Parish Councils and the Libraries Acts. T HAVE been requested by several members to read a paper
- on the Legislation which has taken place since we last met,
affecting Public Libraries and their management, and particularly on the effect of the Parish Councils Act. Before dealing with that important statute, our English friends will not object, I am sure, to a reference to the new Irish and Scotch Acts, which are really the only Acts of the past Session exclusively relating to Public Libraries. The Public Libraries (Ireland) Acts Amendment Act, 1894, is not all that might have been expected for the fair sister isle. True, it makes important changes, but if Consolidating Acts were requisite for Scotland in 1887, and England and Wales in 1892, Ireland in 1894, was > I think, fairly entitled to an Amending and Consolidating Act, and not a mere amendment of the old Act of 1855. Section 4 of that Act is repealed by the statute now under consideration. That section provided for the adoption of the Act in any incorporated borough or town having a population of 5,000 persons, by two-thirds of the householders present at a public meeting. The Amending Act of 1877 (which, by the way, does not appear to be repealed) authorised the adoption, either by the public meeting or by the issue of voting papers to the ratepayers, and the decision of a mere majority was to be suf- ficient. The area for the adoption of the principal Act is to be the urban district, and this is defined as meaning an incorporated borough or a town, as defined by the principal Act. The Com- mittee appointed to consider the Bill appear to have had con- siderable difficulty in adopting a suitable area, and though it rejected the proposal to extend the Act to rural districts, it 1 Read before the 1 7th Annual Meeting of the Library Association, Belfast, September, 1894.
