Speaker 1: Chapter fifteen B of Considerations on Representative Government. This LibriVox
Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Considerations on Representative Government
Speaker 1: by John Stuart Mill, Chapter fifteen B. A mere village
Speaker 1: has no claim to a municipal representation. By a village,
Speaker 1: I mean a place whose inhabitants are not markedly distinguished
Speaker 1: by occupation or social relations from those of the rural
Speaker 1: districts adjoining, and for whose local wants the arrangements made
Speaker 1: for the surrounding territory will suffice. Such small places have
Speaker 1: rarely a sufficient public to furnish a tolerable municipal council.
Speaker 1: If they contain any talent or knowledge applicable to public business,
Speaker 1: it is apt to be all concentrated in some one man,
Speaker 1: who thereby becomes the dominator of the place. It is
Speaker 1: better that such places should be merged in a larger circumscription.
Speaker 1: The local representation of rural districts will naturally be determined
Speaker 1: by geographical considerations, with due regard to those sympathies of
Speaker 1: feeling by which human beings are so much aided to
Speaker 1: act in concert, and which partly follow historical boundaries, such
Speaker 1: as those of counties or provinces, and partly community of
Speaker 1: interest and occupation, as in agriculture, maritime, manufacturing, or mining districts.
Speaker 1: Different kinds of local business require different areas of representation.
Speaker 1: The unions of parishes have been fixed on as the
Speaker 1: most appropriate basis for the representative bodies which superintend the
Speaker 1: relief of indigence, while for the proper regulation of highways
Speaker 1: or prisons or police, a large extent like that of
Speaker 1: an average county is not more than sufficient in these
Speaker 1: large districts. Therefore, the maxim that an elective body constituted
Speaker 1: in any locality should have authority over all the local
Speaker 1: concerns common to the locality requires modification from an another principle,
Speaker 1: as well as from the competing consideration of the importance
Speaker 1: of obtaining for the discharge of the local duties the
Speaker 1: highest qualifications possible. For example, if it be necessary, as
Speaker 1: I believe it to be for the proper administration of
Speaker 1: the poor laws, that the area of rating should not
Speaker 1: be more extensive than most of the present unions, a
Speaker 1: principle which requires a board of guardians for each union,
Speaker 1: yet as a much more highly qualified class of persons
Speaker 1: is likely to be obtainable for a county board than
Speaker 1: those who compose an average board of guardians. It may,
Speaker 1: on that ground be expedient to reserve for the county
Speaker 1: boards some higher descriptions of local business, which might otherwise
Speaker 1: have been conveniently managed within itself by each separate union.
Speaker 1: Besides the controlling council or local sub parliament. Local business
Speaker 1: has its executive department. With respect to this, the same
Speaker 1: questions arise as with respect to the executive authorities in
Speaker 1: the state, and they may, for the most part be
Speaker 1: answered in the same manner. The principles applicable to all
Speaker 1: public trusts are in substance the same. In the first place,
Speaker 1: each executive officer should be single and singly responsible for
Speaker 1: the whole of the duty committed to his charge. In
Speaker 1: the next place, he should be nominated, not elected. It
Speaker 1: is ridiculous that a surveyor, or a health officer, or
Speaker 1: even a collector of rates should be appointed by popular suffrage.
Speaker 1: The popular choice usually depends on interest, with a few
Speaker 1: local leaders who, as they are not supposed to make
Speaker 1: the appointment, are not responsible for it, or on an
Speaker 1: appeal to sympathy founded on having twelve children and having
Speaker 1: been a rate payer in the parish for thirty years.
Speaker 1: If in cases of this description, election by the population
Speaker 1: is a farce, appointment by the local representative body is
Speaker 1: little less objectionable. Such bodies have a perpetual tendency to
Speaker 1: become joint stock associations for carrying into effect the private
Speaker 1: jobs of their various members. Appointments should be made on
Speaker 1: the individual responsibility of the chairman of the body. Let
Speaker 1: him be called mayor Chairman of quarter sessions, or by
Speaker 1: whatever other title he occupies in the locality, a position
Speaker 1: analogous to that of the prime minister in the state,
Speaker 1: and under a well organized system, the appointment and watching
Speaker 1: of the local officers would be the most important part
Speaker 1: of his duty, he himself being appointed by the council
Speaker 1: from its own number, subject either to annual re election
Speaker 1: or to removal by a vote of the body. From
Speaker 1: the constitution of the local bodies, I now pass to
Speaker 1: the equally important and more difficult subject of their proper attributions.
Speaker 1: This question divides itself into two parts. What should be
Speaker 1: their duties, and whether they should have full authority within
Speaker 1: the sphere of those duties or should be liable to
Speaker 1: any and what interference on the part of the central government.
