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77
They would, therefore, earnestly press the importance of one uniform
register of electors, and one uniform mode of procedure being adopted for
the election of the various local authorities. Simplification and unification
seem, to your Committee, to form the very foundation of a really effecti?e
reform in Local Government.
Local Government Bill.— Clause 76 (sec. 75 of Act).— Under this clause,
the usual day of election of County Councillors will be November 1st. Seeing
that the register then in force will practically have been made up to the
loth July in the previous year, and having regard to the migratory habits of
masses of voters, especially in some districts of the metropolis, it is apparent
that the register of voters will then be in a most imperfect condition in
consequence of the changes of tenancy in the meantime. Your Committee
are accordingly of opinion that the elections should take place in the month
of March, when the register will be in a much better state, being then but
eight months old.
Clause 91 (sec. 93 of Act).— This clause your Committee consider
retrogressive, inasmuch as it would perpetuate the existing anomalous
arrangements with regard to the City and Metropolitan Police Forces.
Your Committee are strongly of opinion that this clause should be amended,
by placing the police force of the whole County of London under the
control of the County Council. Your Committee would remind the Vestry
that it has already expressed its opinion on this subject by the following
resolution, which was passed on the 10th May:—
That this Vestry do concur in the opinion expressed by the
Vestry of St. Luke that no measure dealing with the local
government of London will be satisfactory which does not give
the control of the police to the municipal authority, on the
principle that " the keeping of the peace of a town should be
in the hands of its inhabitants."
four Committee have considered the omission from the Bill of provisions
which, in their opinion, are essential to the construction of a system
of local government on a sound and lasting basis. Thus, regarded specially
from a Metropolitan point of view, the Bill does not abolish a single
obsolete authority; does not rectify overlapping boundaries of areas for
various local jurisdictions; does not unify the mode of electing members of
local bodies ; does not unify the qualifications of members of such bodies;