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
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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![IG Origin of Centralisation of Example^ of the effects of expenses of centralisation to Parliament in extending reliefs needed for local evils. Origin of the relief obtained from the ex- penses of the Court of Chancery for the drainage of settled estates. that Mr. Hope Scott entertained an ‘ ingrained contempt ’ for tlie tribunals before whom he had to display his forensic talents and through whom he obtained such vast profits. ]Mr. Wheeler, the engineer, of Lincolnshire, whom I have cited fur his description of the evils of disunity in the local self-government there for protection against floods, describes in the following terms the mischievous effects of the Parlia- mentary legislation on local Acts: ‘ The enormous cost of obtaining Acts of Parliament for the improvement of only portions of a river stand forth as a bar to improvement except in the most extreme cases. These costs must in the prelimi- nary stage be guaranteed by the landowners, in case of failure to obtain an Act giving the necessary power of taxation, a risk not lightly to be incurred, considering the immense number of interests on every river, and the spirit of opposition on the part of any body of Commissioners when there is the chance of privi- leges being interfered with. It has been stated that the con- tests over the jurisdiction of the lower section of one of the second-class rivers on which improvements have recently been carried out, have cost £100,000 during the last fifty years; and that the cost of obtaining Parliamentary powers for the improve- ment of the outfall of another river, draining a large section of the Midland district, has amounted to £150,000 during a like period. On the Don it cost £7,000 to obtain an Act to improve only twelve miles of the river, £3,000 being spent by the opposi- tion, or about one-third of the total cost of the works. An un- opposed Act costs nearly £1,000, and the smallest opposition, if carried on only in one House, trebles or quadruples this amount.’ In respect to the primary work of sanitation for the relief by drainage of land supersaturated with moisture, often with marsh surfaces, engendering rheumatism, ague, and the marsh diseases, as well as occasioning inferior production, I early wrote papers for Sir Robert Peel’s Grovernment, representing that relief by the drainage of settled estates could only be obtained by ap- plication to the central authority — tlie Court of Chancery—for permission, only obtainable at an expense which would suffice for the purchase of the tiles that would be needed for the drainage of a middle-sized farm. These representations led to the transfer- ence of the operations—then rarely exercised, on account of the expense—to the Commons Enclosure Commissioners, where the service is now rendered at about a tenth of the expense incurred by the previous centralisation, but also with the advantage of a local inspection by a specialist in land drainage, to ensure that the work shall endure and be of benefit to the latest reversioner,](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24764395_0028.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
