TILE CORPORATION REPORT.
[Po in the C, brier, Mardi 30.] The General Report of the Corporatien Commissioners was delivered to Mr. Getl- e burn on the 24th of Match; and on the 30th, when laid before the House of Commons. it was ordered to be printed for Parliamentary distribution. The particular reports on which it is founded are not yet, we understand, all printed ; but they are believed to be entirely confirmatory of the statements in the General Report. Nearly three bundred Corporations hate been visited: upwards of two hunched Reports are printed. and the remainder are in the coutse of preparation. The inquiries in all eases were conducted in pulite% The Coriorationv have slimed all intormalion to the Commissioners, are Corte Castle, Mom, Lielitield, Maidstone, New Itorimey, and some of 11w London Compauies; those as ttielt afforded partial iui1trmation, but refused to exhibit their accounts, or to permit inquiry into the state of the corporate property, are Arundel. Leicester. Rochester, and set eral of the Loneon Companies. TIte Reports on dime Corpolattons are said. notwithstanding, to to exceedingly rich ; those or Heil and Leicester particularly so. It still be found, we sus; vet, Out these try respectable pnyorations had more solid motives fur their refusals than the advice of Load Abim ger or the hearsay of Lord Lyndhurst. They have not, however, been successful its arming exposure; and dell is ,ut the must gross pervers:on of public tills} are lull open. There is a InerelleSS array et magisterial delinquencies, and all the currtiptious of the Tut v-Impraised syeten, or self. election are exhibited in their uaked delin luny.
'rite Commissioners, it appears, did uut consider themselves authorized to•recommeod specific measures bar the improvement of the corporate system ; they hare e0Ofirled themselves to !Jointing out its abuses, and !save sta.,_ sled r:o remedies. It is evident that this is a serious defect, anal our which t !fey were best qualified to supply; though we doubt not that their assistance in naming a full and ample measure of reform will he readily granted. The fullowitig we present to our readers as a condensed v:e•w of the results to which the Commissioners hale arrived. Its g, neral Ise reel itess mar be relied on.
The all item:tiling abuse of the cori ra ate system is hat or lion. The Common Councils, or the goSeIlling bodies or the I orimatiens. conmently elect, or admit, the freemen. choo,e the MaN or, awl ether Wheels, :toil fall up the vacancies in their own hot have the irresponsible and unconi rolled management of the as hole public property; Ihey dispose of it to themselves or to their iends ; they contract debts and bestow the patronage held in trust ILr the beitelit of the community anion their own part i-aos. The most striking delOct in theconstitnfienoftheMunicipal Corporations is, therefore, that the eorrorate hushes have an existence distinct from the communities in e bleb they ale found. The Corporations 14 ok upon themselves, nod are considered by the inhabi- tants, as separate :read independent communities; in bad, in most places all identity of in iciest between the Cot lanai ion awl inhabitants has disappeated. To maintain the is di, nal a ',clink' soy of a party. or the political influetice of a family. has been the uue end awl object e Inch has been systematically pursued in the admission of freemen. reaidem or tom resident, in the S441.014,0 Of municipal functionaries for the Council and the Magistracy, i1, t he appointment or subordinate officers and the local police, in the administiat ion of eliardies, in t he expenditine of corporate reienties, and in the management of corporate property. 'Elie most flagrant :domes have miser from this pint ersion of municipal prhile.,es to political objects; and it has been generally found that those Car1orationsebiehu have been unconnected with the Parliamentary franchise have must fait }trill). discharged the duties of geed gorermimcotaand have acquired, more than Oleos, the emilitletwe and good-will of the communities to which they belong. The exclusive and party spirit which belongs to the whole corporate body. appears in a mummer still more marked in the Councils by which they are governed. The mem- bers of these Council, ale. tor the most part, selrelected, and hold their oflices for life. "I'lley are commonly Millie political part y. and their proceedings are mainly directed to• Free re and perpetuate the ascendancy of the pert y to which they belong. tidividuals or ads-else political opinions are invariably excluded from the governing body. since the repeal of the Corporal ion and fast Acts, and the emancipation of the Catholics very few instances meteor in a inch either Dissenters or Catholics have been chosen into the governing body of the. Corporation. To these 47ouncils, which embody the opinions of a single party are intrusted the nomination of Magistrate:. and of the civil and cm u nt i nal Judges. They ought to be the leaders of every measure concerning the interests and prosperity of the town; but t hey do not even represent the privileged class of free- men and being elected for lire, their proceedi tags are unchecked by any feeling of re- sponsibility. They are the representatives neither of the population nor of the pro- perty of I ho town : and the discharge of the functions with which they are intrusted is remit:nal difficult equally by the dislike and the suspicion which the manner oh' their aceess11/11 iteeessarily entails upon them.
