ratepayers. This, of course, includes most of the rest. If this is avoided, as I believe it will be, many minor difficulties will be solved. Two other points, however, may be mentioned in connection with County Government. (1) Compensation for malicious injuries is now awarded by Presentment sessions subject to the approval of the Grand Jury, and to a cumbrous and expensive appeal to the judge at Assizes. The Bill of 1892 left it to the Grand Jury subject to such appeal. But as these cases frequently involve burning questions between landlord and tenant, neither a tribunal composed like the Grand Jury of landlords, nor an elective body like the County Council, representing the tenants and largely composed of the latter, could be regarded as impartial or satisfactory. Indeed, such business, if entrusted to the County Council, would be a sure means of importing those elements of class dissension into its proceedings which should be most sedulously excluded. The matter is purely judicial, and there seems no reason why the jurisdiction should not be given, as suggested by Mr. Bagwell a few years ago, to the ordinary Courts of Petty Sessions, Quarter Sessions, and Assizes. (2) Capital expenditure was to be subject, under the Bill of 1892, to the approval of a joint committee, on the analogy of the Scotch Act of 1889, and appointed half by the Grand Jury and half by the County Council. It is understood that the general principle of the Irish Bill will be to reject all safeguards not adopted in England or Scotland, and in this point of view the Grand Jury would be objectionable as nominating half such joint committee. But if the system has worked well in Scotland, and if the larger ratepayers, whether landlords or tenants, were substituted for the Grand Jury, a valuable safeguard with no landlord taint about it might be afforded. PROSPECTIVE ADVANTAGES Two points only will be touched on in this connection. (1) Mr. Balfour alluded to the unnecessary expenditure involved in the double collection' (of County Cess and Poor Rate) under the existing system.' This is far from being a mere detail; in fact, at first sight the unification of collection might seem to involve a much larger change, which is obviously not to be attempted now-namely, the fusion of County and Poor Law administration. This latter process (to say nothing of other difficulties) would involve a formidable dislocation of existing areas of taxation, especially where Poor Law Unions extend into more than one county. But joint collection could probably be effected, when the incidence of both rates under the new arrangement was on the occupier, with but little disturbance beyond such a rearrangement of boundaries within a county as would prevent Poor Rate areas and County Cess areas from overlapping; and the advantages of such a simplification would far outweigh the inconvenience in making the change, and would be a movement in the direction of a possible larger fusion hereafter. (2) Whether the two rates are collected together or not, the mere fact of the incidence of the two being assimilated would remove one serious obstacle to another reform-namely, the concentration, in auxiliary Asylums under the control of the Lunacy authorities, of the harmless lunatics now scattered, often in the most miserable condition, through the various Workhouses. This transfer, which was 2 recommended by the Lunacy Committee mentioned above, would now involve the transfer of the cost of such lunatics from the Poor Rate, of which half falls on the landlords, to the County Cess, the whole of which falls on the tenants. The Poor Relief (Ireland) Bill just withdrawn provided for such concentration in auxiliary Workhouses under the control of the Poor Law authorities, by the creation of Joint District Boards for the purpose; but if the Asylum Boards, now entirely nominated by the Lord-Lieutenant, were reinforced by representatives of the County Councils, as recommended by the Lunacy Committee of 1891 and as proposed in the Bill of 1892, and the incidence' difficulty were at an end, there would be no objection to the transfer to the Lunacy authorities, and no necessity to create the Joint District Poor Law Boards for this purpose. ULTERIOR CHANGES A gradual transfer will probably take place, from the Poor Law to the County authority, of various sanitary and other functions which have been piled on the Boards of Guardians as the only representative bodies available, but for the discharge of which they are often quite unfitted. Setting these