in the Public Health Act, 1875, and some other Acts for the creation of such boards for some purposes, but they are often created specially by the Act which authorises the undertaking they are to carry on. The joint board usually raises the capital for the undertaking, but in some cases this is raised by the constituent authorities and handed over by them to the joint board.

Where local authorities of adjoining areas find it useful to carry on an undertaking in common and have uniform powers for the establishment of such an undertaking they sometimes exercise the powers, so far as administration is concerned, through a joint committee, without incorporating a joint board. In such a case the property in the undertaking is vested in the separate authorities and all funds are provided by them in agreed shares, there being no joint corporate body to own property or raise capital.

Besides joint boards there are other specially constituted authorities such as bodies of public commissioners or trustees, usually incorporated, but occasionally unincorporate, who may be appointed in all sorts of different ways and representative of all sorts of different interests. They may be elected by ordinary public election or by electors under some special class of franchise, such as payers of harbour dues, or they may be nominated by public authorities, government departments, officials, companies, owners of particular properties, or other persons. An Act called the Commissioners Clauses Act, 1847, has been passed which can be incorporated, either wholly or in part and subject to any variations, in a special Act creating such a commission or trust. It provides a code of detailed procedure for the election, meetings, acts, and proceedings of the commissioners. Where the commissioners are not incorporated they can act in such matters as conveying land by two of their number authorised for the purpose by a meeting of the whole body; and they can act in legal proceedings either in that way or by their clerk.

As regards companies acting as undertakers, these may be either constituted by law specially for the purpose of carrying on the particular undertaking, or may be formed

under the procedure laid down in the general Companies Acts. A public service company is usually confined to a single undertaking, but in some cases a single company obtains powers to carry on different undertakings in different places.

There are still three more cases, at any rate, which may be distinguished; for you may have an undertaking carried on in common by two or more companies, who own the property and provide the funds in agreed shares, while they conduct the administration by means of a joint committee composed of directors from each company and without the establishment of a joint corporate body. You may also have a joint committee representing two or more companies, but itself formed into a separate corporate body. Further, you may have an undertaking leased under statutory authority to a company or other body different from the authorised undertakers.

Method of Establishment and Regulation.-The next matter to consider, in obtaining a preliminary view of the public service undertakings, is the method by which they are established and regulated.

SPECIAL ACTS.-This brings us at once to Private Bill Procedure, an important element in the constitutional machinery of this country. It has been the practice since long distant times for the British Parliament to apply itself not merely to legislation of a general character affecting the people at large, but also to legislation of a more or less personal or local character, in which the country as a whole may have comparatively little interest, or even none at all. Taking the procedure as it exists to-day we have Local and Personal Acts, or Private Acts, as they are more commonly called, passed at the instance of particular parties who petition Parliament for leave to introduce the Bills and take the responsibility of promoting them during their passage through Parliament. Bills of this kind, affecting, as they do, particular interests, are treated very much as if they represented legal suits between parties as well as applications for the enactment of laws by a legislative authority. Public advertisements have to be issued before

deposit of the Bill in order to apprise parties whose interests may be affected as to the nature of the forthcoming proposals for legislation. Times are prescribed for deposit of the Bills and for deposit of petitions objecting to them. In each House the Bill has to pass through the ordinary stages of first and second reading, report, and third reading, but the committee stage takes place, not in the full House or before a large standing committee, as in the case of a public Bill, but before a small committee selected under special procedure and enjoined to act with strict impartiality. This committee hears the promoters of the Bill and also any parties who have petitioned against the Bill and desire to press their objections, and are interested in the subjectmatter of the Bill to an extent sufficient, according to the practice of Parliament, to give them a locus standi. The hearing given is very similar to that accorded by a court of justice to plaintiff and defendant in an action. Upon the evidence and arguments submitted to it the committee decides both as to whether the main principles underlying the Bill should be approved or disapproved and, in case of approval, whether the details worked out in the clauses of the Bill should be accepted or amended. There is a whole code of standing orders for each House of Parliament under which the procedure to be followed by promoters and petitioners and select committees in reference to these Private Bills is carefully elaborated in order to ensure full disclosure and examination of facts and the fair trial of the issues arising,

By Private Acts passed in this way public service undertakings are for the most part established and regulated, and it is a form of procedure eminently suited to the purpose, for not only does it secure a thorough investigation of the particular circumstances of each case and adjudication upon conflicting claims and points of difficulty by well qualified tribunals, but it affords the opportunity for ensuring that the real needs of each case shall be met in whatever way may be most appropriate under the particular circumstances, for it gives the force of law to the arrangements and decisions arrived at.

