66 Management Act, 1855, will be respectively the parochial electors of the parish of Woolwich and of the parishes for which vestries are elected. Where the area under the jurisdiction of any of the authorities mentioned is divided into wards, the electors for each ward will be such of the parochial electors as are registered in respect of qualifications within the ward. (Section 23 (3)). The expression parochial elector" when used with reference to a parish in the county of London is defined by section 75 to mean any person who would be a parochial elector of the parish if it were a rural parish, and the parochial electors in a rural parish will under section 2 be the persons registered in such portion either of the local government register of electors or of the parliamentary register of electors as relates to the parish. Section 44 of the Act provides for the manner in which the register of the parochial electors of a parish is to be formed. With respect to the persons to be elected as urban district councillors, it is provided by sub-section (2) of section 23 that a person shall not be qualified to be elected or to be a councillor unless he is a parochial elector of some parish within the district, or has during the whole of the 12 months preceding the election resided in the district, and no person shall be disqualified by sex or marriage for being elected or being a councillor. This provision is made applicable to members of the local board and the vestries and district boards, and to the auditors for parishes, by section 31 of the Act. In connection with the qualification of persons to be elected, reference should be made to the provisions relating to the disqualification of a person for being elected or being a member of a district council, contained in section 46 of the Act, which by sub-section (9) is made applicable in the case of any authority whose members are elected in accordance with the Act, in like manner as if that authority were a district council, and in the case of London auditors as if they were members of a district council. An election under the Act will be conducted according to rules to be framed by the Local Government Board. (Section 23 (5) and section 48). If there is a poll it will have to be taken by ballot. Copies of the rules for regulating the elections will be forwarded to you when they are issued. The expenses of any election under the Act are not to exceed the scale fixed by the county council, but if at the beginning of one month before the first election the county council have not framed a scale, the board may do so, and the scale thus framed will apply to the first election and will have effect as if it had been made by the county council. (Section 48 (7)). The Elections (Hours of Poll) Act, 1885, will apply to elections of members of vestries under the Metropolis Management Acts. (Section 31 (1)). Sub-section (5) of section 48 provides that if any difficulty arises as respects the election of any individual member of the local board, or vestry, or auditor, and there is no provision for holding another election, the county council may order a new election to be held and give such directions as may be necessary for the purpose of holding the election. The Act also provides that if any difficulty arises with respect to the holding of the first election of members of the local board or any vestry, or of auditors, or to the first meeting of the local board or vestry, or if, from no election being held or an election being defective or otherwise, the first local board or vestry has not been properly constituted or there are no auditors under the Metropolis Management Acts, 1855 to 1890, or an insufficient number, properly elected, the county council may by order make any appointment or do anything which appears to them necessary or expedient for the proper holding of any such first election and properly constituting the local board, or vestry or auditors, and may, if it appears to them necessary, direct the holding of a meeting or election, and fix the dates for any such meeting or election. Any such order may modify the provisions of the Act, and the enactments applied by, or rules framed under it, so far as may appear to the county council necessary or expedient for carrying the order into effect. (Section 80 (1)). Section 84 provides that the first elections under the Act shall be held on the 8th of November next, or such later date or dates in the present year as the Board may fix, and that the persons elected shall come into office on the second Thursday next after their election, or such other day not more than seven days earlier or later as may be fixed by or in pursuance of the rules made by the Board under the Act in relation to their election. By section 79 persons who, at the passing of the Act, are members of the local board and of any vestry under the Metropolis Management Acts, or are auditors under those Acts, are continued in office until the day on which the first members and auditors elected under the Act come into office, as if the term of office for which they were elected expired on that day, and consequently the usual annual election of such members and auditors respectively will not take place until the day appointed for the first elections under the Act. Under sub-sections (3) and (10) of the section, the first annual retirement of members of the local board and vestries first elected under the Act will take place at the date of the annual election in the year 1896; and sub-section (6) provides how the members who are to retire in 1896 and 1897, respectively, are to be determined. Except as regards the present year, the dates for the annual elections will not be altered by the Act; but, as indicated above, there will be no annual election in 1895. The existing local board and the existing vestries are required to take the necessary measures for the conduct of the first elections under the Act of members of the local board and of the vestries respectively, including any appointment of returning officers required by rules made by the board under the Act. (Section 79 (1) and (10)). After the vestrymen first elected under the Act come into office, no person is ex officio to be chairman of any of the vestries under the Metropolis Management Acts (section 31 (1)), but each of the vestries, except those electing district boards, and each of the district boards and the local