and commercial prosperity, and had to drink the very dregs of degredation by the gift of a charter of incorporation."

The death-blow having been thus given to monopoly it was necessary very carefully to consider the new position, and to suggest the wisest and best methods of carrying out the provisions of the new charter. The ratepayers to a much larger extent could now think and act for themselves, they had a share in the local government, and it is a matter for congratulation that the new rulers made the change with as little friction as possible, and did not fail to recognise the value of the work already done by the bodies who, if not popularly or properly elected had, it was admitted, as far as they deemed it right or knew how watched over what they considered to be the interests of the town.

Birmingham in 1839 was governed by seven different bodies-viz., Borough Commissioners, Deritend and Bordesley Commissioners, Duddeston and Nechells Commissioners, Guardians of the Poor, Deritend Surveyors of Highways, Bordesley Surveyors, Edgbaston Surveyors, consequently seven sets of officers had to be paid to do the work of one efficient staff; and even at this time the council did not get the control of the streets and roads which did not come till 1851; the highways remained still under the control of the Commissioners of the Birmingham Street Acts, a body whose duties were not absorbed into the other work of the council until 1851.

It is curious to note in passing that Birmingham was among the first to settle the even now much vexed question of the taking of an oath, or the making of a declaration, by allowing two of its members at its first sitting, one a Liberal the other a Tory, to declare in such a way as they themselves felt to be binding on their consciences.

At this time, too, the question of the Repeal of the Corn Laws was agitating the country, and it was one of the first subjects to which the new council directed its attention. Some of the members objected to the introduction of such topics, but the majority remembered that some of the corporations of the country had always played a great part in the maintenance of its freedom, and that now they were popular or elected representatives they ought to feel a deep interest in all that appertained to the well-being and prosperity of their fellow-countrymen, as well as to those affairs which have a local interest only. I think these discussions may be made a most valuable part of the education of the people, and as nearly everybody can now take a share in the government of our country, it is not possible for the important matters constantly coming up in a great community like ours to be too much discussed. The most timid among us may always take courage, we are naturally a timid and cautious people, however loudly we talk, we always, in action place limits of some kind, so that we may be quite sure we are safe. Party spirit may run high, noisy people may and do demonstrate, but if as a nation we are given to anything, it is to compromises.

Those of us who are always desiring to keep town councils strictly to their work as prescribed by Act of Parliament, should not forget that

the public discussion of important national questions may enlarge the knowledge and sphere of usefulness of all our people, and that the bringing such matters to the fore may teach them to think and weightily consider, how much the sum of human happiness may be increased by the knowledge thus gained, and that the world is after all for the many and not for the few.

I repeat, then, that a wise system of municipal policy is at the foundation of, and the best security for, national liberty, and any action which would limit its interests to local questions only is selfish and unwise. The then council voted a memorial to aid in the Repeal of the Corn Laws, and, as we can well remember, on many occasions since, has by its voice aided in adding to the liberties and well-being of our country by its timely discussion of subjects on which the hearts of our people have been firmly set.

I need not take up your time with any description of the struggles our predecessors had in their endeavours to carry out the real principles of the charters, or detail to you how they found they had power to spend money but no power to raise it, how they found their difficulties increase in the establishment of a proper system of police and in many other ways. Lord John Russell in proposing the adoption of the Act said, "I have no doubt that when this new constitution of municipal boroughs comes into effect, we shall find, not only that it will be productive of great improvements, not only that many defects will be remedied and many abuses corrected, but that the working of the Bill itself will suggest how the whole system may be perfected;" and certainly its application to our town was surely prophesied in the latter clause of the remark. We will rather try to trace the beneficent influence of the new state of things as shewn in the homes end in the lives of our citizens, and in its stimulating effect on the Literature, Science, Art, Commerce, and general welfare of the people. Our townsmen soon woke up to the feeling that those benefits in which rich and poor are alike equally interested can only come of a Government well defined, well directed, and judiciously exercised, and having done this, our local history shows that they were equal to the task which lay before them, and no time was lost in beginning to set their house in order.

The elections which followed were I suppose very much like similar elections which we have all witnessed, except that the numbers polling in the wards only amounted to about 350, whereas now nearly 5,000 electors avail themselves of the privilege, thanks to the enlargement of the municipal franchise to all householders in 1861.

To sum up then, I think all will admit that our municipal government has gradually and uniformly risen in its notions of duty to its constituents, and that it has a noble list of achievements to which it can most triumphantly point as the result of its labours. But has it not done more than fulfil all the duties which LEGALLY and RIGHTFULLY belong to it? Has it not called forth from among its people a noble spirit of selfsacrifice for the good of others? Has it not placed itself in the van of

progress, and taken in hand all work and duties of every kind which have from time to time seemed to afford opportunities of benefiting our people; notably, the manner in which the Public Health Act has been administered in this town, and how, by the wisdom of its promoters the war against disease by our Health Committee has been constant and nevertiring. Thus the death-rate has been sensibly diminished from twenty-four to twenty in the thousand, and this diminution means, as you know, not only fewer deaths but less illness, fewer homes blighted by the presence of suffering and distress which illhealth always brings in its train; the breadwinner is left to his toil and his duties when these preventable sicknesses are checked, our poor rates and our charities are less heavily burdened, and light and joy and blessings are shed broadcast in the train of these fulfilments of public duty.

