CENTENARY YEAR

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 55, Issue 292, 23 September 1935, Page 5

CENTENARY YEAR

LOCAL GOVERNMENT IN BRITAIN

ENTERPRISING CELEBRATION. (United Press Association —Copyright) LONDON, September 21. Cities and towns in many parts of the country are celebrating the centenary of the Municipal Corporations Act, which laid the foundations of local government in Great Britain, One of the most enterprising forms of celebration has been adopted by Derby, the famous railway centre in the Midlands, which is organising a nine-days’ exhibition of a century’s progress in education, housing, and transport, as well as in local industries, which number 30 and enjoy such activity that Dei by has one of the lowest unemployment percentages in tiie whole countiy. The act of 1835 imposed a. umiorm constitution on every borough, and created a ratepaying democracy m England. It cured many abuses winch hao (fathered round the niirelormed tern, and started the tradition of civic probity and public service which is the essential basis of local and national self-government. , Many services, now discharged by local authorities in relation to public health, education, the provision o amenities and cultural facilities, an regional planning are gradual accretions during the intervening centuiy, but the act of 1835 provided a framework sound and strong enough to carry these amazing developments. British Official Wireless.