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Politics and Parties from the Reform Act of 1867 to the Parliament Act of 1911
1886-1911, Recent Affairs; Part 4
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1886-1911, Recent Affairs; Part 4
Apart from Ireland and the passions engendered by the Home Rule question, which led to a free fight in the House of Commons during the debate on the second Home Rule Bill in 1893, politics for the greater part of this period were not very exciting. Solid progress was, however, made, and the legislation, as has been explained in the last chapter, partook of a paternal character, enlarging as it did the sphere of State interference in many directions. Constitutionally, the most important developments took place in local government. Ever since the Tudors, the local administration had been in the hands of the Justices of the Peace, who were appointed by the Lord-lieutenant of each county, and who were usually selected from the local gentry. To the Justices of the Peace are still left petty criminal business and the licensing of public-houses and inns; but by a succession of laws passed between 1888 and 1894 the control of such matters as highways and bridges, housing and public health, was handed over to popularly elected County, District, and Parish Councils subject to the supervision of the central authority, the Local Government Board. The tendency of later legislation has been to increase the functions of County Councils; the superintendence of education has, for instance, been handed over to them, and it is not improbable that in the near future the maintenance of the poor may also fall to their care. With these changes, the transformation of the government of Britain into a democracy may be said to be almost completed, though the sovereignty of the democracy is still somewhat modified through the checks imposed by the existence of the Crown and the House of Lords.
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Chronology
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