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Vestry is not to be incorporated. This provision your petitioners consider
objectionable and retrogressive.
Thirdly. The Vestry administer an endowed Charity, having an income
of about £300 per annum, without cost to the Charity, except for printing.
The Bill proposes that such charities should be administered by a separate
Trust to be hereafter created.
Fourthly. The Vestry at present elect both Churchwardens of the Parish.
The Bill proposes to vest this appointment in the Parishioners in Vestry
assembled, thus practically placing the election in the hands of a few persons
not possessing any representative character, inasmuch as it would be
physically impossible for any considerable proportion of the ratepayers to
meet in Vestry. The Bill, however, does not relieve the Churchwardens of
their common law or secular functions. Your Petitioners would view the
return to the system of open Vestries as decidedly retrogressive in
character.
Fifthly. The remarks contained in the preceding paragraph apply also to
the appointment of Governors and Directors of the Poor, of Trustees of the
Burial Ground, and of representative Trustees of Educational and other
endowed Charities.
Sixthly. The Bill proposes to continue for an indefinite period various
Local Authorities, who have been relieved of most of their functions, but
who, if the Bill becomes law, will have to maintain a separate establishment
at an unnecessary cost to the ratepayers.
The Vestry are far from saying that the present system of
local government in the Metropolis is faultless, but they are
of opinion that genuine reform is only to be obtained by a
comprehensive measure creating one Municipal body for the
administration of Metropolitan matters, and consolidating
the various local authorities of each Parish or District into
one independent body for such Parish or District.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT OF LONDON.
Having learned that the Metropolitan Board of Works
had appointed a committee to consider the subject of the
Local Government of London, the Vestry requested the
Board to afford the various Local Authorities an opportunity