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.