Their verdict, as summarised in their final paragraph, is
familiar through frequent quotation —

" In conclusion we report to Your Majesty that there
prevails amongst the great majority of the incorporated
towns a general, and, in our opinion, a just dissatisfac-
tion with their Municipal Institutions ; a distrust of the
self-elected Municipal Councils, whose powers are sub-
ject to no popular control and whose acts and proceed-
ings, being secret, are unchecked by the influence of
public opinion; a distrust of the Municipal Magis-
tracy; a discontent under the burthens of Local Taxa-
tion, while revenues which ought to be applied to the



MUNICIPAL REFORM 111

public advantage are sometimes wastefully bestowed
upon individuals, sometimes squandered for objects
injurious to the character and the morals of the
people. We therefore feel it to be our duty to
represent to Your Majesty that the existing Municipal
Corporations neither possess nor deserve the con-
fidence or respect of Your Majesty's subjects, and that
a thorough reform must be effected before they can
become, what we humbly submit to Your Majesty they
ought to be, useful and efficient instruments of local
government."

The Municipal Franchise

It is impossible to summarise in a few paragraphs the
bewildering variety, before 1835, of local constitutions of
the Corporate Boroughs of England and Wales, either as
to their form or as to their actual working. Thus take, for
example, the elementary question of the basis of the right
of citizenship. The Commissioners found in the 237 towns
inquired into, twenty-two different ways in which freedom
was acquired. These different ways they classify into
six types.
In 8 boroughs citizenship was acquired by scot-and-lot
habitancy, i. e. by rate-paying occupiers.
In 4 there was household suffrage.
