Sect. 76 (5). county, and county fund shall refer to the said county authority and to the county and county fund of such authority, and in case of any borough which, for the purposes of the said Act, is a county of itself, to the council of the borough and to the borough and borough fund.

NOTE.

"(2.) In the event of a county authority not being established under any Act during the present session, the sums directed by this Act to be paid out of and into the county fund shall be paid by or under the direction of the local authority of every county quarter sessional area within the meaning of the Registration Act, 1885, in like manner as expenses or receipts of the clerk of the peace for such area under the Registration of Electors Acts, and by and under the direction of the council of every municipal borough which is also a parliamentary borough out of and into the borough fund, and the amount to be paid for revising barristers shall be apportioned between such quarter sessional areas and boroughs upon the principles above mentioned in this Act.” As to the county fund, see s. 68, ante, p. 130.

(6.) It is hereby declared that nothing in section twelve of the 51 & 52 Vict. County Electors Act, 1888, applies to any person occupying property within a borough.

c. 10.

"A list of persons occupying property in a county, and residing within fifteen miles but more than seven miles from the county, shall be made out in accordance with section forty-nine of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, and that section shall apply as if it were herein re-enacted, with the substitution of 'county for 'borough,' and of 'county elector' for 'burgess,' and of 'clerk of the peace' for 'town clerk.'"

The effect of this amendment is stated in the notes to s. 49 of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, post.

(7.) It shall be lawful for Her Majesty the Queen, by Order in Council, from time to time to alter the instructions, precepts, notices, and forms under the Registration of Electors Acts, in such manner as appears to Her Majesty necessary for carrying into effect this Act and the County Electors Act, 1888, and any other Act for the time being in force amending or affecting the Acts mentioned in this sub-section, and the instructions, precepts, notices, and forms specified in any such Order in Council shall be observed and be valid in law, and clerks of the peace, and town clerks, and other officers shall act accordingly.

This provision is supplemental to that contained in s. 13 of the County Electors Act, which is as follows:

"All precepts, notices, and forms required for the purposes of the Registration of Electors Act, shall be altered in such manner as may be declared by Her Majesty in Council to be necessary for carrying into effect this Act, and clerks of the peace and town clerks shall alter their precepts and forms accordingly, and if clerks of the peace or town clerks have sent out precepts to the overseers before the passing of this Act, they shall send to them such supplemental precepts as are necessary or desirable for instructing them to carry into effect this Act."

The last Registration Order issued under this provision is published in the Sect. 76 (7). London Gazette of March 19th, 1895. It is set out in Mackenzie and Lushington's Registration Manual.

(8.) The provisions of section six of the said County Electors Act, 1888, requiring the statement of the barrister for the purpose of an appeal to be made not less than four days before the first day of the Michaelmas sittings, shall not apply in the year one thousand eight hundred and eighty-eight.

The provisions of s. 6 of the County Electors Act, above referred to, are as follows:

“(2.) In sections sixty-two and sixty-three of the Parliamentary Voters Registration Act, 1843 (relating to appeals from revising barristers in England), the Michaelmas sittings of the High Court of Justice' shall be substituted for the Michaelmas term,' and forthwith after the fourth day of the Michaelmas sittings a court or courts shall sit for the purpose of hearing such appeals, and those appeals shall be heard and determined continuously and without delay, and any statement by the barrister for the purpose of any such appeal made in pursuance of section forty-two of the said Act may be made at any time within ten days after the conclusion of the revision, so that it be made not less than four days before the first day of the said Michaelnias sittings, and the statement need not be read in open court, but shall be submitted to the appellant, who, if he approves the same, shall sign the same as directed by the said section, and return the same to the barrister."

NOTE.

77. A person who is entitled to be registered as a county elector Residential qualification in respect of any qualification in the administrative county of of county London, in all respects except that of residence, and is resident electors in beyond seven miles but within fifteen miles of the county, shall be entitled to be registered as a county elector.