The mode in e Welt their revenues are levied and expended. and through which the gement! mismanagement of the corporate property arises. is fully detailed. The power assumed by the Corporative's of levying tolls on merchandise or goods brought to market by persons not freemen, is a fruitful subject of complaint. The freemen them- sell es are invariably exempt from these initeisitions; and the magnitude, as troll as the partiality of the evil, will be understood from the fact, that ire Neweastle-upon- Tyne the payment of these tolls has made a difference to a merchant of 450/. annually. lu Liverpool, one mercantile firm Pao paid to the town-dues more than 1.4001. in ono year. la some towns, as in Bristol, a merchant, by payment of a tine, may be admitted to the freedom of the city ; but in Liverpool the Corpta ntion retuses to sell the fire- dom and the tolls conaettitently remain as a permanent tax upon the non-freemen inerchauts. In awe,. towns a large amount of the pittilic property has been spent in bribery, and other illegal practices of contested elections. During the election of 1826, the Corporation of Leicester expended 100001. to secure the successor a political friend of that hotly, and mortgaged Some of their property to discharge the Rattail ks so in- curred. 11, Barnstaple mud Liverpool, the funds of the Corporation have been wasted in defending a body of freemen Rom thn•atened disfranchisement, who had been proved guilty of bribery. Itm general, the corporate funds are but partially applied to munici- pal purpose, ; and they are frequently expended in feasting and paying the expenses of unimportant ollicers.
Some Corporations consider that their property has been vested in them solely for the Public advantage: but in must cases this troth is acknowledged only alien forced on their attention ; 44••is received with difficulty and qualification, and is liable to be continually overlooked or forgotten. Even in those cases where it is admitted, party and sectarian purposes often prevail in its application. Few Curporat ions uould admit that a uy obligation lay upon them ei expend the surplus of their income in objects of public advantage dilfi.rent from that which might be supposed to devolve on any wealthy haus idual in the town. Such expenditure would be considered US a sponta- neous act of private generosity and the Corporation would consider itself entitled in consequence., nut to the credit of jetlicious administrators, but to that of liberal bene- factors. The opinion baying taken strong root, that the property of the Corporations is held in trust for the benefit of the corporate hotly only. distiognisiting that body from the community with which it is locally connected, the transition is not difficult to the opinion that individual corporators tray justifiably derive a benefit from that promo, y. At Cambridge, the practice was avowed and attempted to be justified!
This principle has Been entlitaritisedly adopted in few Corporations, compared with the number of those in which it is indhectly acted upon. Some sense of impropriety. indicated by the secrecy with which such transactions are condo, tcd, has accompanied the execution or lone leases for nominal considerations. or the alienations in fee or the corporate property to individual corporators. The system of parish expenditure in the shape of salaries to sinecure, unuecessal S. Or overpaid officers, totted in most of the im- portant Consolations, is mon• extensively mischievous than actual peculation, because there is no lark of persons willing to profit by it ; at the same time that the direct ap- propriation of the capital, instead of the income of the Corperaiion. is contemplated as a fraud rpm the public by all but a much more limited class of yemous. The heavy debts which have bceu incurred in many Corporations have been in- creased to their present amount by most negligent and improper management. At Benvick.upon-Tweed. where the freemen manage the affairs of the Corporation in Common Ilan, and where commons of the value of about 60001. per annum are enjoyed by them, sums of money have been borrowed for the express purpose of dividing among themselves. The instances of gross mismanagement of trust property are namerous and striking.
