constituting the electoral areas-namely, 2, 41, 52. It appears to be as follows: Each electoral division is to contain as nearly as possible an equal number of electors, and such number, in the case of each county, will be considered the unit of population for that county. Each electoral division is to consist of entire county districts or combinations of entire county districts-that is to say, of whole towns, or whole rural sanitary districts, or combinations of such localities.

Each electoral division is to return one member only. Every borough having a single unit of population is to constitute a separate electoral division. Every borough having two or more units of population is to be divided into two or more electoral divisions. Every borough having a population of less than the required unit in amount will form part of some other electoral division. Such may be considered as the instructions of the Bill to the agents intended to parcel out the county. These agents are, for some reasons not intelligible at first, of two descriptions. The Local Government Board are to determine the number of members to be elected to the council, and, as a consequence, the county unit of population. They are next to determine the boroughs entitled to form an electoral division or more than one electoral division—a process which, as each electoral division is to return one member, will have the effect of fixing the number of borough members. The work of the Local Government Board is then concluded with respect to a county. The whole number of borough members is fixed; the boroughs are fixed which are to return county members and the number which each is to return. It follows as a consequence that the residue of members, after deducting the borough members, is to be returned by the rural districts-that is to say, by the whole county population, exclusive of the specified boroughs. Two more operations are required to complete the council arrangements-namely, to determine the boundaries of the rural divisions, and to determine, in the case of boroughs returning more than one member, the wards or urban electoral divisions. The rural part of this business is committed to the justices at quarter sessions; the urban boundaries of borough electoral divisions will be fixed by their municipal councils.

The scheme is so complicated that it can hardly be understood without an illustration. Take for example the county of Somersetan instance extremely favourable to the Bill, as it is an agricultural county, and raises none of the difficulties which counties such as Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire present. Somersetshire has a population of 469,109, and contains seven boroughs: Bath, pop. 51,814; Bridgwater, pop. 12,007; Chard, pop. 2,411; Glastonbury, pop. 3,719; Taunton, pop. 16,614; Wells, pop. 4,634; Yeovil, pop. 8,479. Assume that the Local Government Board assign to Somersetshire 100 members, the county unit of population will be about 4,600. The Local Government Board must now deter

mine the number of boroughs entitled to return members. Applying the above unit of population to the boroughs, it will be found that the borough members will be as follows: Bath, 11; Bridgwater, 2; Taunton, 3; Yeovil, 1; Wells, 1; total, 18. The other two boroughs not containing a unit of population will be merged in the counties. This leaves 100 members minus 18-that is to say, 82 members for the rural part of the county. The justices now step in, and divide the rural part of the county into 82 electoral divisions, consisting of groups of sanitary districts, each of which will be entitled to return one member. Bath, Bridgwater, and Taunton will also be divided into wards, each returning one member; but this division will be made by the municipal councils of the constituent boroughs.

This preference for boroughs over other towns will be productive of great injustice. For the purposes of the present Bill, boroughs have no claim whatever over local government districts or Improvement Act districts, and yet the two latter description of towns are not allowed to have any share of the urban representation. For example, reverting to Somersetshire, Weston-super-Mare, with a population of 12,882, has no separate representation, while Bridgwater, with a population of 12,007, is separately represented. A similar fate attends Frome, although it has a population of 9,376. Indeed a glance at any list of urban sanitary districts showing the population of the several towns will prove at once that no test but population can properly be adopted as the measure of the right of towns to be represented on the county council.

The county constituencies being settled, how are the members of the county council to be elected? This, as the Bill stands, can only be ascertained by the severest' study. The words of the Bill are:

Clause 2.-The council of a county and the members thereof shall be constituted and elected and conduct their proceedings in manner and be in the like position in all respects as the council of a borough divided into wards subject nevertheless to the provisions of this Act and in particular to the provisions mentioned in the clause.

This reference incorporates sections 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 22 (23, 24?), 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, of the Municipal Corporations Act of 1882, with the variations mentioned in Clause 2 of the Bill. The result would seem to be as follows: The council will consist of a chairman, elected councillors, and selected councillors. The elected councillors form the nucleus of the body.

The qualification of a councillor is found in section II. of the Municipal Corporations Act 1882, which, as amended by the Bill, provides that a person shall not be entitled to be a councillor unless he (a) is enrolled and entitled to be enrolled as a burgess, or registered or entitled to be registered as a county elector; or (b) being entitled to be so enrolled or registered in all respects except that of residence, is resident beyond seven miles but within fifteen miles of the county,

and is entered in the separate non-resident list directed to be made in pursuance of Act of Parliament; and (c) in either of those cases, is seised or possessed of real or personal property or both, to the value or amount, in the case of a county having four or more electoral divisions, of one thousand pounds, and in the case of any other county of five hundred pounds, or is rated to the poor rate in the county, in the case of a county having four or more electoral divisions, on the annual value of thirty pounds, and in the case of any other county of fifteen pounds.

Provided, that every person shall be qualified to be elected and to be a councillor who is, at the time of election, qualified to elect to the office of councillor; which last-mentioned qualification for being elected shall be alternative for and shall not repeal or take away any other qualification.

But if a person qualified under the last foregoing proviso ceases for six months to reside in the county, he shall cease to be qualified under that proviso, and his office shall become vacant, unless he was at the time of his election and continues to be qualified in some other manner.

