MR. CHAMBERLAIN AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT.
pERHAPS Mr. Chamberlain's greatest qualification as a politician is his power of clarifying a clouded and obscure discussion. The moment his eloquence is infused into a debate, the denser and more opaque elements are at once precipitated, and the subject is left clear and lucid. He has to an extraordinary degree the happy faculty of helping people to put their ideas in order. In a country governed by a deliberative assembly, such a gift is invaluable. It is thus no small gain to have Mr. Chamberlain back in the House of Commons, with his perspicuous expositions and clear-cut arguments. If Mr. Chamberlain agrees with a proposal, his reasons for doing so are sure to pour a flood of light on the subject. His disagreement is equally illuminating. How often do the opponents of a measure fail to give any clear account of their opposition We know that they object to this or that detail, but their motives are absolutely obscure and involved, and we are left utterly at a loss to know what the point of dis- agreement really is. Mr. Chamberlain, on the other hand, always knows how to join a clear issue, and, whether in the right or wrong, lets us understand plainly the motives that are influencing him. His speech on the second reading of the Local Government Bill, in the debate of Monday last, is a good example of this power. No one can read it without feeling that the points in dispute have been rendered more clear, and that the true appreciation of the measure has been greatly advanced by his contribution to the discussion.
Before dealing with Mr. Chamberlain's speech in detail, and expressing our general approval of its substance, we must, however, protest most emphatically against his utterance in regard to Irish local government. Mr. Chamberlain declared himself in favour of giving the control of the police to popularly elected bodies in Ireland. To us, this proposal seems the height of recklessness, and only to be entertained if we shut our eyes to the whole past history of Ireland. It is impossible to hope, even if the course of events in Ireland during the next few years should prove peculiarly favourable in inspiring the sense of self-government, that the districts now under the tyranny of the League will be fit to control their own police. The hostility to order and good government is too deeply ingrained to make the experiment safe. The power to be able to act im- partially, so necessary when the control of the police is involved, could not be expected in Clare or Kerry till a long period of time has wiped out the remembrance of past disorder. It is all the more disappointing to find Mr. Chamberlain advocating this change, when he himself admits that there is no necessity for identity of legislation between England and Ireland in this respect. He states the true principle, and then, instead of applying it, advo- cates the adoption of its direct opposite. That Mr. Chamberlain would ever really act as he proposes in regard to the police in Ireland, we do not for a moment believe. He is far too steady-minded a politician for that. The rashness of his words always varies inversely with the caution of his acts. We cannot, however, help regretting a lack of verbal discretion which may in the future prove a cause of considerable embarrassment. Mr. Chamber- lain's speech, except in this one particular, leaves little to be desired. It was an eloquent and statesmanlike defence of the principle of the Government measure, worthy in all respects of the occasion. It showed how the alleged defects in the measure—defects which the opponents of the Bill profess to believe were introduced into it with the deliberate in- tention of defeating its nominal democratic intention—were in reality but the logical results of the guiding principle adopted by the Government. The adoption of that principle seems to us, as it does to Mr. Chamberlain, eminently wise and statesmanlike. The Municipal Cor- poration Act of 1834, the most important work of the first reformed Parliament, gave to our cities and boroughs a civic organisation which has worked for fifty years smoothly and well. To take up the principle of that Act, which has been tested in its working and found good, and to apply it with the necessary modifications to the counties, was a far safer and more reasonable course than to devise a new paper-constitution for the administration of local affairs. Mr. Chamberlain showed that if this process of assimilation was to be carried out, it would be perfectly consistent to leave the administration of the Poor-Law aside, to adopt the municipal franchise, and to exclude the parish from the operation of the Bill. One of the great advantages secured by proceeding as the Govern- ment have proceeded with their measure, is the adoption of a common framework of local government for town and country in England and Wales. That once obtained, it would be a comparatively easy measure to add new powers, or to make alterations of detail. For instance, if the new county bodies were made, to begin with, to stand in the same relation to the administration of the Poor-Law as