Borough (politics)

“ While the bulk of them grew by simple increase of population from township to town, larger boroughs such as York with its "six shires" or London with its wards and sokes and franchises show how families and groups of settlers settled down side by side, and claimed as they coalesced, each for itself, its shire or share of the town-ground while jealously preserving its individual life within the town-community. But strange as these aggregations might be, the constitution of the borough which resulted from them was simply that of the people at large. ”

“ There is nothing in England to-day with which we can compare the life of a fully enfranchised borough of the fifteenth century. Even the revival of our local institutions and our municipal ambition has scarcely stirred any memory of the great tradition of the past, of the large liberties, the high dignities and privileges which our towns claimed in days when the borough was in fact a free self-governing community, a state within the state, boasting of rights derived from immemorial custom and of later privileges assured by law. ”

“ Or they were fighting a sturdy battle with the king's justices to preserve some ancient privilege, the right of the borough perhaps to "swear by itself,"—that is, to a jury of its own or its freedom from the general custom of "frank-pledge." As trade advanced commercial bodies grew up in the boroughs and formed themselves into gilds; and these gilds gradually drew into their own hands the government of the town, which in old days had been decided by the general voice of the whole body of its burghers—that is, of those who held land within its walls. ”

“ In vain an expiring interest in a borough calls for offices, or small livings, for the children of mayors, and aldermen, and capital burgesses. His court rival has them all. He can do an infinite number of acts of generosity and kindness, and even of public spirit. He can procure indemnity from quarters. He can procure advantages in trade. ”

“ We might perhaps have guessed that the boroughs would be the places of all others in which such communalism as there was in the ancient village community would maintain and develop itself, until in course of time the borough corporation, the ideal borough, would stand out as the owner of lands which lay within and without the wall. ”

“ The great boroughs were honeycombed with sokes, or areas of seignorial jurisdiction, within which the royal reeve’s authority was greatly restricted while that of the lord’s reeve took precedence. Even the haws, being “burhs” or strongholds within a stronghold, enjoyed a local “peace” which protected from official intrusion. Besides heterogeneity of tenure and jurisdiction in the borough, there was also heterogeneity of status; there were burh-thegns and cnihts, mercatores, burgesses of various kinds, the three groups representing perhaps military, commercial and agricultural elements. ”

“ In moments of excited strife or rapid constitutional growth a borough might undoubtedly become fired by the example of a near neighbour, or catch the contagion which spread from some community more advanced in its experiments and daring in its pretensions; but these movements of sympathy, of voluntary affiliation, of emulation, never resulted in any kind of federation or alliance. For the developement of its liberties each borough was ultimately left to depend only on its own resources ”

“ In the fourth year after the Restoration the Mayor, Aldermen and Burgesses petitioned for a ratification of their existing privileges and for an enlargement of them, which Charles II. granted, “the borough being an ancient and populous borough, and he being desirous that for the time to come, for ever, one certain and invariable method might be had of, for, and in the preservation of our peace, and in the rule and governance of the same borough, and of our people in the same inhabiting, and of others resorting thither ”

“ For the obtaining of a borough charter no fixed requirement of population is laid down. Each application is considered upon its merits, and while the size and importance of an urban community weigh heavily in the decision other factors not infrequently are influential, with the consequence that some boroughs are very small while some urban centers of size are not yet boroughs. Of the present number of boroughs, seventy-four, or about one-fifth, are county boroughs. ”

“ It was with that object that most of the boroughs which were first allowed to return members under the Tudors had been enfranchised, [222] a great noble or landholder, whose affection to the government could not be doubted, being often able to obtain the promotion of some village or petty town in the neighborhood of his estates to the dignity of a parliamentary borough, and thus acquiring a great addition to his political and social importance by his power of influencing the election. ”

“ But to a burgher of the middle ages the care and protection of the State were dim and shadowy compared with the duties and responsibilities thrown on the townspeople themselves. For in the beginnings of municipal life the affairs of the borough great and small, its prosperity, its safety, its freedom from crime, the gaiety and variety of its life, the regulation of its trade, were the business of the citizens alone. ”

“ Sometimes a borough threw its gates wide open and welcomed any new comer who would but choose one of the half-dozen avenues to citizenship that lay before him,—who would buy land, or marry a free woman, or pay the fixed price for his freedom, or serve his apprenticeship to a trade, or accept the franchise as a gift from the community; while a neighbouring town, looking on aliens with jealousy and hesitation, would close its doors and cling to some narrower system of enfranchisement [177] which kept its ranks pure from foreign blood, and its burghers free from anxieties of competition. ”

“ The new freeman in return for his privileges was bound to share with the other burgesses all the burdens of taxation, control, &c., which fell upon burgesses. Personal service was not always necessary, and in some towns there were many non-resident burgesses. When in later times admission to this freedom came to be used as means to secure the parliamentary franchise, the freedom of the borough was freely sold and given. The elections in which the commons of the boroughs first took interest were those of the borough magistrates. ”

“ We do not, however, mean to allow that the remaining boroughs should be in the hands of a small number of persons to the exclusion of the great body of the inhabitants who have property and interest in the place. It is a point of great difficulty to decide to whom the franchise should be extended. Though it is a point much disputed, I believe it will be found that in ancient times every inhabitant householder resident in a borough was competent to vote for members of Parliament. ”