Speaker 1: It is obvious to begin with, that all business purely local,
Speaker 1: all which concerns only a single locality, should devolve upon
Speaker 1: the local authorities. The paving, lighting, and cleansing of the
Speaker 1: streets of a town, and in ordinary circumstances the draining
Speaker 1: of its houses, are of little consequence to any but
Speaker 1: its inhabitants. The nation at large is interested in them
Speaker 1: in no other way than that in which it is
Speaker 1: interested in the private well being of all its individual citizens.
Speaker 1: But among the duties classed as local or performed by
Speaker 1: local functionaries, there are many which might, with equal propriety
Speaker 1: be termed national being the share belonging to the locality
Speaker 1: of some branch of the public administration in the efficiency
Speaker 1: of which the whole nation is alike interested. The jails,
Speaker 1: for instance, most of which in this country are under
Speaker 1: county management. The local police, the local administration of justice,
Speaker 1: much of which, especially in corporate towns, is performed by
Speaker 1: officers elected by the locality and paid from local funds.
Speaker 1: None of these can be said to be matters of
Speaker 1: local as distinguished from national importance. It would not be
Speaker 1: a matter personally indifferent to the rest of the country
Speaker 1: if any part of it became a nest of robbers
Speaker 1: or a focus of demoralization owing to the maladministration of
Speaker 1: its police, or if through the bad regulations of its jail,
Speaker 1: the punishment which the courts of justice intended to inflict
Speaker 1: on the criminals confined therein, who might have come from
Speaker 1: or committed their offenses in any other district, might be
Speaker 1: doubled in intensity or lowered to practical impunity. The points, moreover,
Speaker 1: which constitute good management of these things are the same everywhere.
Speaker 1: There is no good reason why police, or jails, or
Speaker 1: the administration of justice should be differently managed in one
Speaker 1: part of the kingdom and in another. While there is
Speaker 1: great peril that in things so important and to which
Speaker 1: the most instructed minds available to the state are not
Speaker 1: more than adequate, the lower average of capacities, which alone
Speaker 1: can be counted on for the service of the localities,
Speaker 1: might commit errors of such magnitude as to be a
Speaker 1: serious blot upon the general administration of the country. Security
Speaker 1: of person and property and equal justice between individuals are
Speaker 1: the first needs of society and the primary ends of government.
Speaker 1: If these things can be left to any responsibility below
Speaker 1: the highest, there is nothing except war and treaties, which
Speaker 1: requires a general government at all. Whatever are the best
Speaker 1: arrangements for securing these primary objects should be made universally obligatory,
Speaker 1: and to secure their enforcement should be placed under central superintendence.
Speaker 1: It is often useful, and with the institutions of our
Speaker 1: own country, even necessary, from the scarcity in the localities
Speaker 1: of officers representing the general government, that the execution of
Speaker 1: duties imposed by the central authority should be entrusted to
Speaker 1: functionaries appointed for local purposes by the locality. But experiences
Speaker 1: daily forcing upon the public a conviction of the necessity
Speaker 1: of having at least inspectors appointed by the general government
Speaker 1: to see that the local officers do their duty. If
Speaker 1: prisons are under local management, the central government appoints inspectors
Speaker 1: of prisons to take care that the rules laid down
Speaker 1: by Parliament are observed and to suggest others if the
Speaker 1: state of the jails shows them to be requisite, as
Speaker 1: there are inspectors of factories and inspectors of schools to
Speaker 1: watch over the observance of the Acts of Parliament relating
Speaker 1: to the first and the fulfillment of conditions on which
Speaker 1: state assistance is granted to the latter. But if the
Speaker 1: administration of justice, police and jails included is both so
Speaker 1: universal a concern and so much a matter of general science,
Speaker 1: independent of local peculiarities, that it may be and ought
Speaker 1: to be uniformly regulated throughout the country, and its regulation
Speaker 1: enforced by more trained and skillful hands than those of
Speaker 1: purely local authorities. There is also business such as the
Speaker 1: administration of the poor, laws, sanitary regulation, and others, which,
Speaker 1: while really interesting to the whole country, cannot consistently with
Speaker 1: the very purposes of local administration, be managed otherwise than
Speaker 1: by the localities. In regard to such duties, the question
Speaker 1: arises how far the local authorities ought to be trusted
Speaker 1: with discretionary power, free from any superintendents or control of
Speaker 1: the state. To decide this question, it is essential to
Speaker 1: consider what is the comparative position of the central and
Speaker 1: the local authorities as capacity for the work and security
Speaker 1: against negligence or abuse. In the first place, the representative
Speaker 1: bodies and their officers are almost certain to be of
Speaker 1: a much lower grade of intelligence and knowledge than Parliament
Speaker 1: and the national executive. Secondly, besides being themselves of inferior qualifications,
Speaker 1: they are watched by and accountable to an inferior public opinion.