aside, future changes will be chiefly in Poor Law administration. The vast change in the circumstances of the country is reflected in considerable alterations in the character of the Workhouses and the nature of the relief, but the system has hardly undergone corresponding modifications. Outdoor relief has enormously increased, and the able-bodied have practically disappeared from most country Workhouses, which have become more and more hospitals for the sick poor rather than refuges for the destitute. But the rules and regulations of the Local Government Board remain in many important respects unchanged. Reformers will seek for improvement chiefly by means of better classification, including classification of the Workhouses themselves, as well as classification within each Workhouse. Concentration of Workhouse lunatics seems to be almost within our reach. Concentration of Workhouse children is being tried, and several alternatives for classifying' them 22nd Report, § 12. are suggested. The classification of the sick and the infirm by concentration in separate establishments, and accompanied with improved nursing arrangements, is being practised largely in England. And such reforms will probably be promoted by the new system in Ireland. And behind these, again, stand the questions of amalgamation of Unions on a large scale and of possible fusion with the County system. And, though these last questions may seem rather remote and visionary, they are already discussed both on the platform and in the study; and it is quite possible the new system may bring them within the sphere of practical politics. But, after all, these are largely matters of machinery, and in conclusion we must come back to the crucial question from which we started: Who are to work the machinery?' and it is on the healing influences of other kinds now working in Ireland that I mainly rely for a satisfactory answer :-on the social reconstruction and industrial revival which are taking place there, and which I hope and believe the Government intend to foster by their industrial policy, as they are taking advantage of them in their scheme of Local Government Reform. MONTEAGLE. The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake INDEX TO VOL. XLI The titles of articles are printed in italics À - ACO COURT (Major Charles), French Note on the Declaration of Paris Adye (Lieutenant-Colonel), The Limits of French Armament, 942-956 Alfred de Musset, the scandals of his Anæsthesia, the benefits of, 741-744 Annexations, Foreign, do they injure Antitoxin treatment of disease, 756 CAL Bechuana Land, annexation of, 377- Bennett (Ernest N.), Sidelights on the Beresford (Lord Charles), Urgent Bimetallism question in the United Biography, The Limits of, 428-436 Blyth (Mrs.), Sketches made in Boer Indictments of British Policy, Bombay, the plague in, 189–190 Botti (Dr.), his excavations at Alex- Bousfield (William), his letter on the Bowles (Thomas Gibson), Note on the Brontë (Charlotte) as a novelist, 774– Buckman (S. S.), The Speech of Buildings, Ancient, Deliberate Decep- |Burial Service, The, 38–55 CAM Cambridge, University of, the woman question at, 531-537 Canada, the Catholic question in, 656- Canea, 700 Carpathians, Timber Creeping in the, 236-249 during the Queen's reign, 652 653 Children, The Speech of, 793-807 China, France and Russia in, 487-502 Cockburn (Sir George), his un- Colonies and other possessions, statistics Colvin (Sir Auckland), Agra in 1857, Comets, Mr. Huggins's observations of, Convocation, the need of reforming, 449-453 Cornish May carols, 727-728 Courthope (Professor), Life in Poetry, Courtney (Leonard), The Recent Presi- Cox (J. G. Snead), Mr. Laurier and Creighton (Mrs.), Commercial Laun- Cretan Insurrection, Side-lights on Question, The, 339-342 Crete, For Greece and, 337-338 Crow (Francis Edward), English En- DEER-HUNTING n the Carpathian mountains, 237-249 FUR Democracy, Modern, British Mon- Devonshire May carol, 728-729 ation of the, 373-376, 509-510 Disraeli (Benjamin) as a novelist, 780– EAST, The Powers and the, in the Educational Peace, The, of Scotland, Eliot (George) as a novelist, 777-778 English Enterprise in Persia, 124-134 Evolution, Mr. Herbert Spencer and Federation, colonial, 349-350 Fenwick (Mrs. Bedford), Nurses à la Mode, in reply to Lady Priestley Fitch (Sir Joshua), The London Forgery, Literary, A Note on the France, the Institute of, 1013-1014 French, The, in Madagascar, 69-83 Armament, The Limits of, 942-956 Frenchmen and Englishmen compared, Furry dance, the, 727-728 |