On the evils of disunity in central and local administration especially with relation to the metropolis and also on the new centralisation for the people together with improvements in codifications and in legislative procedure / by Edwin Chadwick.

  • Chadwick, Edwin, 1800-1890.
Date:
1885
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the evils of disunity in central and local administration especially with relation to the metropolis and also on the new centralisation for the people together with improvements in codifications and in legislative procedure / by Edwin Chadwick. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service. The original may be consulted at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine Library & Archives Service.

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    thousand pounds have been incurred for inferior works, from which a competent body of specialists would have protected the population and have ensured them better works—such as water- works—at a far less charge. In some cases, cities have been charged with such costs, and have failed to obtain the relief they have sought. ]\Ir. Sellar recently stated, in illustration of this system of Parliamentary centralisation : ‘ Last session ten railway schemes were thrown out in Com- mittee. The expense of the Parliamentary inquiry in the case of those ten rejected schemes was calculated to exceed £200,000. Tlie cost of the Barrow Dock scheme was stated to have been at the rate of five guineas a minute for the whole time (forty- three days) in which it was in Committee. When lie mentioned tliese facts, and told them tliat it had been sworn in evidence that the whole Prussian railway system was one of tlie most perfect in the world, and cost less money to complete than was spent in the Parliamentary expenses of the English railways up to 1867 before a sod was cut, it would be enough to convince them that the present system could not be a good one. Some years ago the burgh of Dunbar was nearly ruined by having* to defend itself against the county before a Private Bill Com- mittee. It cost them, he thought, 77 per cent, of their income. Last session he sat upon a Committee which conducted inquiries regarding waterworks at Dumbarton, waterworks at Hawarden, in Cheshire, waterworks at Windsor, and a graving dock at King’s Lynn—all of them small places. The Committee was conducted as quickly and expeditiously as possible, but the expense to those small towns and districts must have been of a most serious character. His humble effort, he was bound to say, tliough coming to no practical result, was not discouraging.’ For an abortive Water Bill for Wakefield, a loss of £75,000 was incurred. As an illustration of the emoluments derived from this species of legislation, I may mention that the late i\ir. Charles Austin, of \ he Parliamentaiy bar, whom I knew, received in 1844-45 1,000 guineas on each l)rief, and his income for that year was £63,000. Another illustration may he taken from the diary of the late Mr. Newburn, railway solicitor, published in 1876. The writer says:—‘The London and North Western Kailway Company had in the Session of 1860, twenty-five bills in Parliament, all which they gave to Mr. Hope Scott, as their leader, and he was paid fees amounting to £20,000, although he was rarely in tlie committee room during the progress of the Bills.’ The result of a long exjierience was Expenses of centralisation to Parliament.