the second part.

The second part will begin by indicating the principles upon which the smaller areas and their authorities may be consolidated. This consolidation will supply a solid basis for the reconstruction of county government. How the county government may best be remodelled, and how its functions may most usefully be enlarged, will be the next subject of inquiry. A few remarks upon the reform of local finance will naturally follow upon what has been said respecting the reform of local government, and will conclude the volume.

It should be added that this volume does not profess to deal with local administration elsewhere than in England and Wales. To treat of local self-government in Ireland would require a volume. Local institutions in Scotland have a character of their own. Most of the principles here laid down are, notwithstanding, applicable to both of the sister kingdoms.

PART I,

LOCAL GOVERNMENT. AS IT IS.

CHAPTER I.

THE COUNTY AND THE JUSTICES FOR THE COUNTY.

Over, and above the counties of England and Wales, properly so called, the Isle of Ely, the Liberties of Peterborough, Ripon, Cawood, and Haverfordwest, as well as eighteen boroughs described as counties of cities, or counties of towns, are for many purposes treated as separate counties. Setting these aside for the present, we find that the county proper varies very much in size and population. Its boundaries are intersected by the boundaries of every other area — excepting the Petty-Sessional division, at present in use for the business of local administration. Its boundaries harmonize with the boundaries of the Petty-Sessional division merely because the latter is a subdivision of the county, made by the county authority. The Pett}-- Sessional divisions are marked out by the justices in quarter sessions for a fixed term of years ; for ten years in the case of a general division of the county, and for twenty-one years in the case of a division made specially for any one part of the county. A Petty-Sessional division may consist of any number of parishes or parts of parishes. But at least five justices must reside within its bounds at the time of its formation. Its uses will be hereafter explained.

The area and organization of the county are used for Imperial as well as for Local purposes. Thus they ^re used for the maintenance of the Queen's peace, for the militia, for the local administration of justice, and for parliamentary representation. The sheriff and lord-lieutenant are officers, not of the Local, but of the Imperial government. But the local government of the county is entirely in the hands of the justices. The justices are chosen by the Crown from the persons recommended by the lord-lieutenant. Their property qualification may be either an estate in possession of ^100 a year, or an estate in reversion of ^300 a year, or two years' assessment to the inhabited house duty at /'loo a year. A justice is always a justice of the whole county, and may lawfully exercise his authority anywhere within its limits. Every justice is entitled to appear in general or quarter sessions, and in such sessions he acts for the county at large. But on all other occasions he acts only in his own petty-sessional division. Any two or more justices acting in their own division constitute a petty sessions. A petty sessions summoned by special notice to all the members of the petty-sessional division constitutes a special sessions. In the discharge of their administrative duties the justices in quarter sessions have the help of a county treasurer, surveyor, and other officers.

The principal functions of local administration entrusted to the justices of the county concern county bridges and main roads, the maintenance of shire halls and other county buildings, the county police, the county asylums, the granting of licenses, the execution of various Acts of Parliament, such as the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act, and the control, by way of appeal, or otherwise, of various minor local authorities. Let us take these duties one by one.

I. As to Bridges and Highways. At common law the inhabitants of a county at large are originally liable to repair all public bridges in the county. But by usage, prescription, or ancient tenure, this duty may be cast upon a hundred, parish, township, or individual. The obligation laid by common law upon the county has been confirmed by statute, and not only the bridge, but also the approaches thereto, if the bridge was built before 1836, are to be repaired by the county. In the case of bridges built since 1836, the maintenance of the approaches and of the roadway supported by the bridge are in the province of the highway authority. With respect to main roads, the duty laid upon the county authority is of very recent date.' Great hardships have in our own time arisen from the disappearance of turnpike trusts, and the consequent transformation of turnpike roads into ordinary highways. Such highways are maintained by the highway authority, and in many instances the highway authority has the parish for its area. It has often happened that the burden of maintaining these roads fell on one set of persons, whilst the benefit of using them was enjoyed by another. Thus agricultural parishes often found themselves charged with the maintenance of highways leading to and from large towns or important railway stations. These parishes were unequal to the task, and many disturnpiked roads rapidly fell out of repair. Accordingly an Act of Parliament of 1878 created a new class of roads known as main roads, comprising all those which since 1870 had ceased to be turnpike roads, and all those which, on the application of a highway authority, the county authority declares to be main roads. "Main roads" are kept up by the highway authority, but the county authority, on a certificate of the county surveyor, contributes one-half of the expense. Such is our clumsy method of patching undeniable rents in the web of local administration.

