View report page

78
does not unify the varying franchises of electors for local purposes; does
not economise the cost of rate collecting, by providing for the levying of
one consolidated rate for all purposes in each local area, but maintains as
at present, in many parishes, duplicate rating authorities; and does not,
in the slightest degree, remove the anomaly of Poor Law authorities
exercising sanitary and municipal functions, although there may be local
sanitary and municipal authorities within the same area.
Your Committee, then, can only regard the Local Government Bill'
now before Parliament as a first and small instalment of an effectual reform
of local government, which must be supplemented by amending legislation at
an early date.
PROPOSED FORMATION OF DISTRICT COUNCILS.
The Vestry have approved the proposal of the Vestries of
Islington and Fulham that the District Councils, which the
Government propose to establish in the Metropolis, should
have entrusted to them the power of making and collecting
the rates, and that the Accounts of the Councils should be
subject to an efficient audit on the lines of the Poor-law
system.
In the opinion of the Vestry, advantage should be taken
of the establishment of District Councils to simplify and
unify the administration of local affairs throughout the
Metropolis. Effete and obsolete authorities, as well as
diverse franchises and modes of election, should be abolished,
and a District Council on a popular basis should be
entrusted with all the powers of Local Government, Poorlaw
administration alone excepted. Thus each district, or
unit of administration, would be governed on precisely the
same system, instead of, as at present, in very different
manners; all the Local Boards would be elected by the same
body of electors, and in the same manner; the Guardians of
the Poor would be relieved of quasi-municipal duties, such as
the registration of births and deaths, vaccination, &c., and the