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lowed in 1835 by the municipal corporations act - the first step in the process of reform. Fifty years later the third parliamentary reform bill of 1884 had a similar effect on rural local government. By the extension of the borough franchise to the counties it made the old conditions seem as out of place as the first reform bill had in the boroughs. In the meantime, a great variety of individual acts had been passed making single changes, conferring new powers or creating new offices or new local areas. The result was a confused mass of local authorities and districts, overlapping one another and making a "jungle of jurisdictions," a chaos of authorities." The process of bringing this chaos into the present form has been largely one of simplification, though it has also been one of creation and extension. For our purpose there is no object in following the hundreds of particular steps by which the present result has been reached; the result itself we need to study briefly.

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To the American who compares in detail the English system of local government with his own, it still seems to lack simplicity, and he finds it difficult to form a picture of it which is at the same time clear and distinct. The details tend to prevent a general view. Persistence in the attempt leads to the conclusion that the similarities in the local government systems of the two nations are on the whole more numerous than the differences, though these are striking. Perhaps we may say that the English system strikes us as being very much the result which we should get if we superimposed the local government of the states in which the county is the local unit upon that of the states in which the town is the local unit, making a not entirely perfect division between the two units of the functions which would thus be duplicated. In England there are, however, three local units one above the other: the county and county boroughs, which are divided into boroughs and urban and rural districts, these last being in turn subdivided into parishes. In this scheme the position of London is somewhat peculiar.

The government of the city, technically so-called, the square mile extending north from the Thames between the Tower and Temple Bar, has not been affected by the changes of the century, and it remains outside the jurisdiction of the London county council under its own lord mayor. The remainder of greater London, as one might call it, has been organized as a separate county under the London county council, which is formed on the same model as the other county councils but with somewhat more extensive powers. This county of London is divided, like the county boroughs, into boroughs, of which there are twenty-eight.

The county in this scheme of local self-government is not the historical county, though actually it is so in six cases, and does not vary greatly in the others, but the "administrative" county, of which sixty-two were formed from the fifty-two historical counties. The county boroughs were the towns which had anciently been made counties or which had, or should attain, a population of 50,000. Of these, sixty were provided for in the original bill, and there are now over seventy. They are independent of the counties but their position and government is practically the same. In all these the governing body is a council of elected councillors, and of additional aldermen elected for a longer term by the councillors. In the intermediate division, the boroughs and districts, the government is also conducted by an elected council, though without aldermen. In the boroughs this council serves for all borough purposes. The larger parishes have also councils, and in the smaller business is done by an assembly of all the voters, as in the New England town meeting.

To the county councils were transferred nearly all the administrative duties which had accumulated in the hands of the justices of the peace, leaving to these their judicial and a few other functions. Upon the district councils rests the chief responsibility for local sanitary matters and the care of all roads not main highways, which are under control of

CENTRAL SUPERVISION

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the counties. In the parishes civil business has been separated from ecclesiastical, and the latter is in the hands of the vestries. In general the matters which fall naturally to local control are shared in alike by all three local units in diminishing spheres of authority and responsibility from top to bottom. No principle of division between the local units seems clear to one strange to the actual operation of the system, and in some cases, like care of the poor, the place of a principle seems to be taken by tradition from the past. The chief matters under local control are: local finance, the lower grades of education, sanitation, police (shared with the justices of the peace), poor relief and asylums, and roads and bridges. The larger part of the actual work of government is done by committees, upon which persons may be asked to serve who are not members of the councils. The changes which have been made have not taken the control of government out of the hands of the upper and upper middle classes, but there is general satisfaction with the results, and a change in this respect is always within the power of the body of voters.

To the American the least familiar feature of the English system is the supervision which is exercised over local government by authorities of the national government. We need to remember here as elsewhere that the English central government has to perform the functions both of our national and our state governments. We have I believe, however, nowhere anything corresponding to the supervision exercised over local government by certain of the English central administrative departments. There are five of these, each giving its head cabinet rank. The home office supervises local police and a part of the work of local sanitation, with a few other things; the local government board has a great variety of duties, including care of the poor, sanitation and local finance; the boards of education, trade and agriculture supervise the interests indicated by their names. These central departments have the power of issu

ing orders of a legislative character; they have a right of veto upon many local proposals; they act through a somewhat elaborate system of inspectors; and one of their chief functions is to furnish expert advice and assistance in local enterprises. As the staff in these offices is a permanent one, and as a tendency has been detected on the part of the local authorities to rely more and more on their guidance, the fear has been expressed of the growth of central bureaucratic authority as a result.

It is hardly possible to say that the reforms in the law and in judicial institutions which followed 1832 are of less value to the individual than those in local government, though they are less conspicuous.5 In 1836 changes were made in criminal trials by which the accused was given the right to counsel and to a more full knowledge of the evidence against him, and in 1837 further advance was made in limiting the number of capital crimes. Following these acts a long series of statutes has been passed affecting both the content of the criminal law and procedure in trials in the interest of humanity and impartial justice. In 1907 the court of criminal appeal was established and very full rights of appeal allowed. In the field of civil law the greatest need of reform was felt in the cumbrous and expensive procedure which had been inherited from medieval times. In 1832 procedure was slightly simplified and was made uniform in all three common law courts. Other reforms followed, espe cially in 1852 when two statutes were adopted by which extensive changes were made in procedure and in the staffs of the common law courts. Serious reforms in the chancery system began about this time, consolidating the courts, simplifying procedure, and tending to do away with the conflict between equity and common law.

These various streams all contributed to the series of judicature acts of 1873 and following years down to 1910, by which the whole judicial system has been reconstructed 5 Robertson, Statutes, 437-442, first edition.

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in external organization and in much of its inner content. All the national courts have been brought into one "supreme court of judicature" which is generic in character, existing only in its two branches, the court of appeal and the high court of justice; the latter also exists only in its three "divisions," the king's bench, the chancery, and the probate, divorce, and admiralty court. The names of the two latter indicate their character, and in the king's bench division the old common law courts have been consolidated, exchequer and common pleas courts disappearing. A part of the business of the high court is also done in the assize courts on circuit, the modern form of the old itinerant justice system. The operation of the divisions of the high court has been made as uniform as possible both in procedure and remedies, common law and equity being fused, but in business they remain distinct. From the decisions of the high court an appeal lies to the court of appeal, and from that to the house of lords as a supreme court. Local justice in civil cases has also been provided for by a division of the country into about 500 districts grouped in circuits, first made in 1846, and called by the historical name of county courts, though they have no connection, historical or geographical, with the older system. From nearly all their judgments an appeal may be taken to the high court and carried on if desired to the house of lords. They have proved very popular in cases of minor importance, and their jurisdiction has been enlarged in the present century. The courts of the justices of the peace, as local criminal and police courts, still continue in petty and quarter sessions.

Little more need be said of the authority of the crown during this period than has already been said. For a long time it was thought that William IV had given in 1834 another example of the power of the king suddenly to dismiss his ministers while they were supported by the house of commons. It now seems proved, however, that the step was • A. and S., 443–453.