The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Introduction
• Textual Introduction
• Public and Parliamentary Speeches 1850–1873
• November 1850 to July 1865
• 1.: Secular Education After 4 November, 1850?
• 2.: Cooperation 28 March, 1864
• 3.: Corruption At Elections 4 April, 1864
• 4.: Hare’s Plan For the Metropolis 10 April, 1865
• 5.: The Westminster Election of 1865 [1] 3 July, 1865
• 6.: The Westminster Election of 1865 [2] 5 July, 1865
• 7.: The Westminster Election of 1865 [3] 6 July, 1865
• 8.: The Westminster Election of 1865 [4] 8 July, 1865
• 9.: The Westminster Election of 1865 [5] 10 July, 1865
• 10.: The Westminster Election of 1865 [6] 10 July, 1865
• 11.: The Westminster Election of 1865 [7] 12 July, 1865
• February to August 1866:
• 12. The Cattle Diseases Bill [1] 14 February, 1866
• 13.: The Cattle Diseases Bill [2] 16 February, 1866
• 14.: Suspension of Habeas Corpus In Ireland 17 February, 1866
• 15.: Representation of the People [1] 12 April, 1866
• 16.: Representation of the People [2] 13 April, 1866
• 17.: Representation of the People [3] 16 April, 1866
• 18.: The Malt Duty 17 April, 1866
• 19.: Inclosure of Hainault Forest 25 April, 1866
• 20.: Representation of the People [4] 26 April, 1866
• 21.: Chichester Fortescue’s Land Bill 17 May, 1866
• 22.: Representation of the People [5] 31 May, 1866
• 23.: The Ministerial Crisis 23 June, 1866
• 24.: The Jamaica Committee 9 July, 1866
• 25.: Electoral Franchise For Women 17 July, 1866
• 26.: The Disturbances In Jamaica [1] 19 July, 1866
• 27.: The Reform Meeting In Hyde Park [1] 19 July, 1866
• 28.: W.e. Gladstone [1] 21 July, 1866
• 29.: The Reform Meeting In Hyde Park [2] 24 July, 1866
• 30.: The Value of Land 25 July, 1866
• 31.: The Reform Meeting In Hyde Park [3] 26 July, 1866
• 32.: The Reform Meeting In Hyde Park [4] 30 July, 1866
• 33.: The Disturbances In Jamaica [2] 31 July, 1866
• 34.: The Reform Meeting In Hyde Park [5] 2 August, 1866
• 35.: Public Health 2 August, 1866
• 36.: The Extradition Treaties Act [1] 3 August, 1866
• 37.: The Extradition Treaties Act [2] 4 August, 1866
• 38.: The Naval Dockyards 4 August, 1866
• 39.: The Extradition Treaties Act [3] 6 August, 1866
• 40.: The Disturbances In Jamaica [3] 10 August, 1866
• 41.: The Lord Chief Baron 10 August, 1866
• February to August 1867
• 42.: Political Progress 4 February, 1867
• 43.: Goldwin Smith 4 February, 1867
• 44.: The Royal Commission On Trades’ Unions 15 February, 1867
• 45.: The Metropolitan Poor Bill [1] 8 March, 1867
• 46.: The Straits Settlements 8 March, 1867
• 47.: The Metropolitan Poor Bill [2] 8 March, 1867
• 48.: The Metropolitan Poor Bill [3] 11 March, 1867
• 49.: The Metropolitan Poor Bill [4] 14 March, 1867
• 50.: The Reform Bill [1] 8 April, 1867
• 51.: Trades Unions 10 April, 1867
• 52.: The Reform Bill [2] 11 April, 1867
• 53.: The Reform Bill [3] 9 May, 1867
• 54.: The Reform Bill [4] 17 May, 1867
• 55.: The Admission of Women to the Electoral Franchise 20 May, 1867
• 56.: The Municipal Corporations Bill 21 May, 1867
• 57.: The Fenian Convicts 25 May, 1867
• 58.: Reform of Parliament 25 May, 1867
• 59.: The Reform Bill [5] 27 May, 1867
• 60.: Personal Representation 30 May, 1867
• 61.: The Bankruptcy Acts Repeal Bill 4 June, 1867
• 62.: Petition Concerning the Fenians 14 June, 1867
• 63.: The Sunday Lectures Bill 19 June, 1867
• 64.: The Libel Bill 25 June, 1867
• 65.: The Reform Bill [6] 27 June, 1867
• 66.: Redistribution 28 June, 1867
• 67.: William Lloyd Garrison 29 June, 1867
• 68.: Martial Law 2 July, 1867
• 69.: The Reform Bill [7] 4 July, 1867
• 70.: Tancred’s Charity Bill 4 July, 1867
• 71.: The Reform Bill [8] 5 July, 1867
• 72.: The Case of Fulford and Wellstead 5 July, 1867
• 73.: The Reform Bill [9] 15 July, 1867
• 74.: Commodore Wiseman and the Turkish Navy [1] 16 July, 1867
• 75.: Commodore Wiseman and the Turkish Navy [2] 22 July, 1867
• 76.: Meetings In Royal Parks [1] 22 July, 1867
• 77.: Public Education 29 July, 1867
• 78.: The Courts-martial In Jamaica 1 August, 1867
