We find this ancient system still in harmless and graceful illustration when a public man who has distinguished himself in the service of the country is honored by admission to the freedom of some ancient city. But in the far-off days, when the system was in practical operation, the unlimited right of creating freemen came to mean that in many cities, towns, and localities of all descriptions a number of outsiders who had no connection by residence, property, or local interest of any kind with the district, and who were wholly irresponsible to the public opinion of the local community, had the right to interfere in the management of its affairs and to become members of its municipal body. For the local traders soon began to form themselves into councils or committees for the management of the local affairs, and, in fact, became what might be described as self-elected municipal corporations; trustees who had assumed the trust for themselves; local law-makers whose term of office was lifelong, and against whose decision there was no available court of appeal. In some cases these local bodies actually arrogated to themselves the right of passing penal laws, and trying cases and awarding punishments. The local municipalities sometimes exercised the power of appointing Recorders to preside over their courts of law, and it happened in many instances that the municipal body made no condition as to the Recorder being a member of any branch of the legal profession. It is hardly necessary to point out some of the inevitable consequences of such a system. The municipal bodies voted what salaries they pleased out of the local funds, and named according to their pleasure the persons to receive the salaries. They disposed of the corporate revenues in any way they thought fit—and, indeed, in many cases they claimed and annexed as corporate property possessions that had always, up to the time of the annexation, been supposed to belong to the public at large. They usurped for themselves all manner of privileges and {257} so-called rights, and, if they thought fit, offered them for purchase to the highest bidder. The whole governing body often consisted of a very small number of residents who had elected themselves to office, and as they had the power of making themselves very disagreeable to disputants they did not often find individuals public spirited enough to challenge their right of local control. It happened much more frequently that if any man were strong enough to make his opposition inconvenient or uncomfortable for the local rulers, they got over the trouble by prevailing on him to become one of themselves, to share their privileges and profits, and to strengthen their authority. A local magnate, the head of some great family, a peer of old descent, was often thus "nobbled"—to use a modern colloquialism—and was allowed to make as many freemen as he pleased and to take whatever part he would in the control of municipal affairs.
It would be superfluous to say that the municipalities became a constantly working instrument in the hands of this or that political party. Wherever the Whigs or the Tories were strong, there the constituencies, such as they were, could always be placed at the absolute disposal of some local magnate. Even in the districts where there was but little actual corruption there was often the most extravagant waste of the public funds and public property, and the most utter neglect of all the ordinary ways of business and of economy. For a long time the increasing evils of the system had been attracting the attention and arousing the alarm of enlightened and public-spirited men all over the country, and of course when the great measure of reform had dealt with the political system, it was obvious that the reforming hand must before long touch the municipal system as well. Shortly after the passing of the Reform Bill Lord Althorp had appointed a commission to inquire into the whole history, growth, and working of the municipal corporations, and the report had brought out an immense amount of systematized information on which the Liberal statesmen, now once again in office, were determined to act. Lord Melbourne intrusted the task of {258} preparing and conducting through the House of Commons a measure for this purpose to the capable hands of Lord John Russell, who was now the leader of the Government in that House. Lord John Russell's measure was, in fact, the foundation of the whole municipal system which we see spread over the country in our times. It proposed to begin by abolishing altogether the freeman system and placing the election of local governing bodies in the hands of residents who paid a certain amount of taxation. In fact, it made the municipal bodies representative in just the same sense as the Parliamentary constituencies had been made representative by the Reform Act. It remodelled altogether the local law courts and legal arrangements of the municipalities, and ordered that the appointment of Recorders should be in the hands of the Crown, that each Recorder was to be a barrister of a certain standing, and that a Recorder should be nominated for every borough which undertook to provide a suitable salary for the occupant of the office. Provision was also made for the proper management of charitable trusts and funds.
[Sidenote: 1835—The Municipal Reform Bill]
The measure was to apply to 183 boroughs, not including the metropolis, with an average of 11,000 persons to each borough. Some of the larger boroughs were to be divided into wards, and in most cases the intention of the measure was that the boundaries of the Parliamentary borough should be the boundaries of the municipal borough as well. The governing body of each municipality was to consist of a Mayor and Councillors, the Councillors to be elected by resident ratepayers. It was proposed that the rights of living freemen were to be maintained, but as each life lapsed the right was to be extinguished, and thus the whole freeman system was to die out and all exclusive trading privileges were to be abolished. The Bill, as introduced by Lord John Russell, only applied to England and Wales; but O'Connell demanded that Ireland should also be included in the reform, and it was finally agreed that a Bill of the same nature should be brought in for Ireland, and that arrangements should be made with the Scottish representatives to have the provisions of the {259} measure applied also to Scotland so far as might be consistent with the usages and the desire of the Scottish people.
Sir Robert Peel did not offer any direct opposition to the measure, although he criticised it severely enough in some of its provisions. His speech, however, was distinctly a declaration in favor of some comprehensive scheme of municipal reform, and might fairly have been regarded rather as a help than as a hinderance to the purposes of the Government. The example set by Sir Robert Peel had naturally much influence over the greater number of the Conservative party, and only some very old-fashioned Conservatives seemed inclined to make a stand against the measure. Mr. Grote seized the opportunity to introduce a motion for the adoption of the ballot in municipal elections, but it is hardly necessary to say that he did not secure support enough on either side of the House to win success for his proposition. The Bill passed through the House of Commons without any important change in its character, but it met with very serious maltreatment in the House of Lords. The majority of the peers did not see their way to compass the actual rejection of the Bill, especially after the liberal and statesmanlike spirit in which Sir Robert Peel had dealt with it; but they set themselves to work with the object of rendering it as nearly useless as they could for the purposes which its promoters had in view. Lord Lyndhurst led the opposition to the Bill, and he could, when he so pleased, become the very narrowest of Tories, while he had ability and plausibility not included in the intellectual stock of any other Tory then in the House of Lords. Under this leadership the Tory peers so disfigured and mangled the Bill that before long its own authors could hardly have recognized it as the work of their hands. The peers not only restored all, or nearly all, the abuses and anomalies which the measure as it left the House of Commons had marked for utter abolition, but they even went so far as to introduce into their version of the Bill some entirely new and original suggestions for the creation of abuses up to that time unknown to the existing municipal system.
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The Bill thus diversified had, of course, to go back to the House of Commons, and it is hardly necessary to say that the House of Commons could not, as the Parliamentary phrase goes, agree with the Lords' amendments. Peel once again took a statesmanlike course, and strongly advised the House of Lords not to press their absurd and objectionable alterations. In the House of Lords itself the Duke of Wellington, acting as he almost always did under the influence of Peel, recommended the Tory peers not to carry their opposition too far, and before long Lord Lyndhurst, who was by temperament and intellect a very shrewd and practical man, with little of the visionary or the fanatic about him, thought it well to accept Wellington's advice, and to urge its acceptance on his brother Conservatives. Lord John Russell recommended the House of Commons to accept a compromise on a few insignificant details in no wise affecting the general purposes of the measure, in order to soothe the wounded feelings of the peers and enable them to yield with the comforting belief that after all their resistance had not been wholly in vain. The struggle was over, and on September 7, 1835, the measure became law in the same shape, to all practical purposes, as that which it wore when it left the House of Commons after its third reading there, and thus secured for Great Britain and Ireland the system of municipal government which has been working to this day.
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