A councillor will be disqualified according to section 12, if and while he (a) is an elective auditor or a revising assessor, or holds any office or place of profit, other than that of chairman, in the gift or disposal of the council; or (b) is in holy orders, or the regular minister of a dissenting congregation; or (c) has directly or indirectly, by himself or his partner, any share or interest in any contract or employment with, by, or on behalf of the council.

But a councillor will not be so disqualified, or be deemed to have any share or interest in such a contract or employment, by reason only of his having any share or interest in (a) any lease, sale, or purchase of land, or any agreement for the same; or (b) any agreement for the loan of money, or any security for the payment of money only; or (c) any newspaper in which any advertisement relating to the affairs of the county or council is inserted; or (d) any company which contracts with the council for lighting or supplying with water or insuring against fire any part of the county; or (e) any railway company, or any company incorporated by Act of Parliament or Royal charter, or under the Companies Act, 1862.

The term of office of a councillor will be three years.

The selected councillors shall be fit persons elected by the council.

The number of selected councillors will be one-third of the number of councillors.

A person will not be qualified to be elected or to be a selected councillor unless he is a councillor or qualified to be a councillor.

If a councillor is elected to, and accepts, the office of selected councillor, he vacates his office of councillor.

The term of office of selected councillor shall be six years.

On the ordinary day of election of selected councillors in every third year one half of the whole number of selected councillors shall go out of office, and their places shall be filled by election.

The half to go out shall be those who have been selected councillors for the longest time without re-election.

The chairman must be a fit person elected by the council from among the selected councillors, councillors, or persons qualified to be such.

An outgoing selected councillor is eligible.

The term of office of the chairman will be one year, but he will continue in office until his successor has accepted office and made and subscribed the required declaration.

He may receive such remuneration as the council think reasonable. He will, with certain exceptions in relation to county justices, have precedence in all places in the county.

The chairman may appoint a deputy.

Clauses 42, 43 and 44 of the Bill give the constitution of the rural and urban district councils.

A rural district is governed in all respects as if it were a county, the council being elected in the same manner and with the same reference to the Municipal Corporations Act, with this inexplicable difference, that one-third of the district councillors retire each year: and with the same absurdity of apparently making the chairman of the district council have precedence in his own district, not only over the lord lieutenant and sheriff, but over the chairman of the county council itself. The urban districts, if boroughs, will be governed by their councils; improvement commissioners and local boards will be superseded by district councils.

One word, before passing away from the county and district areas, on the form of the Bill. The establishment of the county and district areas and the constitution of the county and district authorities by incorporating certain clauses of the Municipal Corporations Act, instead of setting out the provisions at length, are alike inconvenient and deceptive. It is inconvenient to the reader, because it requires him to adjust in his mind a long and complicated series of enactments to a different set of circumstances. It is inconvenient in a parliamentary sense, because it renders it impossible to move amendments in an intelligible form. It is deceptive, because it disguises the real character of the new institutions by a general reference which conveys no intimation whatever of their nature.

For example, who would discover without minute investigation that as soon as the Bill is passed into an Act a person in holy orders or the regular minister of a dissenting congregation is disqualified from being elected as a councillor either on a county or district council? Yet this follows from the fact that a person holding such an office is disqualified from being a municipal councillor. It will

be said that incorporation of enactments is the fashion at the present moment and shortens and simplifies Bills. Undoubtedly incorporation is right or wrong according to circumstances: it is right if it merely refers to well-known procedure, such as the sections of the Summary Jurisdiction Act; it is wrong if it evades direct enactments, each of which may very properly form the subject of amendment, by substituting a reference to an Act no part of which is brought under the notice of Parliament.

Having established as primary authorities the county council and the municipal councils of boroughs made co-ordinate with counties, and as secondary authorities the county urban districts and the county rural districts, the Bill distributes between these authorities the whole mass of local government powers, with the exception of the poor-law and school-board powers, which are left outstanding. To state these powers in detail is impracticable, but speaking generally the county council takes

1. County police.

2. Main roads.

3. The powers of the justices, both in and out of quarter sessions, in relation to licences for the sale of intoxicating liquors.

4. The general administrative powers of the justices in quarter

sessions.

5. The special administrative powers in relation to carrying into effect various Acts of Parliament-e.g. Cattle-plague Acts-and vested in counties and quarter-sessions boroughs.

6. The exercise of certain central powers now exercised by government departments.

7. The administration and distribution of subventions out of national funds, and the proceeds of certain taxes made over to the county council.

The urban district council takes

1. Town improvements and urban powers.

2. Inspection and prevention of nuisances.

3. Sewerage and drainage and highway powers.

4. Gas and water supply, and the parochial powers relating to the establishment of public libraries, and the execution of Acts the execution of which is vested in the parish.

5. Certain licensing powers.

Rural district councils take the powers 2, 3, 4, 5, with the exclusion of gas supply.

The scheme relating to the police seems to be as follows (clauses 3, 7, 29, 35, 40):-Counties and boroughs with a population of 10,000 will be the only areas which retain a separate police force. All other police areas, however large or small, will be forthwith extinguished. This extinction extends to liberties such as the Isle of Ely and to combined police districts. The police thus VOL. XXIII.-No. 135.

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