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This scheme will be found as an appendix to this report, and although
most of the suggestions contained therein speak sufficiently for themselves,
it may be well to indicate some of the principles which have
guided your Committee in framing it.
In the first place, it seemed to your Committee that they were not
called upon to draw up a District Councils' Bill, but simply to make
recommendations which should guide opinion in the framing of such
a measure so far as the Metropolis is concerned.
In the second place, while the experience which your Committee
have acquired in administering the affairs of a parish like Islington has
predisposed them in favour of large areas and extensive jurisdiction,
they have not thought it desirable to express an opinion on the varying
details of administration which necessarily exist in connection with
other parishes, but have felt that it would be better to prepare a scheme
suitable for the Parish of Islington on the assumption that it will form
one District, leaving it to those who draft the Bill to adopt such portions
of it as may be deemed applicable to the requirements of the Districts
which may be created.
Again, your Committee have felt that the District Council, when
appointed, should be entrusted with as much of what is comprised
within the term "Local Government" as, having regard to other and
possibly conflicting interests and to its capacity for the work, it is
prudent 1o confer upon it; that the inhabitants of the district should
be fully and adequately represented on the Council; and that to such
inhabitants should be secured frequent opportunities of expressing their
opinions upon the action of their representatives.
Another principle which has guided your Committee is that, having
regard to the special work for which the new Council is designed, it
should not retain any portion of the semi-ecclesiastical business which
was transferred to the Vestry by the Metropolis Management Act, 1855,
and the amending Acts. The election of Churchwardens is therefore