shall respectively be applicable to this Act, except so far as they are repealed or are inconsistent; and in 1863 we have another amendment, 26 & 27 Vict. c. 117. It recites that the provisions of the Act of 1855, with regard to the inspection and seizure of diseased and unwholesome meat, are defective, and that other and more effectual provisions should be substituted therefor. It repeals the 26th section of the Act of 1855, and substitutes a much more stringent one, increasing the penalty from £10 to £20, and giving a magistrate the option of inflicting three months imprisonment, without fine, and, finally, it provides that this Act, and the one of 1855, shall be read and construed together as one Act. These three Acts apply solely to England, but in 1866 the Sanitary Act enacts, in section 57, that the "Nuisance Removal Acts," as amended by the second part of this Act, shall apply to Ireland, and Part II., section 14, declares, that the expression "Nuisance Removal Acts," shall mean the Acts passed in the years following of the reign of the Queen, that is to say, the one in the session of the 18 & 19 Vict. c. 121, and the other in the session of the 23 & 24 Vict. c. 77, as amended by this part of this Act, and this part of this Act shall be construed as one with said Acts, but no notice is here taken of the Act of 1863. Does it therefore extend to Ireland? Dr. Hancock omits it from his exposition of the clauses applicable to this country, and the Poor Law Commissioners are in doubt on the matter. If it does not apply you have then the anomaly of introducing for our benefit here, in 1866, a clause (the 26th) of the Act of 1855, which was repealed in 1863 in England, after eight years' experience of its operation, and you punish with a fine in Ireland what is punished with imprisonment in England.

The same argument applies to the 16th section of the Act of 1860, (23 & 24 Vict. c. 77,) which is repealed by the 29 & 30 Vict. c. 41, (1866), an Act not extended to Ireland.

In 1859 we have the Recreation Grounds Act, 22 Vict. c. 27, passed for both countries, enabling owners of limited estates to make grants to trustees for such purposes, and under the Public Health Act of 1848 the Local Board is authorized in England, by section 74, to provide, maintain, lay out, plant, and improve such premises at the expense of the rates, but this provision has not been extended to Ireland. In 1860 an English Act was passed, 23 & 24 Vict. c. 30, reciting that facility should be given for the purpose of effecting local improvements beneficial to the health and comfort of the people, and authorizing the ratepayers of any parish having five hundred inhabitants, to rate their district for the purpose of forming any public walk, exercise or play-ground, and maintaining same, and placing convenient seats, and shelter from the rain, and for purposes of a similar nature, provided half the cost was made up by subscription, and the rate did not exceed sixpence in the pound.

In 1863, 26 Vict. c. 13, another English Act was passed for the protection of certain gardens and ornamental grounds in cities and boroughs, and recites that it is expedient to make provision for the

better protection and charge of enclosed gardens and ornamental grounds which have been set apart for the use of the inhabitants of any public square, crescent, or circus, street, or other public place surrounding or adjoining such gardens or grounds, and enacts that in all cases where such places have fallen into neglect and no person can be found responsible for their proper care, the corporation can, at the expense of the rates, keep such place in good order.

None of these Acts apply to Ireland; if they did the peoples' park would ere now have become a credit and a comfort to the town of Belfast.

In 1861 and 1863 we have the latest English amendments (24 & 25 Vict. c. 61, and 26 Vict. c. 17) of the Local Government Act of 1858; some clauses of these Acts are extended to Ireland by the Act of 1866, but many are omitted; for example, those referring to an improved system of audit of accounts; the amalgamation of special and general rates, the service of notice, encroachment on streets, the power of adopting the provisions of the new Act by simple resolution of local authorities, the establishment and regulation of fairs and markets, control over new streets at their formation and over new houses. In 1865, we have the Sewage Utilization Act for both countries; it extends to Ireland various clauses of the Act of 1848 and 1858 not hitherto in force.

