with water, that means additional rating, to which the outlying suburb, if included within the area of the town, will be liable. If the town requires more police supervision, if it wishes to adopt a system of main drainage as a means of disposing of its sewage, if it desires to improve its general character by making street improvements, or by building a new town hall, or markets, the suburb will, of course, if it is included, have to pay a proportionate part of the expense. The execution of any such works implies an expenditure of money, that money will have to be paid out of the rates, and the rates will be leviable upon the added area, as upon the area that was formerly marked out by the municipal boundaries. It is, therefore, clear that in reference to all these matters, when considered in connection with the question: Shall the borough be extended? the decision whether the suburb should be treated exactly as if it were the town, and whether it should bear its share of town expenses, must be determined by the consideration whether in fact the suburb is town or is country, whether it is able and willing to do these things which are requisite to its good government and sanitary welfare, as well for itself as the borough would do them for it. If it is town there ought to be no arbitrary distinction between the borough and its suburbs; if it is country, or so much country as to be fairly regarded as a rural district, it ought not to be identified with the town.* This shows the importance of the proper decision of the issue of fact which is sometimes raised by the local authority, and sometimes by some owner or owners of property, who object to pay the higher rates which will be imposed on them, if the area in question be included within the borough. That was the case in relation to the Margate Extension Bill, 1877, where a gentleman, the owner

An important question arises in this connection, and, that is, whether country close to a town, and which, although it is not yet built upon, will shortly be covered with houses, should be included within the borough. No

of an estate in close proximity to the town, and within the ambit of the area proposed to be included in the borough, objected. His estate was not built upon, and, as he endeavoured to show, was not so situated as to invite building operations. At the sea side, a sea view is the important consideration in the selection of the site for a house; and next to that, high ground, near to which a view of the sea can be obtained, is the most elegible site.. Captain Hadfield's estate had neither of these requirements. It consisted of agricultural and not of building land, and he objected to being included in the borough, and to being compelled to pay the higher rates which would in consequence be exacted in respect of his property, the more so, that his estate would in no way be benefited by the expenses which the Corporation proposed to incur, with a view to the erection of a sea wall, which might benefit the borough generally. The Committee of the Commons, to whom the Bill was referred, took the petitioner's view, and while passing the Bill, excluded the greater portion of the estate in question from its operation. In the Newport (Monmouthshire) Improvement Bill, 1876, somewhat similar questions were raised on behalf of two petitioners, whose property lay within the area of the proposed extension. It was argued on behalf of Mr. Firbank and Mr. Lewis, that their property was not available for building purposes. The promoters on the other hand, urged that, although not then built upon, they would ultimately be covered with houses; that these Extension Bills were to some extent prospective, and that the Corporation would have been unwise to wait until a higgledy-piggledy village had sprung doubt it is important that the central authority should have the necessary control over buildings at the time when it can be most efficiently and economically exercised, and that is when the buildings are being erected. Parliament seems to have taken the question of immediacy of building operations into consideration. This was done in Glasgow, in 1832 (2 and 3 Will. IV., cap. 65.) If there was no prospect of the country soon becoming town, it has refused to include it, and properly so we think.

up, before enforcing its bye-laws, but ought to arrange its building plans before building operations commenced.* The Committee of the House of Commons excluded the estates in question from the operation of the Act.

A somewhat similar case was attempted to be made against the Exeter City Extension Bill, 1877, on behalf of certain owners and occupiers in the parish of St. Leonard's, the parish which it was the intention of the Bill to include within the city. The parish was, in fact, a suburb of Exeter, and contained about 1,700 inhabitants. It appeared that the roads in St. Leonard's were in a very bad condition, the street lighting was defective, the drainage was bad. The parish only possessed a rural sanitary authority, and the inhabitants, feeling the urban character of St. Leonard's, had petitioned the Local Government Board to give it a local board, or to constitute in it an urban sanitary authority, which would have had the requisite powers to deal with these admitted evils. The inhabitants, when petitioning the Local Government Board, had to make out a case, and when, the Local Government Board having refused to make St. Leonard a separate urban authority, and having invited Exeter to promote a Bill to extend its boundaries, so as to include that parish, the Bill in question was brought before Parliament, these inhabitants of St. Leonard's found it difficult to make a case adverse to that which they had set up when before the Local Government Board. The parish was consequently included by the Committee, on the best of grounds, viz., that the authority required in St. Leonard's was an urban authority, that St. Leonard's was a part of Exeter, and that it was better that such a small community should be annexed to a neighbouring city, than that it should be allowed to establish a separate municipal existence. The Committee, when passing the Bill, expressed their opinion that the parish of St. Leonard's should not be sub* A similar argument was used by the promoters of the Bolton Improvement Bill, 1877, but with no better result.

