Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 17.djvu/37

MUNICIPALITY 27 MUNICIPALITY. A municipality is an organization for the self-government of a city or town by means of a corporation empowered generally to maintain peace and order, and to manage the affairs of the inhabitants. Such a corporation consists of a head as a mayor or provost, and of superior members as aldermen and councillors, together with the simple corporators who are represented by the governing body ; it acts as a person by its common seal and has a perpetual succession with power to hold lands subject to the restrictions of the Mortmain Laws, and it can sue or be sued or be indicted, although there are of course many personal matters which do not come within the functions and liabilities of such bodies politic. Where necessary for its primary objects, every corporation has power to make byelaws and to enforce them by penalties, provided they are not unjust or unreasonable or otherwise inconsistent with the objects of the incorporation or char ter or other instrument of foundation ; and in the case of a municipality such byelaws will be binding even upon strangers within the district. Great Britain has no general system of self-government. A certain number of cities and towns have been from time to time incorporated by the crown, or have successfully claimed the privilege as existing from time immemorial, either because in fact they have governed themselves from very ancient times, or because they have had such a repre sentation in parliament as led to a presumption of their having been incorporated like the rest. The other urban districts have been regarded as mere " upland towns " or populous townships, with nothing but a parochial organiza tion, or the faint semblance of municipal institutions which grew out of the administration of fairs and markets. These are now comprised in the various local government districts existing under the Public Health Acts, " lighting and watching districts " constituted under an Act passed for the purpose in 1833, and improvement districts governed under the powers given by a number of local Acts. Pro vision has been made by the Acts which regulate these corporations for the grant of powers of self-government to new municipal boroughs subject to the approval of the committee of the privy council. The making of corporations, however, is regarded as one of the highest prerogatives of the crown, and the legislature has always been careful to avoid unnecessary interference with the right ; the func tions of the committee are therefore confined to the allow ance or refusal of municipal powers as constituted by statute, the right of the crown to make corporations of other kinds being left in theory untouched. The term " municipal borough " was introduced when the larger corporations were reformed in 1835 to denote a place to which the new powers of self-government were applied, whether such a place were a parliamentary borough or not. It has now become nearly equivalent to "munici pality" owing to the provisions of the Act of 1883 for extinguishing the less important of the small unreformed municipalities, and for bringing the rest within the purview of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, by which the provisions of the statute of 1835 and its forty-two amend ing Acts were consolidated. The meaning of the word " borough " has undergone many changes. It seems at first to have denoted a walled town or city, but it was soon applied especially to such of them as possessed some kind of organization for the transaction of the local business. At a later period the term implied the right to be repre sented in parliament. This may be illustrated by the proceedings in the case of Torrington in the reign of Edward III. This place, whether a " burgh " or a mere "vill," had in fact sent burgesses to parliament, but after it was determined that such representation was improper the town was omitted from the category of boroughs. In summoning the commons to parliament each sheriff was directed to procure the election of two citizens from every city and two burgesses from every borough in his bailiwick. But it soon became the practice to omit places which had been represented, and to include others with no title to the privilege except their situation on the royal demesnes, or their political or commercial importance. It resulted that the word " borough " came to denote only those places which were usually represented in parliament, whether they were walled towns or not, and whether they had or had not received charters of incorporation ; and in course of time it was taken for granted that every parliamentary borough must have been incorporated at some ancient time, or in other words was entitled to the privileges of a borough by prescription. The first Reform Act changed the meaning of the word again by depriving the smaller boroughs of their parliamentary functions and reducing them to the same position as those districts which were known as boroughs in a popular sense, as having originally had a representation which had been lost, or as being important places enjoying municipal rights under charters like those which had been granted to the parliamentary boroughs. We shall now proceed to describe the ordinary constitu tion of an English municipal borough, omitting the small municipalities which are now in course of extinguishment, and for other reasons omitting the city of London, which, on account of its singular importance and its peculiar cir cumstances, will probably become without much delay the subject of separate legislation (see LONDON). These boroughs are governed by corporations composed in each case of a mayor, aldermen, and burgesses, acting by a council elected by the general body of qualified cor porators. If the borough is a city, the burgesses are de scribed as the "citizens." With a few exceptions arising under local Acts, the following description applies to all the municipal boroughs in England and Wales, similar provi sions having been made for the boroughs of Scotland and Ireland (see vol. iv. p. 63) by Acts of Parliament passed for those parts of the United Kingdom. The powers and duties of the council are defined by the Municipal Corpora tions Act, 1882, which forms a complete municipal code. The number of councillors varies from twelve to forty-eight according to the size of the borough, and in the case of a new incorporation the number is fixed by a provision in the charter. The qualification of a councillor is to be an enrolled resident burgess, or, if not resident within the district, residing within 1 5 miles of the borough and having in either case the property qualification required by the Act, provided that he is not a clergyman or a regular dissenting minister, or interested in any office, place, or contract with which the corporation is concerned. The qualification of a burgess is to be enrolled on the burgess- roll as the rate-paying occupier of a house or other building in the borough or within 7 miles distance from it. Women may be burgesses, but are not qualified for corporate office. In many boroughs there are ancient classes of freemen qualified as such by birth, servitude, or marriage (and formerly in many cases qualified by gift or purchase) ; but these freemen as such have not the rights of burgesses, though they are entitled to the parliamentary franchise and to their share in the charities and corporation property under titles accruing to their class before the reform of 1835. The qualification of an alderman is the same as that of a councillor, and the mayor is chosen from the aldermen, or councillors, or persons qualified for such positions. The councillors hold office for three years, one-third of their number being annually renewed by ballot. If the borough is divided into wards, an alderman acts as return- ing-officer for the elections in each ward ; if not, the mayor