THE BONDAGE OF CITIES - The Community Environmental Legal ...

LOCAL GOVERNMENT BY THE LOCAL PEOPLE. 468In this table 1. c. means local consent, 1. c. o. or o. alone meanaconsent of owners of property along the line of railway, etc.d, means right to designate locations,a, means appeal to court or commissioners,g, means local power to grant,g. b. means sale or grant to highest bidder.K, means referendum necessary,L, means elevated road,C, means by constitutional provision.A power of grant, if exclusive, is of course equivalent to requiringlocal consent, altho the laWs of the state may contain no specificprovision as to local consent.Municipalities that have been given control of their streets maygrant street railway and other rights in them. (Thompson's Lawof Electricity, 26.)The legislative tendency to scatter provisions relating to a giventopic thruout big volumes of statutes, putting some in solitary confinementin secluded spots, and tucking others cosily under thewings of statutes apparently belonging to an entirely differentspecies, together with the very imperfect indexing that characterizesmany of our statute books, has made it very difficult for thewriter and his assistants to be absolutely sure that all the provisionsrelating to local consent for street franchises, etc., have beencaptured. If any reader notes an omission and will send to theauthor or publisher a reference to the omitted statute, the favorwill be deeply appreciated.A municipal right arising from statute may, of course, atany time, be altered or repealed. Theoretically, therefore, nonumber of such rights can constitute any real municipal sovereigntyor assured power of self government, such as stateand nation enjoy in respect to their particular affairs, and suchas cities and towns should enjoy in respect to their local businessconcerns.a considerable extent,The practical fact accords with the theory to~New laws and old ones not much usedare easily changed if corporate interests requireit. It is notnecessary to repeal. A little insignificant looking amendmentthat may pass without attracting any general attention cantake the life all out of a law. When, however, a law conferringimportant privileges has grown into the life of the peopleand has come to be regarded as part of their natural rights,it is apt to be so jealously guarded that it takes on somethingof the stability of a constitutional provision, tho it cannotattain quite the same vigor and certainty until we have the ref-