Village council

“ The agricultural labourer voters—and the numerous semi-agricultural voters, not labourers—are more than likely to look at their own parish as well as at the policy of the Foreign Office. Gradually the parish—that is, the village—must become the centre to men who feel at last that they are their own masters. Under some form or other they will take the parish into their own hands, and insist upon their business being managed at home. Some shape of village council must come presently into existence. ”

“ A mere village has no claim to a municipal representation. By a village I mean a place whose inhabitants are not markedly distinguished by occupation or social relations from those of the rural districts adjoining, and for whose local wants the arrangements made for the surrounding territory will suffice. Such small places have rarely a sufficient public to furnish a tolerable municipal council: if they contain any talent or knowledge applicable to public business, it is apt to be all concentrated in some one man, who thereby becomes the dominator of the place. ”

“ The government of the village is purely democratic. All the people meet and vote for their village magistrate, who decides, with the aid of a council of the elders, all the questions which arise within its confines, one of them being the division of the land. ”

“ Thy Village Council, Cottage cosy,
Present in sooth a prospect rosy,
But promises so oft are rotten;
I've oft been wooed—and oft forgotten!
Free vote, fair rating, open school,
Good wage, intelligent self-rule,—
These are enticements me would move
To live with thee and be thy love. ”

“ What light could these inhabitants of the country, entirely governed by local influence, bring to the discussion of these questions? But they are masters at home; with the old men of the village they form an administrative council, which regulates the rate of taxation, keeps the public roads in repair, supplies granaries of reserved corn, and considers the best means of preventing bad harvests, and preserving social order. ”

“ Instead of property having an overwhelming share, as now, in the direction of affairs, the owner of the largest property must not weigh any heavier in the village council than the wayside cottager. If farmer or landowner sit there he must have one vote only, the same as any other member. The council, if it is to be independent, must represent men and not land in the shape of landowners, or money in the shape of tenant-farmers. ”

“ The whole of the present conception of the village as an appanage of the headman, and the conception of the headman as an official of Government, must be swept away and a new and true conception must be arrived at.
The village is a self-contained organism, and the headman is its representative before Government and its executive head, the real power being in the Council. Powers and responsibility reside in the village as a whole and in no individual. The people must not be ruled, but rule themselves. ”

“ Why are the petition and other papers of incorporation recorded?
Can a person living in a village build a sidewalk to suit his own fancy? Why? Suppose that owing to a defective sidewalk you should break your leg, what responsibility would lie on the village?
How would you get your pay if you had a bill against a village?
The village council has power "to establish and regulate markets." Why should the sale of meats be regulated any more than the sale of flour or of clothing? May the sale of bread be regulated?
What is the difference between a policeman and a constable. ”

“ In addition to the village house most of the families have a small plot of land outside the town with a small house erected on it where they spend part of the summer cultivating vegetables for their use. The community owns a saw mill that supplies them with lumber. The affairs of the village are managed by a council presided over by180 their chief. I am unable to say whether they manage their public affairs as well as some of our municipalities do. They could scarcely be managed worse than some are. They can all speak English, but conversation among themselves is usually in their own tongue. ”

“ The Council, as representing the village, should be responsible to Government, and it would always be possible for the Deputy Commissioner to bring pressure on a recalcitrant Council by threatening to suspend the constitution and place the village under an appointed headman for a time if they did not carry out their duties properly. ”

“ Let the village be so connected with the province that it may not be felt as an obstruction but as a real and integral part of the province. Then in considering the representation to the Legislative Council, you will try to so frame your scheme that the interest of the poorest villager as well as that of the richest zemindar may be equally represented; and the interest of the minority may not be neglected. ”

“ To be a municipal councillor or a school commissioner is indeed all very well. But the village council is not really very important. It spends only a few hundred dollars a year and to keep up the roads is not an exciting task. The village council rarely has even the "town hall" usual in other communities; it meets in the "salle publique," or the vestry, of the Church, or in the school house. The school commissioners too have no very dazzling work to do. The curé is sometimes their chairman and thus in some degree they come under the control of the Church. ”

“ We have seen working men's representatives sit in [Pg 230] the House of Commons; did anyone ever see a cottage labourer sit as administrator at the board before which the wretched poor of his own neighbourhood appear for relief?
But it may be asked, Is the village council, then, composed of small proprietors, to sit down and vote away the farmer's or landowner's money without farmer or landowner having so much as a voice in the matter? Certainly not. The idea of village self-government supposes a distinct and separate existence, as it were ”

“ It sometimes happens that a village has refused to obey the decree of the Fono. The Great Council flies into no vulgar passion, talks not of legal penalties, sets no police in motion. It simply announces that the next meeting will be held in the rebellious village. This means more than meets the eye, for councillors are hungry folk, and they do not bring sandwiches with them. No village would dare incur the odium of neglecting to feed its august visitors. The headstrong village knows its doom. ”

“ The municipal and internal affairs are managed by a provincial assembly elected by the people. Every villa or borough throughout the province also possesses its municipal council, and in thinly-populated districts the inhabitants choose every four years a justice of the peace, who adjudicates in small disputes between neighbours. A system of popular education exists, and every village has its school of first letters, the master being paid by the government, the salary amounting to about £70, or the same sum as the priests receive. ”