jected to higher rates than those levied in it before the passing of the Act, for a period of 5 years.* No doubt there is a fairness in acknowledging the necessity of differential rating in certain cases, although such difference should never be continued for an indefinite time. In the case of a borough and an added area, starting upon equal terms, there could be no reason for such a distinction. But where the one has been drained and lighted, &c., and the other has not, and where the cost of these necessary improvements are represented in a debt, a portion of which the added area will have to bear, then there is a good reason for limiting the incidence of the rates upon the extension sanctioned. It is well to remember that what is equal is not always just, and it is better as the Spartans did, to call that equal which is just, instead of regarding that as just which is equal.

The very important principles which were discussed in the Glasgow Corporation (Municipal Extension) Bill, 1875, and the Crosshill Burgh Extension Bill of the same session, deserve a special mention. By the first of these Bills, Glasgow, which had made various attempts in 1868, in 1870, and in 1872, to extend its boundaries in the same direction,t endeavoured to include within its municipal limits, various

A similar opinion was expressed by the Committee who sat on the Derby Extension, &c., Bill, 1877. The Chairman said: "The Committee have agreed to pass the preamble upon certain conditions. First, with respect to the borough rate, we should lay down the condition that the borough rate for the annexed districts, should not, for 5 years, exceed 6d. in the pound, and with respect to the School Board rate, the condition should be laid down, that, for the same period, the School Board rate should not, in the districts which are now within a School Board, exceed id. in the pound." Minutes of Evidence,

16th April, 1877, p. 117. The promoters of the Bolton Improvement Bill, 1877, were willing to make a like concession, for a period of 10 years, to the districts they sought to include.

The royalty of Glasgow was extended in 1800, over part of the Barony parish, and in 1830, the criminal and civil jurisdiction of the burgh, was extended over the lands of Blythswood, and others. See Report of Commission on Municipal Corporations in Scotland, 1833.

outlying districts, which, it asserted, were one with it in all respects, except in the matter of jurisdiction. These places, and the Burgh of Crosshill amongst them, were close to the existing boundaries, they were inhabited by persons carrying on business in Glasgow. Much more required to be done in the way of sanitary improvement, than had been done by the existing authorities at Crosshill, and there was, it was said, no other objection but the increased rate which the inhabitants would have to pay if they were included within the municipal boundaries. Many other issues of fact were raised. It appeared that Glasgow had opened a public park close to Crosshill, which was more accessible to the inhabitants of that burgh than to the citizens of Glasgow, and Glasgow thought that was a reason why the burgh should be made a part of the rateable area of the city. It also supplied the burgh with gas and water, and had made tramways which benefited its suburbs—although the Burgh of Crosshill was dissatisfied with the quality of the gas supplied, and with the high price they were charged for the water. But the important question which seems to have been most prominent during the lengthy discussion of these Bills, was, whether the inhabitants of the proposed area of annexation consented or not?

Crosshill Burgh also promoted a bill to extend its limits, and although it did not wish to include all that Glasgow sought to add to its already great proportions, there was some part, as for example, a district called "No-man's Land" which was larger and more populous than Crosshill, which was common to the schemes of both. In Scotland, there is a machinery by which populous places can, if the inhabitants desire it, be constitued burghs, and by a like process, that is, by a requisition of a certain number of the inhabitants to the Sheriff, a burgh which has been constitu

* See 13 and 14 Vict., c. 33, and the General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Act, 1862; 25 and 26 Vict., c. 101.