In 1851, the Labouring Classes Lodging-House Act (14 & 15 Vict. c. 34), was passed for England, and fifteen years afterwards we have for Ireland the Labouring Classes Lodging-Houses and DwellingHouses Act 1866; these Acts are similar but not identical. The English Act incorporates the local authority and gives a common seal; the Irish does not.

These Acts enable the local authorities in towns and populous districts to erect dwelling-houses and lodging-houses for the labouring classes, and they can borrow money from the Loan Commissioners for the purpose.

Similar varieties of legislation exist in the Burial Acts, and I now come to the last of the series, the Sanitary Act of 1866, which has made a great stride towards the assimilation of the law as to Local Government, especially in reference to the law of nuisance, water supply, and public health.

The Act of 1858 contains valuable provisions for the audit of the local authorities' accounts by the Poor Law Auditors of the country; those most important sections have not been extended to Ireland.

We have here four systems of auditing accounts of local taxation. The grand jury expenditure of one million is audited as to points of law by the fiat of the judge, and as to matters of account by the Receiver Master in Chancery as head of the County Treasurer's Audit Office.

The Poor Law taxation of £600,000 is audited by the Commissioners, both as to law and account, and is well done.

So far as Town Councils manage Grand Jury Cess, they are under the same system as the Grand Juries, but as to the rest they

are under no system of audit as to points of law; such points being only determinable by a Chancery suit, as in the case of Belfast. The official audit as to matters of account was intended by the Act of 1840 to have been carried out by the Audit Office in London, but, this having entirely broken down, the provision casting the obli gation on the Audit Office was repealed last year (29 & 30 Vict. c. 39), and the audit of these accounts by the Auditor-General now depends on a Treasury Minute.

The accounts of Municipal Councils and Town Commissions are practically subject to no official audit, but only to the examination of auditors selected by the ratepayers. The advantage of an official auditor is that a trained auditor examining a number of accounts of similar bodies and devoting his time to the duty, learns the business of auditing, and must be more skilful than most of the auditors selected for individual places by the ratepayers. I do not propose to discuss which is the best system of audit, but only to point out that legislation on the subject is not uniform and requires improvement, and such improvement could be advantageously introduced in considering the modifications necessary for extending the Local Government Acts to Ireland.

The collection of local taxes has been consolidated in Dublin and Belfast, and it is a mere matter of detail legislation to extend this advantageous and economical arrangement to other towns by consolidating the collection of the Grand Jury Cess, Poor Rate, and Town Rates in each town. The charge of roads has been transferred from the Grand Jury to the Town Council in Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and Belfast. The principle being conceded, it is again only a matter of detail legislation how this arrangement can be best extended to other towns.

When Parliament once sanctions an important principle of public policy there should be some department connected with Parliament whose duty would be to report to the next session the different similar cases to which the principle applies. In this way each important decision of Parliament would be a step towards the formation of a code. When the particular case was decided the general principle could be laid down, and thus the backward parts of the empire, such as Ireland, would not be left to a perpetual struggle in getting Acts extended to them ten or fifteen years after they have been adopted in England.

The extension of Registration of Births and Deaths to Ireland was largely owing to discussions in this Society, and more recently the paper of Dr. Mapother led to the application of the Town Council for the assimilation of the laws of public health, which was carried out by the Sanitary Act of 1866.

The success of such efforts shows that in entering on the advocacy of another assimilation of the laws in the two countries we are engaging in a hopeful, and what may be deemed a useful, enterprize.

GOVERNMENT AND THE RAILWAYS.*

What Action, if any, ought the Government to take with regard to Railways? By EDWIN CHADWICK, C.B., Corresponding Member of the Institute of France.

