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98
If your statement that the Vestries do not represent the people of
London has reference to the small number of Ratepayers who take part in
Local Elections, the Vestry desire me to say that, equally with yourself,
they deplore the apathy displayed by the Ratepayers in a matter so closely
concerning their own interests. This apathy, however, is not confined to
Elections of Vestrymen; for instance, in spite of unusual exertions by the
various candidates, less than 9,000 Ratepayers polled at the School Board
Election in the Westminster Division in November, 1885, out of a
constituency numbering 35,000 Electors. The Member who received the
support of the greatest number of Voters in Westminster was elected by
4,568, or less than one seventh of the Ratepayers. This is a typical case, and
if it be true that Vestries do not represent the Ratepayers on account of the
comparatively small number of Parishioners taking part in the Election,
may not the same be said of the Members of the School Board?
The position in which the Vestries stand in regard to the School Board
appears to be overlooked in your remarks. I may therefore perhaps be
permitted to remind you that Vestries are called upon to act as collectors for
the School Board and certain other Central Authorities. This being so, it
is not only not unreasonable that they should feel a deep interest in the
policy of those Boards between whom and the ratepayers they stand as
intermediaries in the matter of finance, but it is a duty they owe to their
fellow ratepayers. Vestrymen, moreover, are ratepayers, and as such
entitled to vote for Members of the School Board; they have therefore, it is
submitted, a right, as a body of ratepayers, to express their opinion upon
all questions relating to the expenditure of the ratepayers' money.
The Vestry utterly repudiate the idea that they are party to "a spurious
agitation got up to give a fictitious opposition to an act of justice," but
they feel very strongly that the present is not a time to increase the burdens
of the ratepavers without just cause. On several occasions the Vestry have
deemed it their duty to direct attention to what they considered unwise
action or extravagance on the part of central authorities, for whom they are
called upon to provide funds, whether these authorities are the School
Board, the Asylums Board, or the Metropolitan Board of Works. The
Vestry are glad to know that the course they have hitherto pursued in this
direction has frequently been attended by success, and in spite of