Speaker 1: The public under whose eyes they act and by whom
Speaker 1: they are criticized, is both more limited in extent and
Speaker 1: generally far less enlightened than that which surrounds and admonishes
Speaker 1: the highest authorities at the capital. While the comparative smallness
Speaker 1: of the interests involved causes even that inferior public to
Speaker 1: direct its thoughts to the subject less intently and with
Speaker 1: less solicitude. Far less interference is exercised by the press
Speaker 1: and by public discussion, and that which is exercised may
Speaker 1: with much more impunity be disregarded in the proceedings of
Speaker 1: local than in those of national authorities. Thus far, the
Speaker 1: advantage seems wholly on the side of management by the
Speaker 1: central government. But when we look more closely, these motives
Speaker 1: of preference are found to be balanced by others fully
Speaker 1: as substantial. If the local authorities and public are inferior
Speaker 1: to the central ones in knowledge of the principles of administration,
Speaker 1: they have the compensatory advantage of a far more direct
Speaker 1: interest in the result. A man's neighbors or his landlord
Speaker 1: may be much cleverer than himself, and not without an
Speaker 1: indirect interest in his prosperity, but for all that his
Speaker 1: interests will be better attended to in his own keeping
Speaker 1: than in theirs. It is further to be remembered that,
Speaker 1: even supposing the central government to administer through its own officers,
Speaker 1: its officers do not act at the center, but in
Speaker 1: the locality. And however inferior the local public may be
Speaker 1: to the central, it is the local public alone which
Speaker 1: has any opportunity of watching them. And it is the
Speaker 1: local opinion alone which either acts directly upon their own
Speaker 1: conduct or calls the attention of the government to the
Speaker 1: points in which they may react. Quire correction, it is
Speaker 1: but in extreme cases that the general opinion of the
Speaker 1: country is brought to bear at all upon details of
Speaker 1: local administration, and still more rarely has it the means
Speaker 1: of deciding upon them with any just appreciation of the case. Now,
Speaker 1: the local opinion necessarily acts far more forcibly upon purely
Speaker 1: local administrators. They, in the natural course of things, are
Speaker 1: permanent residents, not expecting to be withdrawn from the place
Speaker 1: when they cease to exercise authority in it, And their
Speaker 1: authority itself depends by supposition on the will of the
Speaker 1: local public. I need not dwell on the deficiencies of
Speaker 1: the central authority in detailed knowledge of local persons and things,
Speaker 1: and the too great engrossment of its time and thoughts
Speaker 1: by other concerns to admit of its acquiring the quantity
Speaker 1: and quality of local knowledge necessary even for deciding on
Speaker 1: complaints and enforcing responsibility from so great a number of
Speaker 1: local agents in the day details of management. Therefore, the
Speaker 1: local bodies will generally have the advantage. But in comprehension
Speaker 1: of the principles even of purely local management, the superiority
Speaker 1: of the central government, when rightly constituted, ought to be prodigious,
Speaker 1: not only by reason of the probably great personal superiority
Speaker 1: of the individuals composing it, and the multitude of thinkers
Speaker 1: and writers who are at all times engaged in pressing
Speaker 1: useful ideas upon their notice, but also because the knowledge
Speaker 1: and experience of any local authority is but local knowledge
Speaker 1: and experience confined to their own part of the country
Speaker 1: and its modes of management, whereas the central government has
Speaker 1: the means of knowing all that is to be learned
Speaker 1: from the united experience of the whole kingdom, with the
Speaker 1: addition of easy access to that of foreign countries. The
Speaker 1: practical conclusion from these premises is not difficult to draw.
Speaker 1: The authority which is most conversant with principles should be
Speaker 1: supreme over principles, while that which is most competent in
Speaker 1: details should have the details left to it. The principal
Speaker 1: business of the central authority should be to give instruction
Speaker 1: of the local authority to apply it. Power may be localized,
Speaker 1: but knowledge, to be most useful must be centralized. There
Speaker 1: must be somewhere a focus at which all its scattered
Speaker 1: rays are collected, that the broken and colored lights which
Speaker 1: exist elsewhere may find there what is necessary to complete
Speaker 1: and purify them. To every branch of local administration which
Speaker 1: affects the general interest, there should be a corresponding central
Speaker 1: organ either a minister or some specially appointed functionary under him,
Speaker 1: even if that functionary does no more than collect information
Speaker 1: from all quarters and bring the experience acquired in one
Speaker 1: locality to the knowledge of another where it is wanted.