The county authority further possesses a general power of control over highways. Should a highway authority fail to maintain in good order the roads within its jurisdiction, the county authority can order it to fulfil its duty. Should it persevere in disobedience, the county authority may do the work and charge* the cost upon the revenues of the highway authority. The county authority has also certain powers of making byelaws for the better regulation of the trafiic on highways.

II. The maintenance of Shire Halls and other County

Buildings. But this is not a function so important as to deserve any detailed notice in an elementary sketch of county government.

III. The County Police, which forms only apart of the general police organization. The borough police, the canal and river police, and the special constable, will be noticed hereafter. For police purposes the county includes liberties (with one or two exceptions, such as Peterborough), but excludes all municipal boroughs in which a separate force has been established. The county in this sense further excludes certain special jurisdictions. Detached fragments of a county are merged in the county in which they lie. Adjoining counties may adjust their boundaries so as to include in one area the whole of any divided town or place, or in order to obviate the bad effect of other irregularities. Thus, the county, for purposes of police, may well be different from the county for all other purposes.

The police force of a county consists of a number of superintendents, officers, and men fixed by the quarter sessions. The quarter sessions appoint a chief constable, who is entrusted with the direction, control, appointment, and dismissal of the superintendents, inferior officers, and privates. The superintendents report periodically to the petty sessions, as does the chief constable to the quarter sessions. But in respect of their police jurisdiction, the quarter sessions are subject to the control of the Secretary of State. His consent or approval is necessary in fixing or altering the number of men and officers in the county force, in the selection of the chief constable, in establishing rules of discipline, in determining scales of fees and allowances, in constituting districts, and in assigning items to the district expenditure. He, too, appoints inspectors, who report to him, and on whose certificate depends the grant of a subvention from the Treasury.

IV. For the purposes of the Lunacy Acts, the county again is not the only area. The area of the borough is also used, although most boroughs are merged in their respective counties. Again, the county itself is not for the Lunacy Acts the same area which it is for other purposes. Thus, for these Acts, every riding or division of a county is alike reckoned as a separate county. So, likewise, is every county of a city or county of a town which has a separate court of quarter sessions. In one instance three counties have combined to provide for the accommodation of their lunatics. The acting authority in lunacy is a committee of visitors appointed by the justices. If any area has more than one asylum it must have a separate committee of visitors for each. Minute provisions have been made for the combination of lunacy authorities with each other or with private undertakers. The combined authorities appoint a joint committee of visitors, and the joint committee ma}-, with the consent of the Secretary of State, dissolve the combination. The Lunacy Commissioners in all instances possess large powers of regulation and of supervision.

V. For the purpose of granting licenses both the borough and the county are separate areas. The county, for this purpose, includes all boroughs which have no separate commission of the peace. The justices in quarter or in special sessions are the licensing authority for the sale of intoxicating liquors. The justices of each petty-sessional division hold once a year a general meeting for the grant of new, and the renewal or removal of old licenses. They likewise meet in special sessions several times a year to sanction, when necessary, the transfer of existing licenses. New licenses and orders sanctioning removals have to be confirmed by the county licensing committee appointed by the justices in quarter sessions. The quarter sessions also hear appeals against refusals to renew or transfer licenses, even when such appeals are from decisions of the justices of a borough.

Liberties with separate quarter sessions are counties for the purpose of licensing, but appeals lie alternatively to the quarter sessions of the liberty, or to the quarter sessions of the adjoining county.

Licenses for billiards are granted, renewed, and transferred in the same way as licenses to sell intoxicating liquors ; but they do not require confirmation. Licenses of buildings for the performance of stage plays are granted in counties by the justices of the petty sessional division. The justices must, on application, hold a special sessions for this purpose, and they may make regulations to secure order and decency in theatres.

Such regulations must be approved by the Secretary of State. Finally, places for music and dancing situate within twenty miles of London and Westminster must be licensed by the justices in quarter sessions.

A varisty of licenses for purposes other than those of entertainment — such as licenses for knackers' premises, for dealing in game, for keeping explosives or petroleum, or for acting as a pawnbroker, a passage broker, or an agricultural gang-master — must all be obtained from the justices in special or petty sessions.