“ In all the municipal corporations dealt with by the act, the town council was to consist of a mayor, aldermen and councillors, and the councils were given like powers, being divided into those with and those without a commission of the peace. The minutes were to be open to the inspection of any burgess, and an audit of accounts was required. The exclusive rights of retail trading, which in some towns were restricted to freemen of the borough, were abolished. The system of police, which in some places was still medieval in character, was placed under the control of the council. ”

“ Now for the counties and the universities residence is not necessary; and even in the boroughs, where it is required, plural voting is restrained only in part, because a man may have more than one residence, and because residence within seven miles of the borough is enough, so that the men who carry on their business in the town and live in the suburbs are qualified in the borough by reason of their offices or workshops, and in a suburban borough or the county by reason of their dwellings. ”

“ Until very recently, when a Reform party gradually got into being and increased steadily—though it's still in a minority—the whole representation and administration of the borough was hopelessly bad and unprincipled. For what do you suppose men went into the Town Council? To represent the ratepayer, the townspeople? No, but to look after their own interests; to safeguard themselves; to get what they could out of it: the whole policy of the old councils was one of—there's only one word for it, Mr. Brent, and that's only just becoming Anglicized—Graft! ”

“ Many people, I suspect, would define a borough as a town which sends members to Parliament, and such a definition, though still not accurate, has, by late changes, been brought nearer to accuracy than it used to be. City and borough, then, are both rather formal words; town is the word which comes most naturally to the lips when there is no special reason for using one of the others. ”

“ It is indeed only a kind of town socage; as common socage, by which other lands are holden, is usually of a rural nature. A borough, as we have formerly seen, is distinguished from other towns by the right of sending members to parliament; and, where the right of election is by burgage tenure, that alone is a proof of the antiquity of the borough. Tenure in burgage therefore, or burgage tenure, is where houses, or lands which were formerly the scite of houses, in an antient borough, are held of some lord in common socage, by a certain established rent. ”

“ Many interests are provided for through local government, the five boroughs being divided into 25 local improvement districts. In each borough a president is elected, in whom important powers are vested. The borough presidents control such matters as the grading and paving of streets, sewers, public baths, etc., and the presidents of Queens and Richmond have control also of street-cleaning. ”

“ In old English boroughs the responsible men—those who owned property, and paid taxes, and chose representatives—were the burgesses. Bearing always in mind this equivalence between the borough and the hundred, we may note further that in early times the hundred was a unit for military purposes; it was about such a community as could furnish to the general levy a [Pg 228] company of a hundred armed men. It was also a unit of representation in the ancient English shire-moot or county court. ”

“ An English contested election in the market-place of a borough when the candidates are running close on each other—the result doubtful, passions excited, the whole borough in civil war—is peaceful compared to the scene at the Bourse. ”

“ A borough was run by a mayor elected usually for life. By being members of a guild, merchant-traders and craftsmen acquired the legal status of burgesses and had the freedom of the borough. Each guild occupied a certain ward of the town headed by an alderman. The town aldermen made up the town council, which advised the mayor. ”

“ When reference is made to any power or duty of an urban council it is to be understood that the rural council have no such power or duty unless conferred or imposed upon them by order of the Local Government Board. And it must be borne in mind that in a borough the borough council is the urban district council. ”

“ The idea of town or suburb planning has not yet found its way into the minds which dominate local Public Authorities, but a few examples will doubtless awaken them to the benefits of the Act, if not from the æsthetic, yet from the economic point of view, and then borough or ward boundaries will become as unnoticeable for town-planning purposes as ecclesiastical parish ones now are for educational administration. ”

“ It was the constitution of the English city or borough that determined the constitution of the first city governments established in this country; and here, too, a distinct tendency toward oligarchy, with its attendant evils, began to make itself felt. The city government, instead of being freely elected by the people, was, after the pattern of the English borough, a self-perpetuating corporation with a very limited responsibility to the citizens in general. ”

“ Aside from the extension of high-priced municipal service throughout the great area of the consolidated city, many useless offices were created and many salaries fixed at excessive figures. Authority was too much divided. The borough system is expensive, and so far useless. ”

“ Whether the right limit for the borough-franchise has been chosen is, on the other hand, a question that admits of much discussion. Some hesitation will probably be felt by all who duly weigh the evidence on both sides. ”

“ The staple industry is the spinning and weaving of cotton, and there are also foundries and machine-works. The municipal borough, incorporated in 1896, is under a mayor, 6 aldermen and 18 councillors. ”

“ I find that into my idea of the village has entered more of the elm than of the human being. They are worth many a political borough. They constitute a borough. The poor human representative of his party sent out from beneath their shade will not suggest a tithe of the dignity, the true nobleness and comprehensiveness of view, the sturdiness and independence, and serene beneficence that they do. They look from township to township. . . . They battle with the tempests of a century. ”

“ After the election of these deputies by the aldermen and common council, they gave sureties for their attendance before the king and parliament: their charges were respectively borne by the borough which sent them; and they had so little idea of appearing as legislators,—a character extremely wide of their low rank and condition, [**] —that no intelligence could be more disagreeable to any borough, than to find that they must elect, or to any individual than that he was elected, to a trust from which no profit or honor could possibly be derived. ”