Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/249

ledge were thus conspicuously lacking in the elected councils. In fact there were only six counties—in the north-east—where the Nationalist party did not possess a great majority, composed for the most part of persons who had to learn the first principles of the management of local business. The classes of small farmers, shopkeepers in country towns, and publicans were very strongly represented on the new councils. If with these had been blended a substantial number of members of education and leisure, versed in the treatment of county affairs, this local self-government might have proved more advantageous for the country than the continuance of a system in which all local administration rested in the hands of a single class. A limited element of continuity with the old system of local government was provided by the act of 1898, which required each County Council to co-opt three members of the abolished Grand Jury; but the numerical force of this element was not enough to make its presence really effective. The retention in office in most cases of the old county surveyors and clerks, who, by a clause in the act, could only be dismissed if the County Council were prepared to give really substantial pensions, was no doubt of material service in providing the new bodies with information as to past practice and legal powers. The guiding and restraining influence of these officials was felt much less in the sphere of the District Councils. Under all the circumstances, it was matter for congratulation that in so many of the County Councils the elected members showed a desire to discharge their responsibilities with a single eye to the public benefit, and to obtain a mastery over the problems coming before them. At the same time in a considerable number of both County and District Councils, more particularly the latter, there were tendencies on the one hand towards an unwise parsimony in respect of the salaries of local officials, and on the other towards jobbery and the indulgence of personal preferences. Only too often the new bodies made occasions for political demonstrations and the display of disloyal sentiments. In Westmeath, where, being a Home Ruler, Lord Greville was chosen chairman of the County Council, after a few months he felt obliged to resign that office, his position having been rendered intolerable by a foolish and prolonged quarrel between the councillors and the authorities with regard to the hoisting of a green flag on the court house. A very bitter anti-British feeling was exhibited, as the South African war approached, by several of the district councils and municipal corporations. These bodies, not content with passing resolutions altogether outside the sphere of their duties, occasionally spent their time in framing manifestations of disloyalty. The Limerick Corporation led, and was followed by, the Urban District Council, or the Town Commissioners, of Cashel, Tullamore, Monaghan, Mullingar, Nenagh, Kilrush and (Oct. 6) by the Cork Corporation. All these bodies adopted