VI. The enforcement in each county of various Acts of Parliament is specially entrusted to the justices. Thus, under the Weights and Measures Act of 1878, the quarter sessions are charged with providing local standards of weight and measure, and means for verifying weights and measures by comparison with these standards. The quarter sessions also appoint inspectors of measures and weights, mark out their districts, and regulate their proceedings. So, too, under Acts intended to prevent the adulteration of food and drugs, the quarter sessions may appoint public analysts. Under the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act the quarter sessions appoints paid inspectors, and exercises a large discretion in the isolation or slaughter of animals suffering from disease or threatened with infection.

VII. The Justices in special or petty sessions discharge various other administrative duties, appointing overseers of the poor, revising jury lists, allowing rates.

and so forth. Formerly the justices were entrusted with the duty of providing and maintaining prisons. But within the last few years this duty has been transferred to commissioners appointed by the Secretary of State. The quarter sessions still appoint out of their own number a visiting committee who inspect the prisons and report to the Home Office. The transfer of prisons in 1878 from the care of the local to that of the Imperial authority has been followed by a reduction in the number of prisons and in the charge for each prisoner, as well as by a greater uniformity of discipline.

One or two instances of the control which the justices of the county exercise over inferior authorities have already been mentioned. Other instances can 'most conveniently be noticed when those authorities come to be severally considered.

Such, then, with the exception of those relating to Finance, which will be considered later on, are the powers and duties of the County Government. But the reader is already in a position to estimate the real importance of existing county government. When he considers that the county is the largest, and if not the most ancient, at least the most famous subdivision of this realm ; when he considers that its administrators have been drawn almost exclusively from that class which for many generations has been incomparably the most powerful in rural England, he may be inclined to wonder that the county has so small a political or administrative significance, that the county government has not drawn to itself more authority. He finds that, apart from delegated duties of an Imperial character, the only weighty function of county government is the granting of licenses to sell liquor. If he compares these functions with the functions of providing for the public health, for elementary education, or for the relief of the poor, he will at once perceive that the stress of local administration does not fall upon the justices in quarter sessions or in petty sessions ; that they have not to encounter the most serious problems, or to incur the heaviest expenses of administration. Their tasks are slight, and do not vex the natural tranquillity of rural life.

Such, however, as are the duties of the county government, they have been honestly and decently performed. A reformer of local government would be in the wrong to rail at the country gentleman. The country gentleman, born to rank and wealth which left him in no way dependent for his well-being upon an energetic administration, and which conferred a dignity beyond that of administrative promotion, was not likely to be a very alert or indefatigable ruler. But he has been remarkably frugal, and, on the whole, disinterested. If it may be said, on the one hand, that the county justices have not equalled the skill, the energy, and the public spirit of our best town councils, on the other hand it must be allowed that they have not rivalled the profligate wastefulness and dense incapacity of many obscure administrative bodies. They have not often perpetrated the grosser kind of jobs ; they have imposed no heavy taxes ; they have incurred no considerable debt. Were an elective board to succeed this instant to the powers of the quarter sessions, it would in all likelihood expend much more than its predecessors have ever expended, and by no economy possible to any existing public body could it expend much less.

But then, it may be asked, if the present county government has little to do, and does that little fairly well, why should we meddle with it ? The answer is twofold.

On the one hand, the county government ought to do a great deal, and any large or comprehensive reform of local administration miist throw a great deal of new work upon the county government. Those who are not prepared to carry out a comprehensive reform should let county government alone. Another board added to the Babel of boards could do little good, and would assert itself chiefly in levying new rates. When, however, the lesser areas of administration have been consolidated ; when each of the lesser areas has been confided to one, and only one, authority ; when municipal business has everywhere been made interesting and intelligible ; when municipal spirit has everywhere been awakened, then there will be room for a vigorous and popular county government, eager to use the strength which its constituents are ready to supply, able to supervise inferior authorities, and to take over all really local business from the over-tasked Imperial administration and the paralysed Imperial Parliament.