the great municipalities, a general reform of the whole system of pauper-relief might afterwards be worked out for the whole country. Mr. Chamberlain, proceeding on the same lines, argued in favour of the retention of the "selected" members of the County Councils, though he proposed that they should receive the name of Aldermen. Against such a proposal we have nothing to say ; Aldermen, historically, being just as much a rural as an urban institution. Indeed, in the earliest and most important sense of the word, the Eorlder- man was the popular officer of the Shire, selected by the Witan, and contrasted with the Sheriff, the representative of the King. But if Mr. Chamberlain is intent on improving the nomenclature of the Government Bill, let him not stop here. Let him prevail upon Mr. Ritchie to substitute for the hideous and un-English County Council, the historical and appropriate name of Shire Court. Just as Parliament is the High Court of Parlia- ment, and the Town Council of the City is the Court of Common Council, so the new bodies should be the Courts of the Shire. The name would further have the advantage of reminding us that we are making no rash innovation, and that we are only revivifying that most ancient of our institutions,—the Anglo-Saxon Folk Mote, which the Normans named the County Court. Indeed, we can hardly say revivifying, for the Shire Court is not dead. When the Judges go their circuit, they nominally open their commission in the full Court of the County, which ,for that purpose may be said still to exist. We feel, however, considerable doubts as to the general advisability of the provision as to the selected members. We doubt whether it will work, as Mr. Chamberlain evidently hopes it will, in securing the return of men who do not care to undergo the strain of a popular election. It is always open to the serious objection that it injures the influence of the minority, and might on occasion be used to crush it entirely. As Mr. Stansfeld showed, the twenty-one Tories or Gladstonians in a Council of forty-one, might, by means of the selected-members clause, turn their majority of one into a majority of twenty, and so make the County Council an utterly false reflection of those who had elected it. The danger of the proposal seems to us to lie in this possible emphasising of the power of the odd man. The way in which Mr. Chamberlain presented the licensing question to the House was particularly clear and able. We cannot understand how the Temperance party can, if they are really wise, reject the present scheme. It is pretty certain that the opportunity now presented to them for securing local option is not likely to occur again for a long period of time. Yet the teetotalers are being asked by their leaders to give up availing themselves of that opportunity, in the hope that some day or other they may be able to get better terms. That hardly seems the way to make a cause succeed. We wonder whether some of the more long-sighted members of the Temperance party are not beginning to regret that they let their leaders identify themselves so openly with the Gla,dstonian Party. We must not leave the consideration of Mr. Chamberlain's speech without noticing his remarks as to the question of the parish. He very properly pointed out that the work— such as sanitation—proposed by some of the Gladstonians to be delegated to the smaller local bodies within the county area, could not be performed by the parish. The parish is an area usually far too small, and always far too irregular in size, for such purposes. It might, however, he suggested, be possible to give an independent organisation to the parish. Mr. Chamberlain enumerated as duties which might be usefully performed by the parish, the working of allot- ment schemes, the managing of parochial charities, and the protecting of the public rights in regard to wastes existing within the parish. Though we are utterly averse to organising local government under any system in which a county would be a sort of federation of parochial units, we should rejoice to see the parishes endowed with fresh life. There is no doubt that, in spite of all the changes that have come over society, the parish, in the country, still remains the chief local tie of the ordinary Englishman. No man yet ever thought of Emself as belonging to this or that Rural Sanitary District or Highway Board. He invariably thinks of himself as belonging to a particular parish, in the interests and affairs of which he takes a very real interest. At present, the corporate life of the parish is often kept up by the School Board. We see no reason, however, why the vestry and the parish officials should not be reorganised and made most valuable for the purposes of political education. The example of the American town-meeting might well be used to revive the institution from which it is historically derived. To confuse the Local Government Bill by the introduction of any such provisions, would, however, be most unwise. The reorganisation of the parish is a measure of reform which had far better be left to another and more convenient time.
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