THE COBDEN CLUB ON LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION.*
(CONCLUDING NOTICE.)
IN our previous notice of this book, we referred to the aocount here given of local government in foreign countries as a valuable aid, in any consideration of the best mode of amending and ex- panding such institutions in our own country. Two essays seem to us to have an especial interest in this respect. The first of these is the clear and well-written account by M. Emile de Lavaleye (well known in public life as an able leader of the Liberal party in Belgium) of the local government of that country and of Holland. There are some points in the character of Belgian and
* Cobden Club Essays: Local Government and Taxatiox. Edited by J. W. Probyn. London: Carmen, Potter, and Galpin. 1875. Dutch institutions which render them peculiarly useful to Eng- lishmen, as illustrations of the machinery which may be applied to the working of local government. In origin, the Belgian and Dutch people are kindred races to our own, and through all the differences of their past history all three nationalities have had two characteristics at least in common, which may be held to have some connection with community of race. They have been commercial populations, with the accompaniment,, not entirely hostile, of a powerful landed aristocracy. They have also been prominent in the ranks of free and popular government, and all three have made a mark in history quite disproportionate to their territorial size and significance. P-7 The manner, therefore, in which they severally have thrown into concrete form this common national spirit must afford a study peculiarly interesting to all three, having a direct practical bearing on the reconstruction of any of their institutions. Forms of government which have been lost or superseded by circumstances in the case of one of them may be thus restored from the still existing institutions of the other, in the same spirit which origin- ally dictated them all alike. In applying this idea to the existing state of things in the three countries, it seems to us that England may gather some useful hints in the reconstruction of her county local government. The old provinces of the Low Countries, which corresponded at one time very much with the earliest county government of England, absorbing in themselves -nearly all the functions of government, and leaving little to the central authority of the State, except the representation and defence of the common nationality, have partially lost this independent autonomy, but have still preserved quite enough of local life and authority to save the provincial life of those countries from the stigma that attaches to England as a professedly free nation from the chaotic state of her county administration. In attempting,, therefore, to resuscitate the spirit of our former county govern- ment, the provincial administration of our sister-nationalities may afford us valuable aid. One salient point in this administration is that it is raised beyond the proportions and above the standard of position of a mere vestry, so that it becomes accus- tomed to deal with public work in a larger spirit and with a greater grasp of general, in contradistinction to local and merely personal considerations. The larger area of its functions also gives it greater self-respect and dignity in the public eye, and so diminishes the chances of jobbery, while it increases the chances of securing the services of the ablest and most influential men of the district.
To such an assembly matters may be safely committed which in the case of a more limited council would have to be reserved by the central authority to itself, or guarded by a control which, if real, must necessarily be derogatory to the dignity of the local administration. Against a provincial or county authority, endowed with these larger powers and more dignified position, the squirearchical local element would be powerless, except as an integral and valuable part, the number and diversity of interests within the larger area securing the special localities from the dictation of individuals, while the public interest will be protected and upheld by the presence in a general representative capacity of men of position and experienoe.
As a practical illustration of the manner in which this pro- vincial agency might be applied to the County administration of England, we may mention some of the matters which fall within the functions of a provincial council, as they appear in the Budget of the province of West Flanders of the year 1874, as distinguished from the Communes existing within its borders with a separate administration, and from the central administration of the whole kingdom of Belgium. The administration of justice and police appear among the obligatory expenses of the province, but how far the former of these corresponds with that portion of the expenses of justice which in this country falls on the central authority the papers before us do not give us the means of ascertaining. The Midges and the roads fall within the obligatory expenditure of the province, being similar in this respect to the charges made upon our county rates for like objects. But neither paupers nor lunatics are mentioned in the budget. Public worship and ad- ministration of charities, which appear in the obligatory portion of the expenditure, afford no basis for comparison with England, owing to the entire difference of circumstances in relation to those matters in the two countries.