On the other hand, a county government which is to fill its proper place in the national organization, must necessarily be elective. That the county should be governed by nominees of the Crown and members of one class has long been felt to be anomalous. This anomaly will be felt more and more keenly as democratic ideas become more and more diffused. The continuance of this anomaly makes it impossible to enlarge the functions of the present county government. That government has been able to endure so long chiefly because it did so little. If we want a county government which is to do a great deal it must be directly representative. A county government at once representative and powerful might do something to awaken a feeling almost extinct in the mind of the English farmer, and altogether extinct in the mind of the English peasant — ^that sense of communal and provincial life which sustains and invigorates national patriotism, and reminds each member of an ancient, a famous, and a mighty people, that he does not discharge every civic and social duty by sauntering up to . the polling place once in every five years.

Representative county government might indirectly give a fresh stimulus to the prosperity of our rural districts. Many instances might be adduced from the history of the Continent in our own century to show that self-government, local as well as national, develops an energy and intelligence which renovate industrial life. With us all rural industries have been for several years in a very depressed state. The misfortunes of the country people have been aggravated by a certain stiffness of mind, a lack of flexibility and of enterprise in adapting themselves to totally new conditions of agriculture. Any change which enriched them with new interests, strengthened their public spirit, raised them in their own opinion, and encouraged them to study their own affairs, would make them not only better citizens, but also better men of business. In this way a judicious reform of county government might make the farmer a more prosperous by making him a more capable man. It would certainly effect more in this way than in the way of reducing the county rate, now comparatively insignificant.

Chapter II. The Smaller Administrative Areas And Their Several Authorities

Organizations, other than that of the County, do by far the greater part of the work of local government. A single type may perhaps be discovered amid their variations ; but the type is faint, and the variations manifold, intricate, irrational, and vexatious beyond description. These variations rarely have the charm of antiquity, for almost all have grown up within the possible compass of a single human life. They have not the justification of usefulness, for they have not their root in clear or comprehensive principles of any kind. All the formal vices of English legislation, the unreasonable limitation, the bad drafting, the mangling which is called amendment, the hundreds of lengthy reported cases, often obscure, and sometimes conflicting, which is called elucidation, — all these are most abundantly illustrated in the Acts of Parliament artd judicial decisions which deal with the subject of this chapter. In the preface to his admirable little book upon "Local Government," Mr. Chalmers tells us that there are about 650 Acts, or fragments of Acts, of general application to local affairs ; that these public Acts are supplemented by some thousands of local and special Acts, which apply to particular towns and districts, and accumulate at the rate of about sixty a year. After this the reader will learn with a sense of resignation that even the total number of local authorities cannot be clearly ascertained. The local taxation returns, last published, do not acknowledge the existence of much over 13,000 local authorities for England and Wales, but Mr. Chalmers, reckoning in all parish overseers, states the total of those which levy rates at upwards of 27,000. Such is the machinery judged needful for administering the local affairs of a country little more than one-fourth the size of France.

All that can be done, within the compass of this chapter, is to enumerate the principal administrative areas other than the county, stating what authority presides in each, and how it is constituted ; and then to show how the principal administrative duties are shared among these areas and authorities. The areas and authorities for local administration must be discussed apart from the matters locally administered. This may seem a forced distribution of the subject. But it is unavoidable. It is one of the unfortunate peculiarities of English local government that no regular apportionment of the several functions between the several authorities can be traced. It is necessary to distinguish under separate heads the needless multipli-

36 LOCAL ADMINLSTRATION.

cation of authorities which have to do the work, and the needless parcelling out of the work to be done.

Of areas and authorities some are to be found everywhere throughout England and Wales ; others are to be found scattered here and there over the kingdom. To the former class belong the poor law Parish and Union ; to the latter class belong the Municipal Borough, the Local Board district, the Improvement Act district, the Highway district, and others. For some purposes, and more especially in relation to the county, the parish and the union are more important because they are universal. Moreover, they stand in close relation to one another. They are, therefore, entitled to come first in a general survey.

The history of the Parish affords an excellent illustration of the way in which our local institutions have grown up. Most Englishmen have heard of the parish church, or of " coming upon the parish," but they are seldom aware that there are at least five varieties of the parish. Long before the Norman Conquest the land had been divided into hundreds, and the hundreds into townships. The Township was the social and political unit of Anglo-Saxon England. It had a popular government of its own ; its members held regular assemblies, and sent representatives to the courts of the hundred and the county. Under an elected tything man or head borough, it was organized for the maintenance of the peace.