“ Every household is provided with as much as it needs; and if a girl marries, each woman and girl is expected to carry to the newly married one a parcel of wood for her provision, since she could not procure it alone, and at a season when she has to give her attention to other things.
The following is their mode of government: the older and leading men assemble in a council, in which they settle upon and propose all that is necessary for the affairs of the village. ”

“ Creation, Appointment and Qualifications. Each city and incorporated village is hereby authorized and empowered to create a commission to be known as the city or village planning commission. Such commission shall be so created in incorporated villages by resolution of the trustees, in cities by ordinance of the common council, except that in cities of the first class, having more than a million inhabitants, it shall be by resolution of the board of estimate and apportionment or other similar local authority. ”

“ At Heisgier and Lauder the tribal community is represented by the last link under the process of dissolution, namely, the free council of the community by which the village rights are governed, while the village community has developed to a considerable extent. ”

“ The village has a seal, of which the recorder is the custodian; and he is, as has been said, a member of the council. Otherwise the duties of the recorder are similar to those of the town clerk.
Elections.—A village usually constitutes one election district and one road district. Village elections are conducted as are those in a town.
Enlargements.—Lands adjoining the village may be annexed to it, at the wish and with the consent of the voters of the territory and of the village. The will of the voters aforesaid is expressed at an election called, after due notice, by the county commissioners. ”

“ Though, having become tributaries, there habitually exists in each village a head appointed by the Indian Government to be responsible for the tribute, etc., yet the nature of their indigenous government remains sufficiently clear: while there is a patriarch who is honored, but who rarely interferes, "every village has its council-place. ”

“ In villages there are, no doubt, distinct and often hard social divisions, but the gaps between people are not so great as among city folk and people in large organizations. In village councils the evils of parliamentarism are reduced to a minimum. ”

“ In more numerous Indian nations, I am told, every village has its chief and its councils, and is perfectly independent on the rest; but on great occasions summon a general council, to which every village sends deputies. ”

“ There are nineteen incorporated villages, and ten other locally governed areas known as country districts, the affairs of which are controlled by local authorities, known as village councils and country authorities respectively. ”

“ Everywhere else the numerical majority, being sovereign, tends to select its candidates from among the average people: in the village, he is a man of average rural intelligence, and, mostly, in the village a municipal council which, as narrow-minded as its electors, elects a mayor equally as narrow-minded as itself Such are, from now on, the representatives and directors of communal interests ”

“ He presides over the Assembly, which regulates the whole life of the village, distributes the land of the commune, decides how and when the working of the land has to be done; and it is specially interesting to know that in this most remarkable and exceptional village government of the Mir all women who permanently and temporarily are heads of houses are expected to attend its meetings and to vote—no one ever dreams of questioning their right to do so. ”

“ In such compact communities cooperation becomes necessary to provide for needs that are not felt in more rural districts, such as paved streets, sewers, public water supply, fire and police protection, and so on. A separate government becomes necessary. The people of such communities may appeal to the authorities of township, county, or state, for incorporation as a village, borough, town, or city. ”

“ Article 20
⁠A villagers assembly may formulate and revise the villagers charter of self-government, rules and regulations for the village and villagers pledges, and submit them to the people's government of the township, nationality township or town for the record. ”

“ After thirty years as the very longest period, if it is to retain its members, it must follow them in the march up-town; or if it is to retain its location and still hold a congregation it must seek an absolutely new constituency, and to this end must transform its methods of work. Nor are these migrations of population confined to the city. The towns and villages are governed by the same law of change. A village, once the seat of quiet homes, is suddenly turned into a factory town, with a new and strange population. ”

“ Their own locality or town is no more to them economically than any other part of the world-market, and very little more in any other respect. The mediæval idea of a town, on the contrary, was that of an organization of groups into one organic whole. Just as the village community was a somewhat extended family organization, so was, mutatis mutandis, the larger unit, the township or city. Each member of the town organization owed allegiance and distinct duties primarily to his guild, or immediate social group, and through this to the larger social group which constituted the civic society. ”

“ In most other lines of rural service a man’s influence is ordinarily limited to the single community in which he lives. The County Work Secretary’s field is an entire county. He is not working merely with a single group of people but with similar groups in a [Pg 248] score of townships and usually the finest people in each village, whom he selects for their local Christian influence and their devotion to community welfare. ”

“ In thus rapidly sketching out the various ways in which a local village authority might encourage the growth and improvement of the place, it has been endeavoured to indicate, in a suggestive manner, the way in which such an authority might be established. It is not for one moment proposed that an application should be made to the Legislature for a special enactment enabling such councils to act with legal force. ”

“ But when the church, the grange and the lodge are in the village, when they desire consolidated schools, libraries, and community houses, which are most convenient to all at the village center, and when they desire the improvement of local roads so that they will best connect with state and county roads, then the interests of the farmers and the villagers unite them in these common enterprises, and the community comes into conflict with the rest of the township if the township is composed of more than one community. ”