Education is provided for by the province, part of it, how- ever, including the fine arts, being optional with the council. Public works, sanitary purposes, and churches and monuments appear in the optional expenditure. A very large proportion of the optional expenditure, amounting, indeed, to 3,291,000 francs out of the total of 3,628,168 francs, appears under the title of "'diesel-
!anemia," showing that a great deal is left to the judgment of the council, under the varying circumstances of the year. To meet this expenditure there is an additional per-centage on the direct taxes, as well as the tax on dogs, horses, shooting licenses, and the sale of tobacco and liquor ; there is also a loan for different public works, the interest of which falls on the obligatory expenditure.
The other essay which seems to us to have an especial bearing on the subject of our local administration is one by Mr. R. B. D. Morier, C.B., British Chargé d'Affaires, Munich, on
n 4 German Local Institutions and Recent Legislation in Prussia." Some allowance must be made in reading this essay for the fact that its plan was changed at the eleventh hour, in consequence of the death of Dr. Schwabe, the head of the Statistical De- partment of the Berlin Municipality. But for this explana - tion, we should have had to express our regret that the elucida- tion of German local institutions should have been committed to so unskilful an expositor. The mass of details here given, though valuable in themselves, are so cumbrous and ill-digested, so obscured frequently by abstract philosophising and figurative illustration, that the task of the reader who would carry away any clear idea of the facts is a laborious and wearisome one. It is not, indeed, until we reach the concluding chapter that we emerge from this Teutonic complication into something like a plain statement of the actual condition of things. These con- eluding remarks of Mr. Morier appear to us to be well worthy of serious consideration on the part of English legislators, and there- fore leaving the antiquarian lore and special philosophising with which the introductory chapters are loaded, we will confine our attention to these plain and useful suggestions, though nothing but a perusal of his remarks at length can do justice to their force and significance. He appears to us to have hit the right nail on the head, when attributing the ineffective operation and imper- fection of our present local organisation to the dissociation of personal responsibility for the work of a citizen from the privileges and enjoyments of a citizen. This he traces to the growth of luxury in society, and to the want of proper provision for the admission of new classes into the machinery of self-government, in the strictest sense of the word. The upper classes are eager to find deputies for duties which can only be efficiently performed by themselves, and the lower orders, recently admitted to social en- joyments and political power, have not as yet learnt the existence of corresponding civic responsibilities. The remedy for this, he thinks, is to be found in reverting to the ideas of citizenship which guided Englishmen in the earlier organisation of the country, and which have been lost sight of during subsequent centuries.
From these ideas Prussians have recently drawn the spirit of their new code of local government, and he proposes that we should avail ourselves in our turn of some of their practical de- ductions. To illustrate this, he selects the special instances of relief of the poor and the police, and he proposes to introduce, in the former case, a system of subdivision into districts, each with its local committee, composed of those acquainted with the im- mediate locality, and having the weight and influence of personal position in the district. He hopes thus to escape from the narrow and hard judgments of mere parochial officials, and to introduce the spirit of neighbourhood into the system of poor-law inspection. He proposes, in the other case, to supplement the ordinary police- constable force by a body of special constables, "who would be bound to act as a kind of reserve to the police, and to interfere on their own responsibility in manifest breaches of the peace." "We cannot but think," he says, "that the constant presence of such a force in those lanes and alleys, where wife-kicking and playing at football with the quivering bodies of fellow-citizens are becoming a national pastime, would have a calming and moderating influence. We believe that in the worst alleys there are some persons who dislike this kind of thing, and would, with a proper force at their back, be quite ready to interfere. What they require is the prestige of a higher kind of public opinion than that present in the air of the alley, and this higher kind of public opinion could not take a better shape than that of a stout truncheon, with the Queen's crown and the lion and unicorn emblazoned upon it. Make these men into officers of the Crown, and we believe that their mere presence would go a long way in preventing those scenes of brutality for its own sake which make us a by-word among the nations."
Previous page
