Borough corporation

“ The corporation owns about 645 acres of land within the limits of the ancient borough. This consists mainly of land acquired under an Inclosure Act of 1761, but a small part is surplus land acquired in 1876–1879 in connexion with an improvement scheme for clearing a large insanitary area in the centre of the town.
The town is lighted with gas supplied by a gas company first incorporated in 1830 and by electricity supplied by the corporation. There is a good system of electrically worked tramways, 51/2 m. being owned by a company and nearly 6 m. ”

“ This ratified the grant of St Andrew’s fair, provided for another on the Feast of St Barnabas and established a market on Saturdays. The corporation was to consist of a mayor, 8 aldermen and 12 capital burgesses. This corporation continued to administer the affairs of the borough until it was dissolved under the Municipal Corporations Act in 1835, when the property belonging to it was vested in charity commissioners. The chairman of the commissioners retains possession of the regalia. Of the fairs only the Michaelmas fair has survived and all the markets have gone. ”

“ City and borough corporations, unlike private organizations, are not in the position to scrap an existing plant for one which is of later date and greater efficiency, because there is not the same incentive to reap the utmost benefits attainable as prevails under private conditions where the full brunt of competition is encountered. Of course, the initiative of corporations is just as pronounced as that of private firms and individuals, but it is the exception rather than the rule. ”

“ In the middle of the thirteenth century the mayor and burgesses of Berkeley obtained from their lord freedom from all kinds of toll which he either demanded or might demand of them; [490] and in the fourteenth century he rented to them the tolls of the wharfage and of the market, and received larger profits from this transaction than he gained from all the rent of the borough. [491]
[264]
The weakest corporation moreover had a persistence and continuity of life which gave it incalculable advantages in the conflict with individuals subject to all the chances and changes of mortality. ”

“ By this charter, no matter how ample soever they might have considered it at the time, they obtained nothing but vacant land to high water mark; that is the land which was not already granted, and in the possession of some other person or persons, which was not the fact as to the land on the Brooklyn side, it being vested in the patentees, their heirs, successors and assigns forever; so that the only power or authority remaining in the Governor, was to grant the Corporation of New-York, the privilege of buying the water rights of the inhabitants of Brooklyn. ”

“ A city has many sources of revenue of its own. Public utilities which furnish such necessities as transportation, water, gas, and electric light, earn enormous profits. In some places some of these things are owned by the city and the revenues go to the city. In others, the right to build and operate such a public business is given to a private corporation through a franchise. It is evident that these franchise rights are extremely valuable and should not be given away without adequate compensation to the city, as well as the insuring of good service. ”

“ There is nothing to stop highway traffic from coming onto the business block and upon arrival a traveler may make free use of the facilities available there. In short the town and its shopping district are accessible to and freely used by the public in general and there is nothing to distinguish them from any other town and shopping center except the fact that the title to the property belongs to a private corporation.' 326 U.S., at 502-503, 66 S.Ct. ”

“ The city does not deceive itself into supposing that that great building is a unit from which the police are to keep out and the civic authority to be excluded, but it says: "These are public highways, and light is needed in them, and control by the authority of the city."
I liken that to our great modern industrial enterprises. A corporation is very like a large tenement house; it isn't the premises of a single commercial family; it is just as much a public affair as a tenement house is a network of public highways. ”

“ But this overlooks the fact that the regulation of municipal corporations is a matter peculiarly within the domain of state control; that the state is not compelled by the federal constitution to grant to all its municipl corporations the same territorial extent, or the same duties and powers. A municipal corporation is, so far as its purely municipal relations are concerned, simply an agency of the state for conducting the affairs of government, and as such it is subject to the control of the legislature. ”

“ The source from which the District obtains the means for maintaining public highways in the city is of no consequence so long as congress has made it, and permits it to remain, a mere municipal corporation, with such functions as pertain to municipal corporations proper. ”

“ If the legislature had placed great restrictions upon its capacity as a railroad corporation, it might plausibly be objected that the purpose of a municipal subscription to its stock would be so far thwarted. Such purpose is to promote the settlement and increase the business and enhance the value of the property of the municipality and of its citizens by furnishing the means of passage to all wishing to come or to go, and providing a means of bringing in the produce of other regions and of furnishing a market for its own. ”

“ In the city of New York are located the headquarters of a corporation whose corporate property is confessedly of the value of $16,000,000,-a value which can be realized by its stockholders at any moment they see fit. It tangible property and its business are scattered through many states, all whose powers are invoked to protect its property from trespass, and secure it in the peaceful transaction of its widely dispersed business. ”

“ It is one thing for a large city, with its concentration of business interests, to build, equip, and own a great railroad highway running from such center outward into other districts, rapid and easy communication with which advances its business interests; and it is a very different thing for a quasi municipal corporation, like a township, with its sparse population, and its lack of concentration of business interests, to construct a few miles of railroad through its territory. ”

“ The council may borrow money for the erection of such buildings; they may acquire and hold land in mortmain by virtue of their charter, or with the consent of the Local Government Board. Corporate land cannot be alienated without the consent of the same board. The council may convert corporate land, with the approval of the Local Government Board, into sites for workmen’s dwellings.
Another duty imposed upon a borough council by the act of 1882 is the maintenance of bridges within the borough which are not repairable by the county in which the borough is locally situate. ”