• 79.: Meeting In the Tea-room of the House of Commons 2 August, 1867
• 80.: England’s Danger Through the Suppression of Her Maritime Power 5 August, 1867
• 81.: The Extradition Treaties Act [4] 6 August, 1867
• 82.: The Metropolitan Government Bill 7 August, 1867
• 83.: The Reform Bill [10] 8 August, 1867
• 84.: East India Revenue 12 August, 1867
• 85.: Meetings In Royal Parks [2] 13 August, 1867
• February to November 1868
• 86.: Proportional Representation and Redistribution 29 February, 1868
• 87.: The Alabama Claims 6 March, 1868
• 88.: The State of Ireland 12 March, 1868
• 89.: Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices At Elections [1] 26 March, 1868
• 90.: Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices At Elections [2] 2 April, 1868
• 91.: Procedure In the House: Amendments 21 April, 1868
• 92.: Capital Punishment 21 April, 1868
• 93.: The Municipal Corporations (metropolis) Bill [1] 5 May, 1868
• 94.: The Established Church In Ireland 7 May, 1868
• 95.: Local Charges On Real Property 12 May, 1868
• 96.: Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices At Elections [3] 21 May, 1868
• 97.: Representation of the People (scotland) [1] 28 May, 1868
• 98.: Representation of the People (scotland) [2] 8 June, 1868
• 99.: Married Women’s Property 10 June, 1868
• 100.: Registration of Publication 12 June, 1868
• 101.: Representation of the People (ireland) 15 June, 1868
• 102.: The Government of India Bill [1] 15 June, 1868
• 103.: Lodger Registration 15 June, 1868
• 104.: Public Schools [1] 16 June, 1868
• 105.: The Municipal Corporations (metropolis) Bill [2] 17 June, 1868
• 106.: The Government of India Bill [2] 22 June, 1868
• 107.: Public Schools [2] 23 June, 1868
• 108.: The Sea-fisheries (ireland) Bill 24 June, 1868
• 109.: Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices At Elections [4] 25 June, 1868
• 110.: The Municipal Corporations (metropolis) Bill [3] 30 June, 1868
• 111.: Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices At Elections [5] 6 July, 1868
• 112.: Public Schools [3] 7 July, 1868
• 113.: Supply—post Office 7 July, 1868
• 114.: The Government of India Bill [3] 8 July, 1868
• 115.: Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices At Elections [6] 10 July, 1868
• 116.: Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices At Elections [7] 14 July, 1868
• 117.: The Fenian Prisoners [1] 16 July, 1868
• 118.: Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices At Elections [8] 17 July, 1868
• 119.: Poor Relief [1] 17 July, 1868
• 120.: Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices At Elections [9] 18 July, 1868
• 121.: Imprisonment For Costs On a Dismissed Charge [1] 21 July, 1868
• 122.: The Fenian Prisoners [2] 21 July, 1868
• 123.: Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices At Elections [10] 22 July, 1868
• 124.: The Westminster Election of 1868 [1] 22 July, 1868
• 125.: Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices At Elections [11] 23 July, 1868
• 126.: Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices At Elections [12] 24 July, 1868
• 127.: Smoking In Railway Carriages [1] 24 July, 1868
• 128.: The Westminster Election of 1868 [2] 24 July, 1868
• 129.: The Metropolitan Foreign Cattle Market 25 July, 1868
• 130.: Smoking In Railway Carriages [2] 25 July, 1868
• 131.: Imprisonment For Costs On a Dismissed Charge [2] 27 July, 1868
• 132.: Poor Relief [2] 27 July, 1868
• 133.: The Westminster Election of 1868 [3] 2 November, 1868
• 134.: The Westminster Election of 1868 [4] 4 November, 1868
• 135.: The Westminster Election of 1868 [5] 6 November, 1868
• 136.: The Westminster Election of 1868 [6] 9 November, 1868
• 137.: Fawcett For Brighton 10 November, 1868
• 138.: The Westminster Election of 1868 [7] 11 November, 1868
• 139.: The Westminster Election of 1868 [8] 13 November, 1868
• 140.: W.e. Gladstone [2] 14 November, 1868
• 141.: The Westminster Election of 1868 [9] 16 November, 1868
• 142.: The Westminster Election of 1868 [10] 18 November, 1868