And again, although it may be in a secondary degree only tending to promote public health, are not our streets well kept, our open spaces jealously guarded, mutual rights protected, new thoroughfares opened, bringing air and light into spots and places previously dark and neglected, old tottering fever dens removed and in their stead buildings erected creditable to any community and in which, thanks to local inspection, all the necessary sanitary qualities are existent? We have tried our best to establish a system of sewerage sufficient to meet the requirements of our half million people, and we must feel, that although not in any sense as yet perfect, our labours have not been in vain, and many of us are anxiously looking forward to the day when that which is now a great source of trouble and annoyance will become a source of fertility and of blessing.

Our Markets, our Baths, where all may obtain the blessings of cleanliness if they will, and added enjoyment if they feel any love for swimming, and our Public Parks are, I take it, not the smallest part of the results of the increased powers of municipalities. We have now in and near our town, thanks to Miss Ryland and other noble donors, and to our powers of acquisition out of local rates, eight parks, comprising in all 150 acres, and which last year were visited by hundreds of thousands of people. Has it not gladdened our hearts and thrilled us with delight when on a Bank Holiday we have seen these green and beautiful spots frequented by the thousands of our artizans with their wives and children, all enjoying themselves in a pleasant health-giving rational way; no temptations to wrong-doing, all feeling that the place is their own, and that only by the good orderly conduct of everyone can these lovely parks be kept free as they are for all to enter.

And then what a vast work we have in hand in our endeavour to carry out the Artizans' Dwelling Act. Sir R. Cross, when in Birmingham, referring to the efforts he and others were making to improve the social condition of the people in our large towns, said, "that he had from childhood seen the misery, the degradation, the vice, the immorality which had been going on in these towns, and he intended to do all in his power to remove them;" and I venture to add that for much the

same reasons some of our own townsmen made up their minds that it was their duty to do for Birmingham that which Sir R. Cross said he intended to do for the country.

We have spent £1,500,000 in endeavouring to remove the evils that arise from over-crowding in bad and ill-ventilated dwellings, and in so doing it that ultimately, as a community, we may not suffer very heavy pecuniary loss for our philanthrophy-thus uniting the two qualities, mercy and forethought.

It is in matters of this kind that the feeling of personal responsibility comes in, we feel the remorse and shame when we can do nothing or only a little, and the joy is ours when we can succeed in improving the homes and raising the condition of great numbers of poor people.

We know only too well that the lot of many of our townsmen is such that their lives are a continual struggle for existence, and they never at any time can get the means to release themselves from poverty, and to escape from the dark, dismal, and unhealthy abodes in which they live. Many others are without any care or trouble as to any provision for the morrow, and here it is that the opportunity offers for our legislation to be of use, and our Town Council can step in and offer the conditions of health and well-being, and even of enjoyment, to those who hitherto have appeared to be and believed themselves to be, without hope in the world.

While providing for the physical and temporal wants of our people, I need not remind you I am sure that those of the mind have not been neglected. Are not our great Libraries with their noble collections of books, as well as the branches with their well-attended reading rooms; our Industrial Museum and Picture Galleries which are now in a fair way to completion; our acquisition of the Gas and Water undertakings; are not all these things evidences of the wisdom of our forefathers in letting communities of people govern themselves, and, knowing their own necessities, take upon themselves the responsibility of providing and paying for them? And, moreover, it would not I think have been possible to have induced thoughtful men like Josiah Mason, and women like Miss Ryland to have done what they have for our town, had they not felt that confidence in the growth of intelligence among us which comes of wisely using the great opportunities we possess of governing ourselves.

Are we not, and have we not always been rightly proud of our Free Grammar School and its long list of great educational achievements? But now that it is really becoming what it was always intended to be, the School for the people, and its management (although now only partially) in the hands of our Town Council, we have greater hopes of even an extended usefulness, and a higher fame; and there are some sanguine spirits among us who hope to see the day when in a great industrial town like this, there may be added to our Grammar School, a School for the Technical Education of our youth.

I could add to this list if time permitted, but I have said sufficient to show you that there is a great work doing and needing to be continued, and experience tells us that a very heavy burden becomes light if it is divided over many backs, and that if each member of the community will do his or her share, the state may, through imperial and particularly local government, work almost miracles, by helping people to help themselves, and by providing them with means, at their own cost, of self-elevation and improvement. We are trying now to do it here, to improve dwellings, to improve the health, to educate the children, and to train them to higher and nobler pursuits than they have hitherto known or understood.

I am induced to make these remarks, and to bring these matters before the Central Literary Association because I feel that this and kindred Associations play a most important part in the preparation of really earnest and thoughtful citizens for a rightful share in our local work. Here, at any rate, we are taught not only to value thinking, but to set a special value on that more mature thought which comes of an ability and a desire to hear both sides of any question; teaches patience with the opinions of others, and forces upon the willing mind the conviction that all of truth or of knowledge may not be on one side. To get at this truth we must read and investigate, we must give utterance however feebly to our thoughts, and thus acquire an intellectual and a moral discipline which helps to balance the mind, and qualifies it for that peculiar kind of public work in which we are all so deeply interested by the nature of the circumstances under which we live, and which must be managed in accordance with great moral and physical necessities, or the consequence of our neglect will surely overtake us.

I am the more moved to ask a consideration of these matters, because there are many of you who are by nature and by culture and experience fitted for the work. It is, if rightly looked at, a great and enviable privilege to be able to take a share in the government of our town, to feel that its responsibilities and its duties are in a measure in our keeping. It teaches us a spirit of self-abnegation, and fosters that devotion to duty which is in itself an all-sufficient reward.

As yet the work done by local government is only in its infancy. Imperial Parliament is so blocked with work that the local affairs of great towns must be more and more attended to by local centres or Committees of people on the spot and my earnest and sincere hope is, that as the work increases men may always be found equal to its performance, actuated by motives which will reflect credit on themselves and add a new lustre to our municipal life.