At Coventry. the funds of an endowed school amount to 9001. per. annum ; the two masters divided 700/. between them; but they had only one pupil in 1833. rind for some yens previously. At Tewkesbury. no redress could be obtained against the master of the stimuli. because he was one 'tithe borough justices, by whom themaster is appointed and the school visited.
The administration of justice, twilit civil and criminal, is in a state disgraceful to •an
enligPtentel continually. The Magistrates are usually chosen from the Aldermen, and the Aldermen from among the leading political pattisans; moreover. they are often taken from a class of persons totally incompetent to the discharge of judicial func- tions. At East Retfinsl, at respectable witness, a ho had been a clerk to the Magis- trates. declared that one of the Magistrates was in the habit of conversing familiarly with the culprits brought before Trim ; and then he endeavoured to impress them with the idea that lie was performing au tuna aline office. On one occasion Ito saw the Magi,trate fighting n Oh a prison?. and struggling with him on the floor. At Malmes- bury 1 he Magistrates are generally nimble to read or write. At Werilock. where the jurisdiction of the borough Magistrates is exclusive, and the population comprised withiu it exceeds 17,000 persons. the. Magistrates have signed Idauk sattaats. 'rhe evils nrising from ,the ignoranet• and inefficiency of the borough Magistrates. aggra- vated by frequent absence :old neglect, are heightened by the gross deflects in other parts ol tie judicial system. The Juries of the borough courts are often exclitaively taken from the freemen ; who, besides being composed of an inferior class, are strongly tainted with party feelings. At Carmarthen, verdicts are fre- quently given aeaiust justice from party bias. The istpulation of that town is 10,000, but the _Writes are chosen from a small hotly of 176 burgesses. At the Spring Assizes or 1833, a true bill was (Mind by the Grand Jury of the borough for a capital tiony. The Grand Jury consisted of 20 burgesses; of these. 17 'wienersd to the Cor- poration party, and the Wreman was the committing magistrate! The panel of the Petty Jury contained 46 persons of the Culver:it ion party, 12 of the eh(eadata's party. and only 2 neutrals. The trial sus removed to the county, and the deltirdant ac- quitted. At Haverfordwest, where none but burgesses can serve on the Juries, there arc only 141 burgesses, and not 50 able to some on them; the Juries there have been openly reprimanded by the Judges and the Magistrates for improper acquittals of bur- gesses upon criminal prosecutions. The practice has not been checked by such repri- mands, and the general opinion is that it to impose to amid a burgess 1 The above is an out line of the systems of abuse, though numerous eases illustrative of them are necessarily omitted. The final result—the summing up of the Report —is to this effect.: Tliat where Corporations exist in their most perliect form, and are most rightfully administered, they are inadequate to the wants 01 the present state of society. In their em tial condi; ion, when not pi oduetive of positite evil. 'hey, in the great majority of instances, exist for no purpose of general utility. The perversion of numicipal institu- tions to political ends has occasioned the sacrifice of local interests to party purposes, which have been frequently pursued through the corruption and demoralization of the electoral bodies. That, in conclusion, there prevails amongst the inhabitants of the great milord y of these incorporated towns, a general Lod a just dissatisfaction with their municipal institutions ; a distrust of the self-elected Municipal Councils, wlwse powers ale subject to nu popular control. and whose acts and proceedings being secret are unchecked by the influence of public opinion ; a di.trust of the Municipal MagisJ• tracy, tainting with suspicion the local iulmiuistration of justice, anti oft eu accompanied with contempt of the persons by whom the law is administered ; a discontent under the lawdeLs or local taxation, while revenues that ought to be applied to the public advan- tage are diverted from their legitimate use, and are sometimes wastefully bestowed for the benefit of job iduals, sometimes squandered for purposes injurious to the character and morals or the wople. That, in short, the waiting Municipal Cerporations of England and Wales neither possess nor deserve the confidence and respect of the community ; and that a thorough reform must be effected before they can become when they ought to be, useful and efficient instruments of local government.
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