Town Rates.
Town Councils.
Town Com¬ missioners under Towns Improve¬ ment Ireland Act (1854).
Lighting and Cleansing Commis¬ sioners, under 9 Geo IY.,
c.
82.
Municipal Commis-•
There are three circumstances with respect to the administration of the Grand Jury Cess which require to be noticed.
1.
The facility with which the legality of any expenditure of public money can be ascertained before it is incurred, is very great, as the acts of the Grand Jury have all to be submitted to the Judge of Assize, or in certain cases, to the Recorder of a city who is bound to hear objections, and who may refuse to flat presentments, if those objections prove well founded.
2.
The valuation on which the rate is levied is a general assessment by independent Government officers.
3.
The audit of the expenditure of Grand Jury Cess is also conducted by a central department, entirely independent of the Grand Juries.
In the four principal cities and towns of Ireland, Dublin, Belfast, Cork, and Limerick, the Town Council has been substituted for the Grand Jury, as the body to administer the Grand Jury Cess, but as to this part of its expenditure, each Town Council is subject to the check of requiring the presentments to be ratified (after objections heard) by the Judge or Recorder, and to the check of independent audit.
(Vide Dublin Improvement Act, 3.2
& 13 Vic, c.
97, Cork Improvement Act, 15 & 16 Vic, c 143, Limerick Im¬ provement Act, 16 & 17 Vic, c.
194, County Antrim and Belfast Borough Act, 28 &29 Vic, c.
183.)
The powers of taxation for town purposes in Ireland, are all framed upon the model of corresponding powers in England and Wales.
Eleven of the principal towns are governed by Town Councils, under the Municipal Corporation Reform Act of 1840 (Stat.
3 & 4 Vic, c 108), which is based on the model of the English Corporation Act of 1835 (Stat.
5 & 6 W.
IV.,
c.
76).
The older corpora¬ tions had been established by P^oyal Charter, dating in the case of Dublin as far back as a.d.
1207, in the reign of King John, within thirty-five years of the first introduction of English ^aw i^o Ireland.
In the Municipal Corporation Reform Act a provision was introduced which did not extend to England, requiring the accounts of Town Councils to be audited by the Board of Audit in London.
The machinery provided did not however work satisfac¬ torily, and few of the accounts were ever audited, and in 1866 the provision making the audit obligatory on the Board of Audit was repealed (by Stat.
29 & 30 Vic, c 39), and powers were given to the Treasury to make other provisions with respect to audit.
There are seventy towns in Ireland under Towns Improvement Commissioners exercising the powers conferred on them by the Towns Improvement Ireland Act (1854).
This Act enables the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council to consent to the appointment of Commissioners, and to define the boundaries of towns for the purposes of the Act, and gives the Commissioners most of the powers usually found in Towns Improvement Acts in England and Wales prior to 1848.
The Sewage Utilization Act (1865), and the Sanitary Act (1866), contain clauses making their provisions specially applicable to Ireland, and a number of the provisions of the Local Government Act of 1858, have thereby been extended to Ireland, and the Irish law with
^
regard to sewers and public health has been assimilated to the latest English provisions.
All the provisions of the Local Government Act, have not, however, been extended to Ireland.
The provision as to audit is different in the two countries, and the Irish towns have not the benefit of having their local Acts amended, and their powers increased by orders of the Irish Government, subject to the sanction of Parliament, as the English towns have by orders of the Home Secretary.
Irish towns are still required to resort to the expense of private Bills, or to wait for some general measure like the Towns Improvement Act of 1854, if they desire perfect assimilation to the latest improve¬ ments adopted for the government of towns in England.
In several towns (twenty in number) instead of Town Commissioners there are only Lighting and Cleansing Commissioners, under the provisions of the Lighting and Cleansing Act of 1829 (9 Geo.
IV.,
cap.
82.)
This Act enabled towns in Ireland to adopt the powers usually granted by Parliament
• at that time for lighting and cleansing towns in England; but in consequence of the different scale of rating fixed for different classes of houses, the limited authority, and the restricted powers of taxation which the Act confers, the arrangements for local govern¬ ment under it are very far behind those now in force in towns of 'a corresponding size in England and Wales.
Since 1854 no new town can come under the provisions of the Lighting and Cleansing Act of 1829, and the towns have full power to substitute Town Commissioners under the Act of 1854 for Lighting and Cleansing Commissioners under the Act of 1829, a power of which many towns have availed themselves since 1854.
There is only one town in Ireland (Carrickfergus) still under the government of the