board of Woolwich must, at their first meeting after the annual election of members, elect a chairman for the year, and the chairman so elected will, unless a woman or personally disqualified by any Act, be by virtue of his office a justice of the peace for the county of London, but before acting as such justice he must, if he has not already done so, take the oaths required by law to be taken by a justice of the peace, other than the oath respecting the qualification by estate. (Sections 22 and 31 (2)). The provisions of section 41 of the Metropolis Management Act, 1855, enabling a district board to elect a chairman of the meeting, will apply only in the case of the absence of the chairman of the district board elected under the new Act. (Section 31 (2)). Nothing in any local and personal Act is to prevent any vestry in the county of London from holding its meeting at such time as may be directed by the vestry. (Section 31 (3)). Certain provisions of the Metropolis Management Acts which are inconsistent with or are superseded by the provisions above referred to, are repealed by section 89 and the second schedule to the new Act. 5. CIRCULAR to County Councils, except the London County Council. Sir, Local Government Board, Whitehall, S.W., 24 March 1894. I AM directed by the Local Government Board to draw the attention of the county council to certain provisions of the Local Government Act, 1894, and especially to those under which powers and duties will devolve on the county Order No. 30868 council for the purpose of bringing the Act into operation within the county. the Every parish in a rural sanitary district, and in the case of a parish which is Parliamentary partly within a rural sanitary district, the part within such district will be for The It is not necessary for the present purpose to set out all the powers which will be possessed by a parish council, but in connection with the duties that will devolve on the county council, it may be noticed that most of the powers of the vestry, in other than ecclesiastical affairs, will be transferred to the parish council, and that where the Lighting and Watching Act, 1833, the Baths and Washhouses Acts, 1846 to 1882, the Burial Acts, 1852 to 1885, the Public Improvements Act, 1860, and the Public Libraries Act, 1892, or any of these Acts (which are referred to as the adoptive Acts), have been put in force in a rural parish before the parish council come into office, that council will be the authority for executing the Acts, if they are in force in the whole of the parish. Section 53 of the Act provides means whereby the parish council may become such authority in a case where the Acts are in force in part of the parish only. The Act makes important alterations in the qualification, mode of election, and retirement of guardians, and confers on county councils new powers in relation to certain matters connected with this subject, which will be explained in a later part of this circular. 315 and 437 H. C. Urban sanitary authorities will, as from the appointed day, be called urban district councils, and their districts will be called urban districts, but the style or title of a town council will not be altered. The mode of election of urban district councillors will, except in a borough, differ from that at present in force, and certain powers are given to county councils in connection with the retirement of urban district councillors. These will be referred to hereafter. For every existing rural sanitary district wholly comprised in one county, there will be a rural district council, whose district will be called a rural district, and where a rural sanitary district is situate in more than one county, such portion of it as is situate in each county will, save as otherwise provided in pursuance of the Act, or of any other Act, be as from the appointed day a rural district. District councillors will be elected for every parish or other area for the election of guardians in a rural district. They will be elected by the parochial electors, and will be the representatives of that parish or area on the board of guardians, and guardians as such will not be elected for that parish or area. The provisions of the Act with respect to the qualification, election, term of office, and retirement of guardians, will apply to rural district councillors. Hence the powers of the county council in relation to these matters, so far as guardians are concerned, will apply in the case of rural district councillors also. 1893. Rural district councils will be substituted for rural sanitary authorities, and will have all the powers and duties of those authorities. They will have certain new powers and duties under the Act, but except in connection with highways, it is unnecessary to draw the attention of the county council to any of these powers or duties. The provisions as to highways are dealt with in a later part of this circular. The provisions which should first receive the attention of the county council are those contained in Part III. of the Act, which relate to areas and boundaries. The Act contemplates that every parish, and as a general rule, every rural district shall be wholly within one administrative county, and that, also as a general rule, every parish shall be wholly within one rural or urban district. With a view to secure this result, and to provide for the settling of incidental administrative arrangements consequent on the alterations of areas which are made by the Act itself, very important duties have been imposed on county councils. Section 83 makes it the duty of every county council to exercise all such of their powers as may be requisite for bringing the Act into full operation within their county as soon as may be after the passing of the Act. The first elections under the Act are to be held on the 8th November next, or such later date or dates in the present year as the Board may fix, and the persons elected are to come into office on the second Thursday next after their election, or such other day not more than seven days earlier or later as may be fixed by or in pursuance of rules made by the Board under the Act in relation to their election. (Section 84.) It is important that alterations which may affect the preparation of the lists of voters should be made sufficiently early to enable the lists to be properly prepared, and it is consequently provided by sub-section (3) of