This provision is in effect that the persons whose names would in the ordinary way be placed in the separate non-resident list shall in London be qualified not only to be elected county councillors, but to be registered as county electors. There will not, therefore, be any need for a separate non-resident list in the county of London. See the notes to ss. 9 and 49 of the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, post.

As to the "administrative county of London, see s. 40, ante, p 88.

administrative county of London.

of Acts

business

78.-(1.) All enactments in any Act, whether general or local Construction and personal, relating to any business, powers, duties, or liabilities referring to transferred by or in pursuance of this Act from any authority to a transferred. county council, either alone or jointly with the quarter sessions, or to any joint committee, shall, subject to the provisions of this Act, and so far as circumstances admit, be construed as if

(a) any reference therein to the said authority or to any committee or member thereof or to any meeting thereof (so far as it relates to the business, powers, duties, or liabilities transferred) referred to the county council or to a

Sect. 78 (1).

committee or member thereof or to a meeting thereof, as the case requires, and as if

(b) a reference to any clerk or officer of such authority referred to the clerk or officer of a county council or committee thereof, as the case requires,

and all the said enactments shall be construed with such modifica-
tions as may be necessary for carrying this Act into effect.

This is a general provision making all Acts relating to business transferred
applicable to the county council as the authority for the execution of these
Acts and to the committees, members, and officers of the county council.
As to the standing joint committee, see s. 30, ante, p. 66.

As to other joint committees under this Act, see ss. 5 (3), 10, 14, 33 (2), 34 (5), 46, 47, 81, 82, and 111.

(2.) Provided that the transfer of powers and duties enacted by this Act shall not authorize any county council or any committee or member thereof

(a) to exercise any of the powers of a court of record; or
(b) to administer an oath; or

(c) to exercise any jurisdiction under the Summary Jurisdiction
Acts, or perform any judicial business, or otherwise act
as justices or a justice of the peace;

but this enactment shall be without prejudice to the position of the chairman of the county council as justice of the peace during his term of office.

This proviso preserves to justices all their judicial powers and authority. See also ss. 8, 9, ante, p. 18.

As to the authority of the chairman as a justice, see s. 2, sub-s. (5), ante, p. 4.

Although this section prohibits the administration of an oath by the county council, it was held that in considering applications for music and dancing licences the London County Council act judicially. See the cases cited in the note to s. 3 (v.), ante, p. 7.

(3.) Where under any such enactment as in this section mentioned, any powers, duties, or liabilities are to be exercised or discharged after any presentment or in any particular manner, or at any particular meeting, or subject to any other conditions, the county council may, by the standing orders for the regulation of their proceedings, provide for the exercise and discharge of those powers, duties, and liabilities without any such prior presentment or in a different manner, or at any meeting of the council fixed by the standing orders, or without such other conditions; and until such standing orders take effect shall exercise and discharge them in the like manner, and at the like time, and subject to the like conditions, so nearly as circumstances admit; and a presentment by

a grand jury in relation to any such powers, duties, or liabilities Sect. 78 (3). shall cease to be made otherwise than by way of indictment.

It will be the duty of the county council to make standing orders for the regulation of their business and for the purposes of the foregoing provisions. Their power to make standing orders is derived from the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, Sched. 2, 13, post, which is incorporated by s. 75, ante.

At common law the grand jury or any twelve of them may make presentments for offences, etc., within their own knowledge. Such presentments are delivered into court to the clerk of the peace, who put them into the form of indictments on which process may issue as in the case of indictments found; Archbold's Quarter Sessions, p. 202. A common presentment was that a county bridge is out of repair. By reason of the provision in the text, presentments by a grand jury cannot now be made as to any powers, etc., transferred to the county council, except by way of indictment.

