guilds, mysteries, or trading companies therein, should keep a shop for merchandise, or use certain trades or occupations for gain within the same, the Act provided, that every person might in future keep any shop in the borough, and use every lawful trade and occupation therein, any such custom or by-laws notwithstanding (ƒ). These wholesome provisions (it need hardly be mentioned) are maintained by the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, which consolidates the previous statutes upon the subject. By the London Government Act of 1899 (62 & 63 Vict. c. 14), twenty-eight metropolitan boroughs have been created in substitution for the old vestries, boards, commissioners, etc. The general administrative powers of these boroughs are but little larger than those of the vestries which they have superseded, and are derived mainly from the Metropolis Management Acts, the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, and the Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890. The council of a metropolitan borough consists of a mayor, aldermen, and councillors, for which offices no woman is eligible. The number of aldermen ist one-sixth the number of councillors. Aldermen are elected by the councillors for six years, half of them going out of office every three years. The number of councillors may not exceed sixty. II. COUNTY COUNCILS. The principle of self-government which (as we have seen) is at the root of the municipal corporation, was extended from the borough to the county, by the Local Government Act, 1888 (51 & 52 Vict. c. 41); and at the same time the separation (already effected in boroughs) between justice and administration, was carried out in county government. Further, in order to work out more effectually the system which the Act has established, some material changes have been made in the law of municipal corporations, and the larger boroughs have been raised to the condition of "county boroughs." The Act of 1888 has established a representative council (called the county council) in every administrative county, and has entrusted to this new body a number of important functions (sect. 1). Thus, the Act has transferred to the county council all the administrative business of the justices of the county in quarter sessions assembled, in respect of all the matters enumerated in section 3, to which we shall revert later (g). The Act has also transferred to county councils the business of the justices of the county out of session, in respect of the licensing of stage plays, and the execution of the provisions of the Explosives Act, 1875 (sect. 7), but not any judicial business of the quarter sessions, or of the justices of the county as regards rating appeals, or, in fact, any judicial business whatever (sects. 8, 78). With regard to the county police, a compromise was adopted, and they have been placed under the joint control of the quarter sessions and the county council, such joint control being exercised through a standing joint committee (sect. 9). The county council, as we have said, is a representative body, and its constitution resembles, though it is not identical with, that of a municipal corporation. A county council election is conducted, in general, as in the case of the election of the council of a borough divided into wards; but the divisions of the county are called electoral divisions and not wards (sect. 2). In the case of boroughs returning one or more county councillors, the electors are the municipal burgesses enrolled in pursuance of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882; in the other parts of the administrative county they are the persons registered as county electors under the County Electors Act, 1888 (h). The date of the elections is now regulated by the County Councils (Elections) Act, 1891, which provides (g) P. 37. (h) 51 & 52 Vict. c. 10, s. 7. that they shall take place on the 8th day of March, or on some day between the 1st and 8th day of March, in every third year. A county council consists of a chairman, aldermen, and councillors (), the aldermen being called "county aldermen," and the councillors being called "county councillors." The council is a body corporate, by the name of the administrative county, with perpetual succession, a common seal, and power to hold lands without licence in mortmain (k) ; and the clerk of the peace for the county is made the clerk of the county council (). The chairman is elected by the council, and the aldermen are elected by the councillors. The aldermen, half of whom retire every three years, are elected by the councillors in the same way as under the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882 (m). County councillors are elected simultaneously for a term of three years; they retire and a new election takes place (n), as we have seen, in March instead of November. The Act is not wholly concerned with the constitution and functions of county councils. It also constitutes each of the boroughs named in the third schedule to the Act an administrative county of itself, these scheduled boroughs being such as had on the 1st June, 1888, a population of not less than 50,000. All such boroughs are distinguished. as "county boroughs," and their municipal councils have the powers of ordinary county councils (o). The Act constitutes the Metropolis an administrative county by the name of "the administrative county of (i) Women are not qualified for election to a county council; but clerks in holy orders and other ministers of religion are eligible either as aldermen or as councillors So, also, are peers qualified by owning property in the county, and all persons registered as parliamentary voters in respect of the ownership of property within the county. (Sect. 2.) (k) Local Government Act, 1888, s. 79. (It will be noticed that the inhabitants of a county are not incorporated like the burgesses of a borough.) (2) Local 1888, s. 83. Government Act, (m) Ibid. s. 75. London" (p). The London County Council is the successor of the Metropolitan Board of Works, and its administrative relations to the London boroughs (created out of the vestries in 1899 by the London Government Act of that year) resemble those which exist between an ordinary county council and an urban district council or non-county borough. For all non-administrative purposes the Act constitutes also a "county of London," consisting of those parts of the counties of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, which fall within the area of the administrative county of London. But the county of the city of London, for all non-administrative purposes, continues a separate county (2). The county councillors for the administrative county of London are double the number of members of parliament returned for the Metropolis, each borough (or division of a borough) being made an electoral division of the administrative county; and the number of county aldermen is not to exceed one-sixth of the whole number of county councillors (r). All the powers, duties, and liabilities of the Metropolitan Board of Works are transferred to the county council of the administrative county of London (s). Among these is the power of borrowing (t); and the powers formerly possessed by the Board have been largely (p) Act of 1888, s. 40. (q) Other administrative counties are made or recognized by the Act. Thus the Isle of Wight is separated from Hampshire. The three ridings of Yorkshire, the three divisions of Lincolnshire, the two divisions of Sussex, the two divisions of Suffolk, the two divisions of the county of Cambridge, and the two divisions of the county of Northampton are each made a separate administrative county; and (under the Yorkshire Coroners Act, 1897), the three ridings of Yorkshire are specifically made (r) Act of 1888, s. 40 (5). (t) See the Metropolitan Board of Works (Loans) Acts, 1869 to 1871, and the Metropolitan Board of Works (Money) Acts, 1875 to 1888. increased for the better execution of the onerous duties entrusted to the London County Council (u). The financial and administrative business of every county council includes () (among other less important matters) the making, assessing, and levying of county rates, police rates, and rates generally, and the application and expenditure of the money received on account of such rates, and from imperial grants in aid for certain local purposes; the borrowing of money and the passing of the accounts of the county treasurer; the control of elementary and higher education under the Education Act of 1902 (y); the provision, enlargement, maintenance, management, and visitation of pauper lunatic asylums, and of reformatory and industrial schools; the payment of compensation, payable formerly by the hundred or by the inhabitants of a county and now payable by the county council, under the Riot (Damages) Act, 1886; the registration of the rules of scientific societies; the registration of charitable gifts, the certifying of places of religious worship, and the confirming of the rules of loan societies; the maintenance of the assize courts, lock-up houses, police-stations, and county buildings generally; the maintenance of bridges and of roads repairable with bridges and of main roads (a); the enforcement of the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Acts, and of the Acts relating to destructive insects, and to the protection of fish and of wild birds, and to the prevention of river pollution; the supervision of weights and measures, and of gas-meters; the conduct of parliamentary elections (including the registration of voters and the revision of the lists of voters); the appointment and payment of medical officers (b), and of public inspectors and analysts, and the like, and of the county treasurer and county surveyor, and of the coroner for the county (c), (u) 52 & 53 Vict. (1889), c. 61; 53 & 54 Vict. (1890), c. 41; 54 & 55 Vict. (1891), c. 62. (x) Act of 1888, s. 3. (y) See post, bk. IV. pt. III. ch. IX. (c) Ibid. s. 5. |