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SELF-GOVERNMENT OF THE COMMUNES.
285
By the statutes of 1862 now in force, however, ecclesiastical and civil
matters are strictly separated in the local bodies too; and matters of each
kind are treated by special bodies, both determinative and administrative.
One peculiarity of Sweden is that, except in the larger towns, the
management of the elementary schools is abandoned to the local
ecclesiastical authority. — Here we have only to concern ourselves with the civil
local authorities, for the ecclesiastical authorities are treated under the
heading of "the Church".
Local self-government in Sweden is of immemorial antiquity. The freemen
themselves, in the oldest times, managed the business of the village, the hundred,
and the shire in the village meetings (stämmorj and in the hundred-moots and
shire-moots (ting). But when the various provinces were fused into a single
kingdom, a large part of this popular self-government passed into the hands of
State officials (Governors, Bailiffs and Constables) or of church rectors and
noble "lords of the manor" in the country. The Parish Meeting (sockenstämman)
as a determinative, and the Select Vestry or Vestry Board (kyrkoråd) as an
executive, authority, however, have existed since the time of the Reformation, although
it was not till 1817 that things were definitely regulated which had previously
been done, for the most part, in accordance with ancient usage. In 1843 a
Parochial Board (sockennämnd) was established for transacting matters not
concerning Elementary Schools and the Church. On the petition of the 1856—58
Riksdag a committee worked out a scheme of county representation and detailed
regulations for communal administration; and on 21 March 1862 there were
issued the statutes that still regulate both the ecclesiastical and the civil local
self-government. These were divided into four separate laws, of which the first deals
with local self-government in the country, the second with local self-government
in the towns, the third with the ecclesiastical parish, and the fourth with the
county councils (landstingen). For the local self-government of the City of
Stockholm there were special ordinances of the 23 May 1862 and 20 November
1863. Laws of 26 May 1909 effected important changes in the matter of
franchise, method of election, rating, the eligibility of women etc.
A. Every town and, as a rule, every country parish constitutes a
Commune (Kommun). In 1914 the total number of such communes
amounted to 2 510. of which 100 were urban communes and 2 410 were
rural ones: of the latter there is a small number, some of the so-called
market-towns (köping ’ English chipping) which in certain matters
occupy an intermediate position between town and country. The
communes, on an average, comprise about 2 200 inhabitants (in the country
about 1 700, in towns close upon 15 000), and the rural communes,
on an average, comprise an area of 190 sq. km (in the six most northerly
Läns about 1 000, in the rest only 75).
For the town-like places that have arisen in recent years in many
country-districts, adjacent to factories, railway-stations etc., a special statute has been
in force since 1899 which in certain cases bestows on these "urban districts"
or municipal communities (municipalsamhällen) a municipal administration of
their own, whilst in other respects they still belong to the rural commune in
which they are situated. The total number of such places amounted to 164 in
1914.
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