“ If the city became populous, the lots would be sold and built upon, and in the lapse of one or two generations, at most, the title of the original proprietors might well be presumed to be extinguished by sales or otherwise; so that the interest of themselves or their heirs in the streets and reservations would not be distinguishable from that of other citizens. They must also have contemplated that a municipal corporation must soon be created to manage the concerns, and police, and public interests of the city ”

“ When the act of April 28, 1871, was passed, it was the established doctrine of the highest court of New York, as it was of this court, that the legislature, unless restrained by the organic law of the State, could authorize or require a municipal corporation, with or without the consent of the people, to aid, by a subscription of capital stock, in the construction of a railroad, having connection with the public interests of the people within the limits of such municipality, and to provide for payment by an issue of bonds or by taxation ”

“ Consequently, when it began to be realised that a city was a business corporation rather than an integral part of the State, the unwillingness to organise the city upon the line of concentrated power in connection with concentrated responsibility began to disappear. The charter of the city of Brooklyn is probably as advanced a type as can be found of the results of this mode of thinking. In Brooklyn the executive side of the city government is represented by the mayor and the various heads of departments. ”

“ If the council intended the general public and, particularly, purchasers of its bonds to know that the proposed development of the natural advantages of the city for manufacturing purposes was to be made under the franchises and powers, or for the benefit, of that or any other private corporation, common fairness required that it should have so declared in the ordinances, and thereby distinctly informed all who should examine them, of what it now avows was its real purpose; namely, by a simple donation to give aid to a particular private corporation, established for business ends exclusively. ”

“ This is the existing custom of enforcing and not enforcing Federal Court injunctions. Now if you are a conservative, you are, according to Webster, one who desires to “maintain” this custom.
At the present time the lighting corporation, the railroad corporation, the telephone corporation and the city or municipal corporation are all exploiting the people of New York City as they have never been exploited before.
Never in the history of New York have its public servants been so absolutely and completely owned by so-called public service corporations as at present. ”

“ The only alternative to such a general scheme of municipal policy in relation to public service corporations would be one of municipal operation as well as municipal ownership; and municipal operation unquestionably has certain theoretical advantages. When a corporation enjoys a tenancy for a stated term only, there is always a danger that it will seek temporarily larger profits by economizing on the quality of its service. It has not the same interest in building up a permanently profitable business that it would in case it were owner as well as operator. ”

“ McClung is imbued with the idea that a municipal corporation is, in its last analysis, simply a business corporation in which each taxpayer is a stockholder, the aldermen its directors and the mayor its business manager. ”

“ One of the grants of power relied on is, that the city is made a corporation with power to contract and be contracted with, and generally with 'all the rights, franchises, capacities, and powers appertaining to municipal corporations.' In a community in which it is against public policy, as well as express law, for any person or body corporate to issue small bills to circulate as currency, it is certainly not one of the implied powers of a municipal corporation to issue such bills. ”

“ It is a corporation duly formed and organized under the laws of the state of New York, and engaged in the operation of automobile stages upon routes extending along Fifth avenue and other streets in the city of New York, under and in pursuance of certain acts of the legislature of the state, having acquired, under various acts, all the property rights and franchises of the Fifth Avenue Transportation Company, Limited. ”

“ What need is there of a corporation? Cannot the people in their sovereign capacity do for themselves all that a corporation can do? Why give away their rights, and burden themselves with taxes for the benefit of a corporation?
"Does some one say it is a nationalistic idea? Then it is nationalism for Boston to own Quincy Market, the water supply, the system of sewerage. Far different from governmental ownership of railroads, with the complications of interstate commerce, is the (p. 320) proposition for public ownership of street railways. A street is a highway. ”

“ The grants from the Corporation of New-York, under their two charters for the water lots on the Brooklyn side, are very artfully and ingeniously drawn. By those grants are only conveyed “all the estate, right, title, interest, property, claim, and demand whatsoever, in law and equity” of them the said Corporation; and their covenant for quiet possession only extends to them and their successors, and not against any other persons lawfully claiming the premises. ”

“ But I don't think we ought to delay improving the dwellings of the poor till this reform takes place; and I do not shrink at all from saying, that I think the proper course for the Government and Parliament to pursue is to invest the Metropolitan Board of Works, and the noble Corporation which presides over the City, with compulsory powers for this purpose, similar to those given to the Corporation of Glasgow. ”

“ In every case where the financial condition of the municipality obliges it to rely at first upon private corporations for the construction and ownership of its public works, the franchise should expire at the end of a short term of years, and the city should then have the privilege of purchasing the works at their actual cost. ”

“ During the first half of the 19th century the position of the City Corporation had somewhat fallen in public esteem, and some of the most influential men in the city were unconnected with it, but a considerable change took place in the latter half of the century. ”

“ In reference to a question whether or not the chain was a present, a correspondent of the Derby Mercury says, 'I am sorry to admit, it was a bargain; it cost 100l., and is paid for. The chain is the property of the corporation, and will grace the neck of every succeeding mayor. The robes did not accompany the chain; they are bran new, gay in colour, a good cut, and hang well; they are private property, consequently not necessarily transferable. Every mayor will have the privilege of choosing the shape and colour of his official vestment, and can retain or dispose of it as he may deem proper. ”