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110
March last. It is the most important Bill brought in during this
present session, effecting a complete revolution in the parochial
government of the country. The Bill establishes two new County
Authorities elected by household suffrage. These authorities are
(a) the County Council, (ft) the District Council. The County
Council is to be composed partly of selected Councillors, to be
called County Aldermen, and of elected County Councillors each
appointed for the term of three years, and the divisions of the
county for the purpose of election of Councillors are to be called
electoral divisions. The number of County Councillors for the
County of London to be double the number of Members returned
to Parliament for the Parliamentary Boroughs. The number of
elected Councillors, the area, and population to constitute an
electoral division, is to be determined by the Local Government
Board. The County Council, will be the great administrative
and financial centre in the County of the future, having the
administrat ive and financial businesses of the Justices of the County
in quarter sessions assembled. The Council is at once to manage
most of the concerns of county government itself, and to control the
action of the District Councils. The duties may thus be set forth:—
Administration—levying of county rates, music licensing, maintenance
of main roads and bridges, management of lunatic asylums,
control of reformatory and industrials schools, division of County
into Parliamentary election districts, matters connected with registration
and the fixing of places to hold revision courts, appointment
of Officers paid out of County Rate, enforcement of the provisions
of Rivers Pollution Act, management of Contagious Diseases Acts
(Animals), destructive insects, weights and measures, adulteration
ot food and drugs, recording of places of worship, and
registration of scientific societies, and many other duties.
Control: laking over the powers of the Local Goverment
Board,and Board of I Trade in regard to provisional orders concerning
piers and harbours, electric lighting, gas and water, tramways,