§ MR. GOLDNEYsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is the intention of Government to bring forward any measure for the purpose of extending and settling the boundaries of the several Boroughs in England and Wales named in the second sections of the Schedules A and B of the Municipal Corporation Reform Act, in accordance with the Report of the Municipal Corporation Boundaries Commissioners, ordered by the House to be printed in the year 1837, or to take any other step with reference to extending and settling the boundaries of such Boroughs? At the time of the Municipal Reform Act there were 178 corporations, of which ninety-six had their boundaries made to correspond with their Parliamentary limits. With regard to the remaining eighty-two corporations a Royal Commission was appointed to examine and fix their boundaries. In the discussions which occurred in the Committee on the Bill, Sir Robert Peel thought it was too great a power to give to the Commissioners to settle such an important matter, and contended that the final settlement of the boundaries should be left to Parliament itself. Lord Russell, however, carried the question against Sir Robert Peel; but the House of Lords reversed this decision, and the noble Lord in considering the Amendments made in the House of Lords ultimately acquiesced in the proposal that the matter should be left to be dealt with by Parliament; remarking that the delay would only be for one year. In the meantime the Commissioners presented a Report; and a more elaborate or perfect Report he had seldom read. It gave the areas of the boroughs, showing the defects that existed, and that it would be impossible from their excessive extent in many cases to take the Parliamentary boundaries for municipal purposes. The Report was accompanied by plans and details, showing what would be the proper and most advantageous area for each borough; but from that time no steps whatever had been taken in the matter. In the case of the borough which he represented (Chippenham) one of the churches of the town, 471 the principal police-office, the railway station, two or three large mills and two or three large factories, employing 1,300 or 1,400 hands, were all out of the borough, and the consequence was that questions of conflicting jurisdiction between the borough and county magistrates occasionally arose. Complaints were made, too, with respect to watching, lighting and police rates, to which the parties outside the borough contributed nothing at all. The Commissioners in their Report cited many similar cases in which the existing boundaries were quite useless for municipal arrangements. At Banbury only 4,000 out of 10,000 inhabitants lived within the municipal limits. Similar facts were reported at Calne, Falmouth, Launceston, Grantham, the City of York, and most of the other boroughs enumerated. He did not ask the Government to take up this question on any large scale, but some measure might, he thought, be passed vesting in the Queen in Council the power of enlarging the boundaries of any borough on the application of the inhabitants or of the municipal authority.
§ SIR GEORGE GREYsaid, the question raised by the hon. Member was certainly one well deserving the attention of the House. The Report of the Commission on Municipal Boundaries was made nearly thirty years ago, and the boroughs named in the second sections of the Schedules A and B were for the most part the smallest in the kingdom. He had been informed by Lord Eversley, who was the Chairman of the Commission, that the Report was not acted upon in consequence of the great local opposition which was raised to the adoption of its recommendation. It was impossible at the present time to adopt that Report as the basis of the new boundaries, because circumstances had since changed and the population of the suburbs of these boroughs had much increased. The objection that the population had outgrown the boundaries of many of these boroughs applied quite as much, if not more, to those boroughs whose limits were fixed by the Act as to the others. He quite agreed that some means ought to be provided for revising from time to time the limits of the municipal boroughs. The population had greatly increased in many of the boroughs, and the limits now fixed by law were not those which would be laid down by any tribunal to which such a duty would now be intrusted. If boroughs were not incorporated, they might petition for a charter of incorporation. The 472 Privy Council then ordered an inquiry to be made. Opportunities were offered for any objections which could be urged against incorporation. Inquiries were instituted upon the spot into the circumstances, and the question of boundary was gone into by competent officers. They made their Report, and the Queen in Council then decided whether a charter of incorporation should be granted, and fixed the limits of the borough. If a charter of incorporation were granted the boundaries were then fixed by law, and there was no power of altering them without having recourse to Parliament for an Act. He thought that the course suggested by the hon. Member was that which it would be expedient to adopt, and that an Act should be passed containing a general provision that on the application of the inhabitants—or of the Town Council, as Parliament might determine—for the enlargement of the boundaries of the borough, an inquiry should be instituted similar to that which took place upon an application for a charter of incorporation, and then, without the necessity of coming to Parliament in each case, power should be given to the Queen in Council to enlarge the boundaries of the municipal boroughs. He trusted that it would be in the power of the Government before long to submit some such measure to Parliament.