§ Order of the Day for the Third Reading, read.
§ * LORD NORTONMy Lords, I beg to enter my protest against this Bill before it leaves your Lorships' House. It is a Bill to enable County Councils to subscribe to any association for the purpose of consultation and discussion on any matters relating to Local Government. A great many of your Lordships are on County Councils throughout the Kingdom, and I appeal to those noble Lords whether the County Councils have not already shown themselves only too prone to wander from their executive and administrative functions, and to enter upon unauthorised legislative disquisitions. In fact, the whole country is breaking up into fragmentary parliaments or assemblies for the purpose of talking ad populum, instead of acting in the plain service of the people. The very exact limit to the expenses of such talking, which this Bill proposes 833 is in itself an absurdity. It provides that the expenses of such consultations shall not exceed in the year in any county more than £31 10s.—a very arbitrary sum. It seems to me that the very fixing of such an average itself proves the unpractical and purposeless nature of the Bill. But it is proposed that this sum which will be a kind of County talking-rate, may take the form of an annual subscription to an association for the purpose, and for the reasonable expenses of representatives attending them. This seems to betray the electioneering cant of the day. We are already dissatisfied with the delegation of almost Parliamentary functions to the County Councils, and we want to add a still lower stratum of representative assessors to consult and debate with them. It may be said this is to cost only a small sum; but its smallness is the thin edge of the wedge, and larger sums will be hereafter subscribed by County Councils as debating societies. There is also an omission in the Bill; it does not provide for any expenses of deputations to wretched Ministers, particularly the Presidents of the Local Government Board, whose holidays will be bespoken by these consultative County Associations. I know it is useless for mo to take your Lordships' opinion upon the Third Reading, but I offer these remarks upon the Bill that it may not leave this House without a very solemn protest being made against it.
§ LORD HERSCHELLI cannot help thinking that my noble Friend who has just spoken is needlessly apprehensive, and that he is without sufficient ground for his apprehension, for this reason, that a similar association has been in operation for many years of the Municipal Councils of England and Wales, and that that association has met and consulted with great practical advantage to the work of the Municipal Councils. I cannot admit myself that the County Councils are likely to be inferior in wisdom or practical sense to the Municipal Councils; and unless they are we have experience from the actual operation of the Municipal Councils Association in the past that there is no danger in their consultation. There can only be danger if 834 the County Councils cannot be trusted to exhibit as much common sense and application, really, to their work as the Municipal Councils have displayed.
§ Bill read 3ª (according to order), with the Amendments, and passed, and sent to the Commons.