99

(4.) For the purposes of this section the expression "authority means a Secretary of State, the Board of Trade, the Local Government Board, and any Government Department, also any commissioners, conservators, or public body, corporate or incorporate, specified in a provisional order transferring any powers, duties, or liabilities to the county council, also any quarter sessions and any justices, also the Metropolitan Board of Works, or other local authority mentioned in this Act; and the expression "member of an authority" includes, where the authority are quarter sessions or justices, any justice, and the expression "meeting of an authority" includes a court of quarter sessions and the assembly of justices in special or petty sessions; and the expression "clerk of an authority" includes in relation to any quarter sessions or justices, the clerk of the peace or the clerk to a justice, as the case requires.

This section shall apply as if a joint committee were a committee of the county council.

As to the provisional orders here referred to, see s. 10, ante, p. 19.
As to the Metropolitan Board of Works, see s. 40, sub-s. (8), ante, p. 90.
As to joint committee. see the note to sub-s. (1), supra.

PROCEEDINGS OF COUNCILS AND COMMITTEES.

of county council.

79.-(1.) The council of each county shall be a body corporate Incorporation by the name of the county council with the addition of the name of the administrative county, and shall have perpetual succession and a common seal and power to acquire and hold land for the purposes of their constitution without licence in mortmain.

(2.) All duties and liabilities of the inhabitants of a county shall become and be duties and liabilities of the council of such county.

One result of this sub-section appears to be that the county council will be liable to be indicted for non-repair of a county bridge. See also as to the

Sect. 79 (2). effect of this sub-section, Salford (Mayor, etc., of) v. Lancashire County Council, cited ante, p. 123, and the note to this section in Pratt's Law of Highways, 14th ed., p. 488.

NOTE.

Payments out of fund and finance committee of county council.

(3.) Where any enactment (whether relating to lunatic asylums or bridges, or other county purposes, or to quarter sessions) requires or authorizes land to be conveyed or granted to, or any contract or agreement to be made in the name of the clerk of the peace or any justice or justices, or other person, on behalf of the county or quarter sessions, or justices of the county, such land shall be conveyed or granted to, and such contract and agreement shall be made with, the council of the administrative county concerned.

The conveyance or contract, as the case may be, is to be made directly to or with the council, which is a corporate body; see sub-s. (1), supra.

80.—(1.) All payments to and out of the county fund shall be made to and by the county treasurer, and all payments out of the fund shall, unless made in pursuance of the specific requirement of an Act of Parliament or of an order of a competent court, be made in pursuance of an order of the council signed by three members of the finance committee present at the meeting of the council and countersigned by the clerk of the council, and the same order may include several payments. Moreover, all cheques for payment of moneys issued in pursuance of such order shall be countersigned by the clerk of the council or by a deputy approved by the council.

As to the county treasurer, see s. 3 (iii.), ante, p. 6, and s. 118, sub-s. (13), post.

The finance committee is appointed under sub-s. (3), infra.

As an illustration of the reference to payments in pursuance of an order of a competent court, reference may be made to 9 Geo. 4. c. 61, s. 29, under which on a licensing appeal the quarter sessions may order the treasurer to pay the costs of the respondent justices.

An order for the payment of money is to be made pursuant to an order of the council directed to the treasurer. It must be signed by three members of the finance committee present at the meeting at which the order is made, and it must be countersigned by the clerk.

The treasurer's cheques issued in pursuance of this order must also be countersigned by the clerk or a deputy approved by the council.

(2.) Any such order may be removed into the High Court of Justice by writ of certiorari, and may be wholly or partly disallowed or confirmed on motion and hearing, with or without costs, according to the judgment and discretion of the court.

This provision is similar to that contained in the Municipal Corporations Act, 1882, s. 141, as to which see R. v. Lichfield, 4 Q. B. 893; R. v. Greene, ib. 646; R. v. Dunn, 5 Q. B. 959; R. v. Prest, 16 Q. B. 32; 20 L. J. Q. B. 17; 14 J. P. 750; Att.-Gen. v. Wigan, 1 Kay, 268; R. v. Sheffield,