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objection to the Bill was that the District Councils which it
proposed to create would not possess any originating functions,
but be vested with only such powers as might from time to
time be delegated to them by the Common Council, thus
possibly bringing the Metropolis and localities into conflict.
The financial clauses were also objectionable, as the Common
Council were to supervise the whole of the local budgets, to
do which effectually would absorb such an enormous amount
of time as to be practically impossible, while a perfunctory
or formal supervision would lead to a divided responsibility
and be worse than useless as any efficient check on local
extravagance. The Vestry also regarded the proposed
system of audit as unsatisfactory, and many other details of
the Bill as open to considerable objection. But the principle
of the Bill appeared to rest upon an assumption that both
Metropolitan and local affairs could best be administered from
one common centre, and the Vestry regarded this as so
opposed to their own conviction and experience that they
decided to petition against the Bill altogether rather than to
seek to amend it in detail.
The following extract from the petition to Parliament
against the Bill will show in what respects the Vestry
consider the ratepayers of this Parish in particular would
have been prejudicially affected if the Bill had become
law:—
Firstly. The Overseers, who at present have practically no rating powers,
and have no separate office or officers, will be the rating authority, and
require a separate establishment. The Overseers are now nominated by the
Vestry; but the Bill proposes to alter the mode of appointment, and vest
the same in the Justices. The existing rating authority is the Vestry, which
is a representative body; but under the Bill, the rating authority would bo
non-representative in character, and not appointed (nor even nominated) by,
nor responsible to, the ratepayers.
Secondly. The Vestry are a corporate body, having a common seal, but
the District Council which the Bill proposes to create in the place of the