MR. CROSS ON PERMISSIVE LEGISLATION.
MR. CROSS has earned the welcome which the Edinburgh Conservative Working-Men's Association have given him. He has taken in hand the vexed question of the Labour
laws, the one really troublesome legacy of the late Govern- ment, and treated it with a boldness which we can but hope will be justified by results. He has provided means for the improvement of the houses of the poor which, if less efficient than they might have been made, are at all events a very great advance upon any that he found in existence. These are works of which a Minister may fairly feel proud, and we wish, before criticising one part of his speech on Saturday, to give him all the credit that is his due. But he did more in this speech than give an account of his Ministerial stewardship. He undertook to defend that peculiar quality in the legislation of 1875 which suggested to Mr. Leatham the happy phrase that the Government had spent the Session not in law-making, but in leave-taking. Great, and as we still think just, fault has been found with the Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Act, because it only enables Munici- pal Corporations to do what is admitted to be necessary, and provides no machinery for compelling them to do what is admitted to be necessary, supposing that they are unwilling to do it. Mr. Cross did not attempt to slur over this feature of the Act. He faced the question fairly, and maintained that the Government were right in leaving the Corporations free to move or not move in the matter. The reason he assigns for allowing the poor to go on living like pigs, if a municipal authority sees no objection, is the political greatness of these Cor- porations in past times. The Government, he says, cannot forget that the Municipal institutions of this country have always been on the side of freedom, and that they have fought great battles in defence of freedom. It would, Mr. Cross thinks, have been an insult to these heroic bodies to have placed fresh powers in their hands without, at the same time, giving them permission to use or not use them, as they please. If this kind of tribute to past greatness is extensively paid, the area of permissive legislation will be enlarged to a very inconvenient extent. There is not an institution in the country which has not been of service in one way or another, and if the reward is always to take the form of exemption from the obligation to render further services, we shall be tempted to wish that English institutions had a shorter and a less glorious history. Mr. Cross reads the proverb Noblesse oblige as though it ran Noblesse excuse. That which the Municipal Corporations have done is not so much an earnest of the things that they shall do, as a plea for letting them off doing anything more. This doctrine would be more intelligible, if there were even an apparent connection between the past achievements of these bodies and the liberty now granted them in return. We should have been better able to follow Mr. Cross's reasoning if he had said,—' Municipal institutions have already spent so much upon the poor that we do not think it fair to compel them to spend any more ;' or if he had said,—' They have already spent so much upon the poor, that the mere permission to spend more will be tantamount to a command.' Bufwhat have their old battles in the cause of freedom to do with the clearing-away of un- wholesome houses, or why should a municipal authority be exempted from clearing away unwholesome houses on the score of past political services, any more than from lighting the streets or emptying dust-bins ? The Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Act goes on the assumption that in certain eases, before the poor can be better housed, the houses in which they now live must be pulled down, and the authority entrusted with the decision what houses shall be pulled down is the Town CounciL As the Act stands, an obstinate municipality can, so far as its own jurisdiction is concerned, prevent the Act from coming into operation, and the only reason which Mr. Cross suggests for this anomaly is, that Municipal institutions with- stood Royal tyranny some centuries ago. If they have not yet been properly rewarded for their good deeds, let Parlia- ment vote them a piece of plate or pay their members £5 a head all round. No one would feel much the poorer for such an expenditure as this, whereas it is impossible to say what mischief may not follow from giving the reward the form of a licence to neglect a statutable duty.
It is no answer to this objection to the form of the Act that several great Corporations have already begun to put it into execution. The example of Glasgow and Edinburgh had shown that some municipal authorities were alive to the urgency of the case, and if only those who were so alive were required to do anything to meet the need, it would have been enough to pass a series of private Acts adapted to the particu- lar circumstances of each town. The Government were very properly of opinion that the question was not one to be handled in this provisional and tentative manner. The evils to be dealt with were known„ the nature of the remedy
they demanded was known, the authority by whom the remedy could be most conveniently applied was known. Here were all the materials for a public Bill, and accordingly the Govern- ment introduced a public Bill. But it is equally true that here were all the materials for a compulsory Bill, and if the Government had the courage of their opinions in the first case, why had they not also the courage of their opinions in the second case ? The reason which Mr. Cross gives is doubtless the one which occurred to him upon reflection, but it can hardly be the one which decided his action in the first instance. At least, his mind must be more than commonly saturated with historical memories, if the former glory of English Municipalities at once presented itself as a motive for making the Bill merely per- missive. An earlier thought, at all events, may have told him that some of the towns in which it was most essential that proceedings should be taken under the Act were among those which would be most averse from taking such proceedings, and that the easiest way of disarming the opposition they would certainly offer to the Bill would be to let them see that it would affect no one who did not wish to be affected by it. This feeling is not peculiar to Mr. Cross. It has produced closely similar results in Sir Stafford Northeote. When deal- ing with Friendly Societies he was confronted by a difficulty of the same kind. There was an obvious need of provisions for ensuring to Friendly Societies a proper audit of accounts, and a periodical valuation of assets and liabilities. The want was great- est in the case of the least-known Societies. The great societies, especially the Odd Fellows, had already done of their own free- will what it was desired that the smaller societies should be compelled to do. The common-sense view of the question seemed to be that to make the smaller societies follow the example of the great societies was in effect a compliment to the latter, just as the common-sense view of the Dwellings question was that to make the smaller municipalities follow the example of such cities as Glasgow and Edinburgh was in effect a compliment to the latter. But the real anxiety of the two Ministers was not so much to compliment the great societies and the great towns as to avoid offending the smaller societies and the smaller towns, and by the expedient of permissive legislation both ends were compassed after a fashion. The good deeds of the great Municipalities and the large Friendly Societies were honoured by their example being proposed for general imita- tion. The actual misdeeds of the smaller Friendly Societies and the probable misdeeds of the smaller Municipalities were allowed for in the provision that no one need follow their ex- ample unless they liked. And then, inasmuch as this motive was hardly one to supply matter for Parliamentary eloquence, both Ministers boldly assigned the merits of the large Friendly Societies and the great towns as reasons for compelling no one to imitate them. It is only just, however, to Mr. Cross to say that his responsibility in the matter is very much less than that of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Cross can, at most, suspect that the Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Act will have no effect in certain towns. Sir Stafford Northcote knows that an illusory audit and an illusory valuation will be adopted in many Friendly Societies. Their past history and the present prospects make this absolutely certain. They are insolvent, and an independent examination would at once disclose their insolvency. Under the Friendly Societies' Act of last Session, they are mercifully spared this independent examination. They are allowed to audit their own accounts, to value their own assets, and to take equal rank as Societies registered by the State with the Societies like the Odd Fellows. The authors of permissive legislation in this sense ought not to shrink from giving their work its proper name. If the Friendly Societies' Act had been christened, 'An Act to allow certain Insurance Societies holding a Government Certificate to go on robbing the Ignorant Poor,' its character and purpose would at all events have been truly set forth.
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