section 84, that every division into wards or alteration of the boundaries of any parish or union or district which is to affect the first election shall, if parishes or parts for which the registers of parochial electors will be made are affected, be made, so far as practicable, before the 1st of July next. Many of the provisions of the Act referred to in this circular are to take effect from the "appointed day." Subject as mentioned in the Act, this day, for the purpose of elections, is defined as the day or respective days fixed for the first elections under the Act, or such prior day as may be necessary for the purposes of giving notices or doing other acts preliminary to such elections, and for the purpose of the powers, duties, and liabilities of councils or other bodies elected under the Act, or other matters not specifically mentioned, it will be the day on which the members first elected come into office. The powers and duties of county councils, so far as they may have to be exercised either before or in connection with the first elections, may be classified under the following heads :-I. Areas and Boundaries. II. Parish Councils. III. Guardians and District Councillors. IV. Highways. V. Miscellaneous. I. AREAS AND BOUNDARIES. Sub-section (1) of section 36 provides as follows :— For the purpose of carrying this Act into effect in the case of— (a) every parish and rural sanitary district which at the passing of this Act is situate partly within and partly without an administrative county; and (b) every parish which at the passing of this Act is situate partly within and partly without a sanitary district; and (c) every rural parish containing a population of less than 200; and (d) Every rural sanitary district which at the passing of this Act has less than five elective guardians capable of acting and voting as members of the rural sanitary authority of the district; and (e) every rural parish which is co-extensive with a rural sanitary district; every every county council shall forthwith take into consideration every such case within their county; and whether any proposal has or has not been made as mentioned in section 57 of the Local Government Act, 1888, shall as soon. as practicable, in accordance with that section, cause inquiries to be made and notices given, and make such orders, if any, as they deem most suitable for carrying into effect the present Act in accordance with the following provisions, namely: (i.) The whole of each parish, and, unless the county council for special reasons otherwise direct, the whole of each rural district shall be within the same administrative county; (ii.) The whole of each parish shall, unless the county council for special reasons otherwise direct, be within the same county district; and (iii.) Every rural district which will have less than five elected councillors shall, unless for special reasons the county council otherwise direct, be united to some neighbouring district or districts. A By sub-section (11) of section 36 it is provided that, where at the passing of the Act a rural sanitary district or parish is situate in more than one county, a joint committee of the councils of the several counties comprising the district or parish shall act under the section. The appointment by each county council of representatives on the joint committee is to be made within two months after request from any other of the councils interested. If any of the councils fail to appoint members of the committee within that. period, the members actually appointed are to act. Any question relating to the constitution or procedure of the joint committee, as to which the councils concerned are unable to agree, is to be determined by the Board. The first case mentioned in section 36 is that of a parish in more than one administrative county. In many instances of this kind the rural district will also be in more than one county, and the Board have dealt with them later on, in their remarks on cases where the rural district is so situate. The county council will also have to consider the case of any parish which is not wholly contained within one sanitary district, and these cases include some in which the parish is in more than one county also. If at the passing of the Act a parish is partly within and partly without a rural sanitary district, that is to say, is partly in such a district and partly in an urban district, and no action is taken by the county council prior to the appointed day, the parish will, as from that date, be divided by the Act, the part within the rural district and the part without being constituted separate parishes by sub-section (3) of section 1. Where the part outside the rural district is comprised in more than one urban district, the provisions of sub-section (2) of section 36 referred to below will apply to it. If the rural part of the parish is deemed too small to form a separate parish, the county council should consider whether it could properly be united with some other rural parish. It would, however, be competent to the county council, if the circumstances justified it, by an order under section 57 of the Act of 1888, to extend any urban district, not being a borough, containing part of the parish, so as to include the rural part of the parish. If a parish is situate in two or more urban districts, the part in each urban district will, unless the county council otherwise direct, and subject to any alteration of area made by or in pursuance of the new Act or of any other Act, become as from the appointed day a separate parish. (Section 36 (2).) The county council can either alter the boundary between the urban districts, if neither of them is a borough, so as to include the whole parish within one district, or direct that the parish and urban districts shall remain unaltered, but the latter course would be opposed to the general scheme of the Act, and can only properly be adopted where there are special reasons for it. These observations apply equally to the urban part of a parish situate partly in a rural and partly in two or more urban districts. In any case, such as those mentioned above, where the parish is situated partly in a borough, the boundary of the borough could be altered by an order of the board under section 54 of the Local Government Act, 1888. The county council or a joint committee could not properly make an order which would place or leave a |