Note (Back) — Chapter VIII

195. The Parish.—Of parishes there are two types, the rural and the urban, and their aggregate number in England and Wales is approximately 15,000. The urban parishes possess no general administrative importance and further mention need not be made of them here. Under the act of 1894 the rural parish, however, has been revived in a measure from the inert condition into which it had fallen, and it to-day fills an appreciable if humble place in the rural administrative régime. The style of its organization is dependent to a degree upon its population. In each parish there is a meeting in which all persons on the local government and parliamentary registers (including women and lodgers) are privileged to participate. This meeting elects its own chairman, and it likewise chooses a number of overseers whose duty it is to assess and collect certain local rates, to administer the poor-rate, and to make up the electoral and jury lists. All parishes whose population numbers as much as three hundred have a council composed of from five to fifteen members (women being eligible), elected as a rule for a term of three years. The list of powers which the parish authorities may exercise is extended, if not imposing. It includes the maintenance of foot-paths, the management of civil parochial property, the provision of fire protection, the inspection of local sanitation, and the appointment of trustees of civil charities within the parish. The meagerness of the population of large numbers of the parishes, however, together with the severe limitations imposed both by law and by practical conditions upon rate-levying powers, preclude the authorities very generally from undertaking many or large projects. It is regarded commonly that the parishes are too small to be made such areas of public activity as the authors of the act of 1894 had in mind. Practically, the parish is little more than a unit for the election of representatives and the collection of rates.[267]