268 THE BRITISH APPROACH TO POLITICS

is dissatisfied with his own, or his neighbour's housing conditions,
or with the education of his children, his first complaint will be
directed against a local council.

English local Government is both older and younger than- the
Central Government. Parishes date from long before the Norman
Conquest; Counties and Boroughs existed before Parliament.
Side by sidŁ with these were the Justices of the Peace who carried
out, in a rudimentary form, many duties now performed by local
authorities and departments of the Central Government. In the
i6th century the vigilance of the Privy Council over the Justices
was. such that it seemed that as if England might move towards
a highly centralized form of Government. After the iTth
century defeat of the Crown, the local prestige of the Justices as
country gentlemen enabled them to exercise their authority
much as they pleased. At 'the dose of the i8th century, the
countryside was ruled by squires, the more tedious work being
done reluctantly by the parishioners. The Government of
Boroughs varied greatly in efficiency and honesty, and had often
fallen into the hands of a clique. Many of the parishes had grown
into towns; if they were still governed by an Open Vestry, i.e., an
assembly of all the ratepayers, the meetings were often disorderly;
where a Select Vestry, i.e., a small group, either elected by the
ratepayers, or chosen on some special plan, held power, cliques
and corruption were again manifest. The reforming zeal of
the ipth century took the old local divisions and created new
authorities out of them by Act of Parliament. Despite the
antiquity of the Borough, the Borough Council of to-day gets its
form from the Municipal Corporations Act of 1835; some of the
ancient dignity of the County survives, but County Councils are
the creation of the Local Government Act of 1888, and the
modern form of Parish organisation goes back only to 1894.
During the same period Parliament dealt with the growth of
social problems by erecting authorities ad hoc9 that is to say, for
one specified purpose. Poor Law Unions of parishes already
existed; to these were added Burial Boards, School Boards, and