CLAUSES ACTS.-It will readily be understood that the provisions requiring to be inserted in Acts of this kind are often of a voluminous character. Take the common case of the constitution of a company or other corporate body, the granting to it of authority to construct and maintain certain specific works and the general powers necessary for enabling it to carry on some public undertaking and discharge the various functions appropriate in that connection. There will of course be an immense number of matters to regulate and provide for, such as the internal administration of the company, the provision of capital and distribution of profits, the acquisition of land, the payment of compensation and granting of other protection to parties whose property or interests are likely to be injured. In earlier times the Acts were commonly much longer than they are at the present day for, by the passing of certain General Acts known as Clauses Acts, large groups of sections, which used to be repeated in much the same form in Act after Act, can now be adopted and applied en bloc subject to any variations necessary to meet particular cases. The principal Acts of this kind are the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845, the Railways Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845, the Companies Clauses Consolidation Act, 1845, the Commissioners Clauses Act, 1847, the Harbours, Docks and Piers Clauses Act, 1847, the Gasworks Clauses Act, 1847, the Waterworks Clauses Act, 1847, the Markets and Fairs Clauses Act, 1847, and the Cemeteries Clauses Act, 1847. Some of them have been amended and supplemented by Acts passed in later years. The Tramways Act, which is, in part, of a similar character, was passed in 1870. An Electric Lighting (Clauses) Act was added to the list in 1899.

PROVISIONAL ORDERS.-The necessity of obtaining Private Acts of Parliament in some cases that are of common occurrence has been obviated by the introduction of procedure by what are called Provisional Orders, that is to say, orders granted, after due inquiry, by an appropriate Government Department and confirmed by Parliament under a General Act introduced by the Department. The Bill for the Confirming Act is treated in Parliament in much the same way

as a Private Bill, and interested parties are allowed to deposit petitions against the Bill and appear before a Select Committee in opposition to the confirmation of the order. Full parliamentary control over the proposals of the promoters is thus reserved.

Powers can be obtained in this way, by provisional orders under the authority of general legislation, with respect to water supply, tramways, and some other purposes. With respect to gas and electricity the same procedure is authorised by general legislation, but is now superseded in practice by the "special order" procedure to be referred to later. Local authorities can also obtain Provisional Orders for certain purposes, including the compulsory acquisition of lands, subsidiary to the main purposes they are empowered to execute under the Public Health Acts.

LIGHT RAILWAY PROCEDURE.-The Light Railways Act, 1896, introduced a different form of procedure. A body of peripatetic Light Railway Commissioners was constituted with power to hold local inquiries and issue orders by which light railway (or tramway) undertakings were authorised, and these orders did not require confirmation by Act of Parliament but only by an Order of the Board of Trade. Now, by the Railways Act, 1921, this procedure has been changed. The Light Railway Commission has been abolished and the whole power of making the Light Railway Orders has been vested in the Minister of Transport.

SPECIAL ORDERS.-The war gave encouragement to the plan of entrusting government departments with the power of making orders affecting public service undertakings without confirmation by Act of Parliament. The rise in costs of production necessitated the grant of powers to increase the authorised charges to the public for the supply of gas, water, electricity and other services on such a wholesale basis as made it practically impossible for Parliament itself to grapple with the detailed business involved except at the risk of hopelessly clogging the parliamentary machine. General Acts were therefore passed giving power to government departments to adjust these difficulties temporarily by administrative orders. The fillip thus given to de