56.

The Municipal Corporations Bill

21 MAY, 1867

mr. j. stuart mill said, he did not do so in any spirit of hostility to the Report of the Committee relative to the Local Government of the Metropolis, of which Committee he had the honour of being a Member.¹ It was true he had disagreed from the majority of the Committee on several of their Resolutions, but as a whole their Report had his general concurrence, and he considered it a great step in the progress of this question. The Committee, in the first place, freely acknowledged existing defects; and, in the second place, it recognised the general principles upon which, in his opinion, a reform of those defects should proceed. It recognised that good municipal institutions for the metropolis must consist of two parts—namely, local bodies representing districts, and a general body representing the metropolis at large—the latter to take the place of the present Board of Works. Neither was his Motion framed in hostility to the Board of Works. It might at least be said for the Board that it had been appointed to perform a great and laborious work,² and that it had actually done that work. The Report proposed increased powers and an improved mode of election for the general Board; and with regard to the local district bodies, the Report considered the present districts to be too small, and virtually recommended the abolition of hole-and-corner local government. The Report might be considered in that and other respects as an outline of what municipal reformers desired; and the Bill he proposed to introduce would do something towards filling up that outline with regard to the local bodies only. He had given notice of his intention to ask for leave to bring in a Bill for the establishment of a central federal municipality for the whole of the metropolis,³ but he was not yet prepared with that Bill, and he should not ask the House to read the present Bill a second time until he was able to lay before them the entire plan. The plan he was now about to propose was not his own, but originated with one of the most important vestries in Westminster,⁴ and it had obtained the warm support of many of the leading vestrymen of the metropolis. He had no hostility to the vestries. Our parochial institutions, with all their defects, had done great things for the country. They had carried down to comparatively low grades of society a familiar acquaintance with the forms of public business and the modes of carrying it on, and in consequence this country possessed an advantage which, perhaps, no other country (except the United States) enjoyed—namely, that when circumstances call for the expression of an opinion by a collective body of citizens, there are numerous persons who know how that opinion should be collected and expressed. These merits could not be denied to our local system; but that system, as established in the metropolis, appeared to him to be on too small a scale. The Report of the Committee did not recognise that fact to so great an extent as he could have wished, and therefore he ventured to propose his plan. The Committee said that the districts of the metropolis were too small and inconvenient in some cases.⁵ He (Mr. Stuart Mill) believed they were too small in all cases, and that the municipal boroughs of the metropolis ought to be conterminous with the Parliamentary boroughs. He thought it necessary that the municipal districts should be of considerable extent, and highly desirable that they should also be units in themselves. Unless the districts were considerable they were always more or less a kind of hole-and-corner government. It was a common fallacy, now going the round of Europe, but still a fallacy, that the mere circumstance of a body being popularly chosen was a guarantee that it would conduct its proceedings on popular principles. His faith in popular governments did not depend on their being popularly elected. The real value of popular institutions consisted in the popular power of correcting mistakes, and enforcing responsibility to the people. Owing to this responsibility, it would not be possible for any body long to retain its position if it habitually exercised its powers contrary to the public interest as generally understood. Another point was that the greatest attainable publicity should be secured to the business transacted by these bodies; but when the business was on a very small scale it did not excite much attention. The check was not effectual unless the business was of such a nature that the public eye would be fixed on it. It was further desirable, for the sake of greater publicity, that not only should the district be of considerable magnitude and the business important, but that the districts should, if possible, be natural units in themselves, or at least, should be units for other purposes than this special one. The importance of this was, that it would tend to induce a higher class of men to enter these bodies. Three of the metropolitan boroughs (the City, Westminster, and Southwark) were, if not natural, at least historical units; the other districts, though of more recent origin, were gradually acquiring an esprit de corps, and a sense of common interest. It had been at first thought desirable that an additional district should be created out of parts of Marylebone and Finsbury. The great importance, however, of making the municipal and Parliamentary boundaries coincide, had led to the abandonment of this idea, except so far as regarded the formation of a new police district, there being at present no police-office between Marlborough Street and Worship Street in the extreme east. The Bill provided for the division of the Tower Hamlets; but this would be dealt with by the Bill for the Representation of the People. ^aThere would also be a district for Kensington and Chelsea.^a6 He should not ask the House to read the Bill a second time till he had introduced the remainder of the plan of which it formed a part. Whatever merit the plan had, and that merit appeared to him to be considerable, it belonged entirely to his constituents who originated the plan. He himself had no part in it except that, at his own special request, he was permitted to introduce it to the House. (Hear, hear.) He now begged to move for leave to bring in a Bill to establish Municipal Corporations within the Metropolis.

