LOCAL BODY WORK.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LV, Issue 253, 23 September 1935, Page 7

LOCAL BODY WORK.

CENTENARY AT HOME. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, Sept. 21. Cities and towns in many parts of the country are celebrating the centenary of the Municipal Corpoiations Act, passed in 1835, 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 the century’s progress in education, housing and transport as well as in local industries, which number 30 and enjoy such activity that Derby has one of the lowest unemployment percentages in the whole country. The Act of 1835 imposed a uniform constitution on every borough and created a ratepaying democracy in England. It cured many of the abuses which had gathered round the unreformed systems and started that tradition of civic probity and public service which is the essential basis of local and national self-government Many of the services now discharged by local authorities in relation to public health, education, the provision of amenities and cultural facilities, and regional planning are gradual accretions during the intervening century, but the Act of 1835 provided a framework sound and strong enough to carry these amazing developments.