Local option

“ But if a local government, entirely or principally, derives its immediate origin from the locality itself, it naturally tends to clash with the central authority, or with the general administration;—the tendency being greater or less as its territory is larger or smaller, as its immediate origin is more or less popular, and as its attributes are more or less extensive. ”

“ With reference to objects which are not limited to localities, but deeply concern the interests of the general community, it is not less expedient that such governments should partake largely of the popular element; that a considerable fraction of the population in each locality should take a considerable part in the administration of the local affairs, or in the appointment and control of the local administrators. ”

“ Through local governments of local origin, clothed with appropriate powers of subordinate legislation and administration, these adaptations of general and indiscriminating laws are made by persons familiar with the localities;—by persons, therefore, who have greater aptitudes for this particular function, than are commonly possessed by persons of higher general qualifications, whose knowledge of the localities is less intimate and minute. ”

“ We have, for the most part, in our history given promptly to the people of the territories a large measure of local government, and have, when the admission of a state was proposed, thought only of boundaries and population. ”

“ A coalescence of the people into bodies politic in territorial areas now became complete.
The territorial series enters into the plan of government of modern civilized nations. Among ourselves, for example, we have the township, the county, the state, and the United States; the inhabitants of each of which are an organized body politic with powers of local self-government. Each organization is in full vitality and performs its functions within a definite sphere in which it is supreme. ”

“ If the territory and population which are administered by a local government are a large fraction of those of the country, it will tend to antagonize with the sovereign authority, in spite of any limitations which may be put upon its functions. These conditions (with the details which they imply) being observed and satisfied, local governments of local and popular origin are helps rather than hindrances to centralization; tending to strengthen the influence of the central authority, as well as to give to the localities themselves the best administration of their local affairs. ”

“ But with a system of representation so complete as ours, aided by the facilities furnished by modern science and art for the circulation of opinion, these difficulties disappear, and with a proper constitutional definition, and establishment of the true functions of the central and local governments, the superficies of a territory, or the number of its inhabitants have not necessarily anything to do with the practicability of combining their political interests under one central administration. ”

“ The issues arising between industrial groups, and those problems common to all groups, will best be handled by federations having a jurisdictional scope parallel to that of the separate groups of which the federations are composed. If these component groups are local economic units, the federation will be local in character. If they are district economic units, the federation will have a district as its sphere, and so on. ”

“ The differing needs and customs of the respective states and even of the respective communities within each state emphasize the principle that familiarity with, and complete understanding of, local characteristics, customs and standards are foundation stones of successful self-government. Local processes of law are an essential part of any government conducted by the people. ”

“ Some one must determine when and how far the people of a territory, part of our national domain, can be entrusted with governing powers of a local nature, and when the broader powers of statehood shall be conferred. ”

“ All that is needful is to give a sufficiently large sphere of action to the local authorities. Under one and the same central government there may be local governors, and provincial assemblies for local purposes. It may happen, for instance, that the people of different provinces may have preferences in favor of different modes of taxation. ”

“ Adoption of Acts in Towns.—The Acts may be adopted in any city, county borough, burgh or urban district by a resolution passed by the council, at a special meeting of which a month’s notice shall have been given, and the resolution must be advertised publicly in the usual way, and a copy sent to the Local Government Board, if the adoption is in England or Ireland ”

“ In the center there is allotted as the property of the Union a zone of 14,400 square kilometres, which in due time shall be laid off for the establishment of the future federal capital. Sole paragraph.--After the change of site of the capital, the present Federal District shall constitute a State. Article 4. The States shall have the right to incorporate themselves one with another, sub-divide themselves, dismember themselves to join with others or form new States, with the consent of the respective local legislatures in two successive annual sessions and the approval of the national Congress. ”

“ Congress can endow territorial governments and municipal corporations with legislative powers, as the possession of such powers for certain purposes of local administration is indispensable to their existence. ”

“ The nation at large is interested in them in no other way than that in which it is interested in the private well-being of all its individual citizens. But among the duties classed as local, or performed by local functionaries, there are many which might with equal propriety be termed national, being the share belonging to the locality of some branch of the public administration in the efficiency of which the whole nation is alike interested: the jails, for instance, most of which in this country are under county management ”

“ These local government areas of to-day represent for the most part what were once distinct, distinctly organised, and individualised communities, complete minor economic systems, and they preserve a tradition of what was once administrative convenience and economy. To-day, I submit, they do not represent communities at all, and they become more wasteful and more inconvenient with every fresh change in economic necessity. ”

“ If no agreement is reached, the Chamber of States shall decide. (3) Insofar as the Länder have exclusive legislative competence, they may conclude treaties and enter into agreements with foreign states, the Federal Republic of Germany and its Länder. Consultation with the Government of the Federation shall be established. Article 50 (1) The right of the bearers of municipal autonomy to regulate and administer the affairs of the local community under their own responsibility within the framework of the law shall be guaranteed. ”