[Mill was followed, inter alia, by Ayrton, who had chaired the committee on the Metropolis that Mill refers to, and Locke, who had served on the committee; Gathorne-Hardy said the Government would not oppose the introduction of the Bill, but indicated hesitation over such a complex matter, on which the Metropolitan members were not themselves agreed. Mill’s concluding sentence follows on Gathorne-Hardy’s remarks.]

Mr. J. Stuart Mill, in reply, observed, that he believed the Bill would be approved of by the City when its provisions became known.

[The Bill was given first reading.]

[1 ]“First” and “Second Reports from the Select Committee on Metropolitan Local Government” (16 Apr. and 30 July, 1866), PP, 1866, XIII, 171–628. For Mill’s part in the Committee, see App. B.

[2 ]By Sect. 31 of 18 & 19 Victoria, c. 120 (1855).

[3 ]Eventually brought in as “A Bill for the Better Government of the Metropolis,” 30 & 31 Victoria (6 Aug., 1867), PP, 1867, IV, 215–56 (see No. 82).

[4 ]See “Memorial to the Home Secretary, from the Vestry of St. James,” App. 1 in “Second Report from the Select Committee on Metropolis Local Taxation” (24 June, 1861), PP, 1861, VIII, 321–2; and “A Bill Intituled ‘An Act for the Establishment of Municipal Corporations within the Metropolis,’ ” App. 9 in “Second Report from the Select Committee on Metropolitan Government,” pp. 619–28.

[5 ]For such views, see “Third Report from the Select Committee on Metropolis Local Taxation with the Proceedings of the Committee” (26 July, 1861), PP, 1861, VIII, 383. From the context, it would seem that Mill is referring to the two Reports on Metropolitan Local Government cited in n1 above; though neither contains such statements by the Committee, Mill himself voices them in his questions (see below, App. B, Questions 1866–71 and 2163 ff.)

[a-a]+TT

[6 ]30 & 31 Victoria, c. 102, in Sect. 19 provided that Chelsea should return two members (under Schedule B, Kensington was included as a parish of Chelsea), and in Sect. 21 Tower Hamlets was given two members for each of the two divisions.