IN

N an Address which I gave before this Association in London, when I had the honour to fill the office of President of the Department of Economy and Trade, and also in a paper which, by request, I read before the Society of Arts, I submitted my views on the economical principles applicable to the reform of our railway communications. I endeavoured to show that railroads, like common roads, were usually profitable, often by the increased value given by them to adjacent land, though they failed to pay good dividends-as good common roads are usually profitable, though they may fail to pay for their construction and maintenance by tolls. I contended that of all taxes those on the means of intercommunication-that all exactions on them beyond the payments for construction and the services of working and maintenance-are wasteful, and the worst of taxes. I maintained that, by the substitution of public or governmental for the private trader's security-by the economies derivable from unity of management, and by the relief from local as well as from general taxation, obtainable by putting the railways in their proper position as public roads-a large saving might be effected, sufficient to compensate the shareholders fairly, and to provide for reductions of fares and extended accommodation to the public.

On the motion of Sir John Pakington, that address was published, and I believe it served to promote the appointment of a Commission of Inquiry into the facts. That commission has recently made its report. By more impartial persons than I may pretend to be that report is pronounced to be a failure. It has failed to meet the elementary propositions to which I have referred, or to elucidate them properly. It reports as its opinion" that it is inexpedient at present to subvert the policy which has hitherto been adopted, of leaving the construction and management of railways to the free enterprize of the people"-meaning by the people, it is fair to presume, such private enterprizers as those who, by multiplied competing capitals wastefully applied, have brought our railways into the existing ruinous condition, by whose blunderings (not to speak of any plundering) a state of complicated evil has been produced, from which it is, "at present," needful to extricate it-for the avoidance of further waste, and for the sake of the free enterprize of the people-meaning the whole people-in safe, convenient, cheap, and complete intercommunication. Lord Stanley has not signed the report. Neither has Mr. Roebuck signed it. Mr. Monsell has made a distinct and very able report, especially on the railways of Ireland, and in opposition to the report of the majority of the Commissioners. And, above all, Sir Rowland Hill has made an independent report, well

* For Abstracts and Discussion, see p. 682.

Q Q

sustained by evidence, on the whole question, very much in accordance with the views which I submitted to the Association.

We were led to expect a paper on the subject from Mr. Lloyd (the author of the celebrated Lloyd's bonds), who, upon Sir Rowland Hill's report, has stated that he has arrived at conclusions in the direction of those set forth therein, and was desirous to avail himself of some opportunity of expressing them publicly. I regret that he has been prevented giving us the benefit of the results of his very long and close experience for this meeting. From several persons practically engaged in large branches of railway administration I have received, privately, direct expressions of concurrence in the views I have set forth.

I now wish to direct attention to the present position of the ques tion, and to some points specially applicable to it in Ireland, that have not, as I conceive, received the prominent position due to them. Before doing so, I must beg leave to make some observations on the Commission itself. I confess that I was somewhat surprised at its composition, in which the mistake appears to have been made, in assuming that the interests of railway directors and others, who have profited largely by the existing system, and who constitute the majority of the members of the Commission, were identical with the interests of the ordinary shareholders, who, as a class, have lost or been ruined by their management. It is a doctrine of Locke that in entering upon any question we should consider the state of our interests in respect to it. If I had made a fortune by the system in question, or belonged to a house which had received large sums on account of it, or had derived greatly augmented values of lands from it-if I owed my public position to it; if, indeed, I were a member of Parliament, responsible for the system by long acquaintance with it-I should have felt that my proper position would be that of a witness, or of an advocate, rather than of a judge upon the system. Immediately the composition of the Commission generally was seen, the directorates and private enterprizers were at their ease upon it, and their confidence was early confirmed by the course of its investigations.

So great a subject can only be dealt with satisfactorily by undivided attention, and by local investigations, and where the Commis sioners are themselves unable to give it, that attention must be given for them by competent Assistant Commissioners. It was due to the manufacturing interests in the great centres of industry, that complaints should be heard locally, and that the shareholders, as well as the public, should be locally informed, by proceedings on the spot, as represented by the Mayor of Dublin; and this has not been done.

These are no after-criticisms, as I remonstrated to the Commis sioners themselves on the imperfection and unsatisfactory nature of their inquiries, amongst other things, in not inquiring closely into the gains derivable from unity of management ;-in not examining closely, or at all, the important examples cited of cases where, under competitions, extreme reductions in fares had been made good, or