Speaker 1: But there is also something more than this for the
Speaker 1: central authority to do. It ought to keep open a
Speaker 1: perpetual communication with the localities, in forming itself by their
Speaker 1: experience and them by its own, giving advice freely when asked,
Speaker 1: volunteering it when seen to be required, compelling publicity and
Speaker 1: recordation of proceedings, and enforcing obedience to every general law
Speaker 1: which the legislature has laid down on the subject of
Speaker 1: local management. That some such laws ought to be laid down,
Speaker 1: few are likely to deny. The localities may be allowed
Speaker 1: to mismanage their own interests, but not to prejudice those
Speaker 1: of others, nor violate those principles of justice between one
Speaker 1: person and another, of which it is the duty of
Speaker 1: the state to maintain the rigid observance. If the local
Speaker 1: majority attempts to oppress the minority, or one class another,
Speaker 1: the state is bound to interpose. For example, all local
Speaker 1: rates ought to be voted exclusively by the local representative body,
Speaker 1: But that body, though elected solely by rate payers, may
Speaker 1: raise its revenues by imposts of such a kind, or
Speaker 1: assess them in such a manner as to throw an
Speaker 1: unjust share of the burden on the poor, the rich,
Speaker 1: or some particular class of the population. It is the
Speaker 1: duty therefore of the legislature, while leaving the mere amount
Speaker 1: of the local taxes to the discretion of the local body,
Speaker 1: to lay down authoritatively the mode of taxation and rules
Speaker 1: of assessment, which alone the localities shall be permitted to
Speaker 1: use again In the administration of public charity. The industry
Speaker 1: and morality of the whole laboring population depends to a
Speaker 1: most serious extent upon adherence to certain fixed principles in
Speaker 1: awarding relief. Though it belongs essentially to the local functionaries
Speaker 1: to determine who, according to those principles, is entitled to
Speaker 1: be relieved, the National Parliament is the proper authority to
Speaker 1: prescribe the principles themselves, and it would neglect a most
Speaker 1: important part of its duty if it did not, in
Speaker 1: a manner of such grave national concern, lay down imperative
Speaker 1: rules and make effectual provision that those rules should not
Speaker 1: be departed from what power of actual interference with the
Speaker 1: local administrators it may be necessary to retain. For the
Speaker 1: due enforcement of the laws is a question of detail
Speaker 1: into which it would be useless to enter. The laws
Speaker 1: themselves will naturally define the penalties and fix the mode
Speaker 1: of their enforcement. It may be requisite, to meet extreme
Speaker 1: cases that the power of the central authority should extend
Speaker 1: to dissolving the local representative council or dismissing the local executive,
Speaker 1: but not to making new appointments or suspending the local
Speaker 1: institutions where Parliament has not interfered. Neither ought any branch
Speaker 1: of the executive to interfere with authority, but as an
Speaker 1: adviser and critic, an enforcer of the laws, and a
Speaker 1: denouncer to Parliament or the local constituencies of conduct which
Speaker 1: it deems condemnable. The functions of the executive are of
Speaker 1: the greatest possible value. Some may think that, however much
Speaker 1: the central authority surpasses the local and knowledge of the
Speaker 1: principles of administration, the social and political education of the
Speaker 1: citizens requires that they should be left to manage these
Speaker 1: matters by their own however imperfect lights to this, it
Speaker 1: might be answered that the education of the citizens is
Speaker 1: not the only thing to be considered. Government and administration
Speaker 1: do not exist for that alone. Great as its importance is,
Speaker 1: but the objection shows a very imperfect understanding of the
Speaker 1: function of popular institutions as a means of political instruction.
Speaker 1: It is but a poor education that associates ignorance with ignorance,
Speaker 1: and leaves them, if they care for knowledge, to grope
Speaker 1: their way to it without help, and to do without
Speaker 1: it if they do not. What is wanted is the
Speaker 1: means of making ignorance aware of itself and able to
Speaker 1: profit by knowledge, accustoming minds which know only routine to
Speaker 1: act upon and feel the value of principle, teaching them
Speaker 1: to compare different modes of action, and learn by the
Speaker 1: use of their reason, to distinguish the best. When we
Speaker 1: desire to have a good school, we do not eliminate
Speaker 1: the teacher. The old remark as the schoolmaster is, so
Speaker 1: will be the school is as true of the indirect
Speaker 1: schooling of grown people by public business as of the
Speaker 1: schooling of youth in academies and colleges. A government which
Speaker 1: attempts to do everything is aptly compared by M. Charles
Speaker 1: de Remusa to a schoolmaster who does all the pupils
Speaker 1: tasks for them. He may be very popular with the pupils,
Speaker 1: but he will teach them little. A government, on the
Speaker 1: other hand, which neither does anything itself that can possibly
Speaker 1: be done by anyone else, nor shows anyone else how
Speaker 1: to do anything, is like a school in which there
Speaker 1: is no schoolmaster, but only pupil teachers, who have never
Speaker 1: themselves been taught. End of Chapter fifteen B Recording by
Speaker 1: Bill forced