find a committee on laws which have expired or are about to do so.1 Apparently the next colony in which the standing-committee system was developed was North Carolina. The early records of the legislature are imperfect. In the session of 1725-26, when we first find a journal of the lower house, that body has, before its session ends, committees of the whole on elections and on propositions and grievances. The latter, and a joint committee of accounts, appear in 1731. But in 1733 we find select committees of propositions and grievances and of public claims. Later, one of public accounts is added, and the assemblies immediately preceding the Revolution have also standing committees of privileges and elections.2 In the legislatures of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina, the lower houses consisted during the eighteenth century of from fifty to a hundred members. That of New York comprised hardly more than twenty-five members, and had no urgent need to divide into committees. For instance, election cases were at first decided by the house, and not in grand committee. In 1699 there was a committee of elections, and select committees of accounts and of grievances. But from this time to 1737 we find few sessions in which there is more than one committee of the sort which we have been considering, no session in which there are more than two. In some sessions there are none. When there is a committee, it is either of elections or of grievances. In 1737 the New York assembly falls into line with the practice of the House of Commons by instituting a select committee of privileges and elections, and grand committees of grievances, courts of justice and trade. From 1743 on, this system is found applied in every session down to the Revolution.* The lower house of the legislature of New Jersey, a comparatively small body, remained without a system of standing 1 Votes and Proceedings, esp. December 4, 1682, January 14, 1683. 2 Colonial Records of North Carolina, II, 612; III, 260, 291, 566; IX, 450, 451, 739. 8 Journals of the General Assembly of New York, I, 87, 95, 96, etc. 4 Ibid., I, 703, 704; II and III, passim. select committees throughout its history, though in 1771 we find a vote for a committee of grievances, which was to be a committee of the whole house.1 Concerning Delaware, South Carolina and Georgia the writer has no information. Doubtless enough has been gathered to establish his main points without these. It may be interesting to add, from a journal of the lower house of Jamaica in 1775, that that body then had select standing committees of privileges and elections, of grievances, of courts of justice, of public accounts, a committee to inspect the public offices and a committee on laws expiring. It does not fall within the province of the present paper to trace the history of the standing committee, as an element in American legislative procedure, in times subsequent to the outbreak of the Revolution. Its history in the Continental Congress is familiar. So is its development in the federal Congress, from the slight beginning made in the House in 1789 down to the full completion of the system about the time of Speaker Clay. Indeed, as was said at the beginning of the article, this is the one part of the history of the system which has been studied. It will probably now be regarded as proved that the system originated long before 1789, and came by direct descent from England through certain of the colonial legislatures, five of the most important of which already made use of the procedure by standing committees when the Revolution occurred. As for those which did not, it appears that they gradually fell into line, under the influence of the federal legislature and of the legislatures of the other states. For instance, the Massachusetts legislature is shown by its manuscript journals to have had a few standing committees just after the close of the Revolutionary War, while its first little printed book of rules shows that it was provided with a pretty complete set in 1805. J. FRANKLIN JAMESON. BROWN UNIVERSITY, 1 Journals of the Legislature of New Jersey. BRITISH LOCAL FINANCE.1 PART I. ENGLAND AND WALES. CHAPTER V. Treasury Subventions and Allocated Taxes. ABLE IX2 contains a list of the Parliamentary grants in TABL relief of local taxation, and a second list of charges of a local nature borne by Parliamentary votes. The dates at which the grants and payments were first voted are also given, in order that the table may have an historical value. A reference to it will show that these grants are wholly of modern origin, and that 1 Since the final revision of the proof-sheets of Chapters I to IV (see this QUARTERLY for March, p. 78) the Local Government Act, 1894, has been passed. It will come into operation before the end of the present year, and will effect considerable modifications of the system of local government now existing in England and Wales. Amongst the chief of these will be the creation of parish councils in all but the least populous of the rural parishes, the substitution of urban and rural district councils for the urban and rural sanitary authorities (other than the town councils in boroughs; chap. i, p. 87), the supersession of the parish vestries and churchwardens (chap. i, p. 81) in civil affairs, the abolition of ex-officio and nominated guardians of the poor, the abolition of plural voting (i.e., extra votes in respect of the ownership of real property) in elections and other polls, and the prescription of voting by ballot. The general effect of these changes will be the complete democratization and reorganization of parochial, union and district government upon large and liberal lines. These areas will in future enjoy a system of popular local self-government, harmonizing in form and spirit with the systems established in the boroughs in 1835 (chap. i, p. 85) and in the counties in 1888 (chap. v, infra, pp. 269, 271). The financial arrangements hitherto existent will not, however, be greatly affected by the passing of the act. The expenses of the rural parish councils will be met by the issue of precepts to the overseers and the levy of enlarged poor rates (chap. ii, p. 90, and appendix, Table I, p. 108). The highway rates in rural parishes not embraced in highway districts will no longer be separately levied by the surveyors of highways (chap. ii, pp. 85 and 89, and appendix, Table II), but will be merged in the precept rates of the rural district councils for general expenses (chap. i, p. 87). This change will still further swell the total of the sums raised as "poor rates," but will put an end to the highway rate as a separate and distinct tax in England and Wales. 2 See this QUARTERLY for March, pp. 115, 116. their present magnitude is chiefly of recent growth. The history of these grants and transferred charges is one of successive concessions to the demands of the landed interest; for although the population of the towns has shared to a limited extent in the relief obtained, the agitation in Parliament, and outside, has been conducted almost entirely by the country party. The grants made in 1846 by Sir Robert Peel were avowedly designed for the advantage of the agricultural interests, and those conceded in 1874 and 1882 had a similar object. The great additions in 1888, 1889 and 1890, although made under pressure which came chiefly from the same quarter, were distributed with due regard to the claims of both urban and rural communities. They were also accompanied both by a reform of some of the local authorities and by a change of the form of many of the grants. A comparison of the last two columns of the table will show that most of the grants to the local authorities, except those in respect of education, have been withdrawn, and certain specific taxes substituted. The amounts thus transferred for the year 1891-92 are shown by the following table (see next page). The discontinued grants actually received by the local authorities in England and Wales during the financial year ended March 31, 1888 (including £249,342 received in that year for the first time) amounted to £2,851,850. The additional relief given in that portion of the United Kingdom was therefore £3,575,010. The ceded taxes are wholly managed and collected by the officials of the national government, but the proceeds are periodically transferred to special accounts at the Bank of England, and distributed therefrom amongst the local authorities. The English distribution is in the first instance made to the county councils (created in 1888) and the councils of such municipal boroughs as have had conferred upon them the rank of independent counties; these embracing between them the whole of England and Wales. As these county and borough councils are purely representative bodies, and possess the confidence of the people, the expenditure of these large sums of national money by them would appear, on |