they possessed the right to choose their own
parliamentary representatives, so women are convinced that there can be no
adequate adjustment of these unequal relations until they too enjoy the
same privilege of citizenship; for enfranchisement and representation are
the two chosen instruments of democratic government in our day.

* * * * *

CHAPTER VIII

DEMOCRACY AT WORK

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

To-day in Great Britain, in America, in the self-governing colonies, and in
many European countries, we can sec the principles of democracy in working
order.

The whole system of local government in Great Britain and Ireland is
essentially democratic. The municipal councils of all the large cities are
elected on household suffrage, and have enormous powers. There is now no
sex disability to prevent the election of women to these bodies, and,
except in the case of the clergy of the Established Church, who are
disqualified from sitting on town councils (but not on county or district
councils), all ratepayers are eligible for nomination. The result is that
on nearly every city council, and on a great number of county councils,
London borough councils, urban and rural district councils, boards of
guardians, and parish councils, there are working-class representatives,
while women members have been elected to the great councils of Liverpool
and Manchester, and sit on many boards of guardians and parish councils.

All these councils are of recent creation. The Municipal Corporations Act
of 1835 placed the election of town councils for the first time in the
hands of the ratepayers, but the real reform of local government dates from
1888. In that year the Conservative Government established county and
district councils and Lord Rosebery became the first chairman of the London
County Council. Six years later the Liberals set up parish councils in the
rural districts, with parish meetings where the population did not exceed
three hundred. In 1899 the Conservatives displaced the old London vestries
by borough councils, and in 1902-3 abolished in England the school boards
created in 1870, and made the county council the local authority for public
elementary education. Scotland was allowed to retain its school boards, and
strong but unsuccessful opposition was made in London and the chief cities
to the suppression of the specially elected education authority.

[Illustration: THE RIGHT HON. JOHN BURNS, M.P.