“ Where powers are delegated to them by a central or regional authority, local authorities shall, insofar as possible, be allowed discretion in adapting their exercise to local conditions. Local authorities shall be consulted, insofar as possible, in due time and in an appropriate way in the planning and decision-making processes for all matters which concern them directly. ”

“ The local federation would be under the control of a local council, the members of which would be elected by the producing units or groups composing the local federation, very much as the modern city is managed by a council elected by wards or aldermanic districts. ”

“ The nature of this government, the officials, and the scope of their powers are all fixed by the laws of the state. There are more than 15,000 incorporated villages, towns, boroughs, and cities in the United States, nearly three fourths of them being places of less than 2500 population.
The advantages. The Merits and Defects of the Local Government System.—The most marked feature of the American system of local government, when surveyed as a whole, is its decentralization. Nothing is uniform throughout the country ”

“ The methods of societies which exact interest for loans, differ greatly in every detail, and there is evidently no limit to the variations which local custom may adopt in any particular district. In some regions the ordinary number of members appears to be sixteen as in the case just supposed. ”

“ Localities on either side of the line may develop in reliance on a certain reciprocity and stability of policy which has characterized two nations for years, when they cannot rely on similar stability or farsightedness in local policy. ”

“ Local customs proved too strong to sweep away, and it is only in comparatively recent times that many confusing provincialisms have been abolished, and some yet exist. Still the system as a system has always maintained its cardinal features. ”

“ To decide for what public objects local superintendence is best suited, and what are those which should be kept immediately under the central government, or under a mixed system of local management and central superintendence, is a question not of political economy, but of administration. ”

“ The local, district, divisional and world industrial units are the back-bone of the public machinery in a producers' society. For the purposes of facilitating the work of administration, these producers' groups are brought together, at various points, in local, district, divisional and in a world producers' federation, all of which federations derive their power directly from the industrial producers' groups. ”

“ Local Branches should not derive their revenue from any single person or interest, but should secure them from various sources so that no individual or business interest shall at any time be in a position to dictate as to the personnel, policy or activity of the Local Branch. ”

“ The immediate end of local government is a good administration of local affairs: the social education of the country at large, is, or ought to be, its ulterior and paramount object. It appears to us, that the friends of centralization make a mistake which seriously damages their cause. In reference to the attributes of local governments, they look too much to the immediate end of the institution, and think too little of its remoter and larger purpose. ”

“ In earlier days, before industry and commerce developed so greatly, local functions were the more numerous; but as population grows the whole country tends to become one great community, hence many functions formerly performed by the local authorities are being taken over by the states and the nation. It is impossible to lay down any rule as to what functions are local and what functions are general. ”

“ The local producers' federation would therefore differ little from the existing local groups, such as towns and cities, save that its constituent elements would be occupational groups rather than geographic divisions, and that it would be functioning in the economic as well as in the political field. ”

“ Stability of Local Institutions.—Students of political science are familiar with the fact that governmental systems are, as a rule, less stable at the top than at the bottom. Local institutions, embedded in the interests of the community and supported by the native conservatism of the ordinary man, strike root deeply; the central, national agencies of law-making and of administration are played upon by larger, more unsettling forces, with the consequence of greatly increased likelihood of change. Of this principle the history of modern France affords notable illustration. ”

“ The principle is the same as that which justifies the subdivision of a state into municipalities for the localization [Pg 62] of taxes required for local purposes, and it becomes more and more important, as the size of municipal units is increased, for dealing with affairs that affect large groups of contiguous communities having many conflicting interests. ”

“ Local politics remain therefore more and more in the hands of the dwindling section of people whose interests really are circumscribed by the locality. These are usually the small local tradesmen, the local building trade, sometimes a doctor and always a solicitor; and the most energetic and active and capable of these, and the one with the keenest eye to business, is usually the solicitor. Whatever you put into the hands of a local authority—education, lighting, communications—you necessarily put into the hands of a group of this sort. ”

“ The local authorities created by the Act of 1898 provided the machinery for enabling the representatives of the people to decide themselves, to a large extent, upon the nature of the particular measures to be adopted in each locality and to carry out the schemes when formulated. ”

“ Local Councils may also communicate direct with National Headquarters in matters that concern their own locality.
B.—FEDERATION OR STATE ORGANIZATIONS
A number of Local Councils may join together to form a Federation for mutual support. Local Councils belonging to it may delegate their general policy to the Federation but retain their power to control their Councils in local matters. ”

“ In some of the middle colonies the towns and counties were both active and had a relation with each other which was the forerunner of the present system of local government in the Western States. ”

“ In some instances companies have had to grant such concessions to local communities as a means of overcoming threatened opposition to their proposed arrangements that the value of the advantages eventually obtained has been represented almost by a negative quantity. ”