Word Finder - communes

definition

A small community, often rural, whose members share in the ownership of property, and in the division of labour; the members of such a community.

definition

A local political division in many European countries.

definition

The commonalty; the common people.

definition

Communion; sympathetic intercourse or conversation between friends

All these are nominated for life by the president of the republic. Besides the accounts of the state and of the communes, those of charitable institutionsi and training collegesi and a great variety of other public establishments are scrutinized by the Cour des Comptes.

The senatorial electors in the provinces are (1) delegates of the communes and (2) all the members of the provincial council, presided over by the governor.

He permitted laymen to hold certain public offices, under surveillance of the prelates, organized a guard from among the Roman nobility, decreed a plan for redeeming the base coinage, permitted the communes a certain degree of municipal liberty, and promised the liquidation of the public debt.

The provinces are divided into cantons and subdivided into communes.

In 1865, however, it was suppressed, and one half of the beni ademprivili was assigned to the state, the other half being given to the communes, with the obligation of compensating those who claimed rights over these lands.

Aisne is divided into five arrondissements - St Quentin and Vervins in the north, Laon in the centre, and Soissons and CIA, teau-Thierry in the south - and contains 37 cantons and 841 communes.

In southern Italy there are 72 Albanian communes, with 154,674 inhabitants; in Sicily 7 communes, with 52,141 inhabitants.

The state, the departments, and the communes were thus relieved from the payment of salaries and grants to religious bodies, an item of expenditure which amounted in the last year of the old system to 1,101,000 paid by the state and 302,200 contributed by the departments and communes.

The urban and rural district roads, covering a much greater mileage and classed as la petite voirie, are maintained chiefly by the communes under the supervision of the Minister of the Interior.

The canton is purely an administrative division, containing on an average, about twelve communes, though some exceptional communes are big enough to contain more than one canton.

The communes, varying greatly in area and population, are the administrative units in France.

Liabilities on behalf of communes and public establishments, including departmental services 17,366,520

But in communes the revenues of which exceed 120,000, the budget is always submitted to the president of the republic. The ordinary revenues include the produce of additional centimes allocated to communal purposes, the rents and profits of communal property, sums produced by municipal taxes and dues, concessions to gas, water and other companies, and by the octroi or duty on a variety of articles imported into the commune for local consumption.

Both the departments and the communes have considerable public debts.

Each commune is in theory obliged to maintain at least one public primary school, but with the approval of the niinister, the departmental council may authorize a commune to combine with other communes in the upkeep of a school.

Public primary schools include (1) icoles maternellesinfant schools for children from two to six years old; (2) elementary primary schoolsthese are the ordinary schools for children from six to thirteen; (3) higher primary schools (coles primaires suprieures) and supplementary courses; these admit pupils who have gained the certificate of primary elementary studies (cerlificat diludes primaires), offer a more advanced course and prepare for technical instruction; (4) primary technical schools (coles manuelles dapprenlissage, coles primaires suprleures professionnelles) kept by the communes or departments.

Secondary Education.Secondary education is given by the state in lyces, by the communes in colleges and by private individuals and associations in private secondary schools.

Commercial and technical instruction is given in various institutions comprising national establishments such as the icoles nalionales professionnelles of Armentires, Vierzon, Voiron and Nantes for the education of working men; the more advanced coles darts et mtiers of Chlons, Angers, Aix, Lille and Cluny; and the Central School of Arts and Manufactures at Paris; schools depending on the communes and state in combination, e.g.

In addition to the educational work done by the state, communes and private individuals, there exist in France a good many societies which disseminate instruction by giving courses of lectures and holding classes both for children and adults.

In India the franchise is exercised without distinction of color or nationality; in Senegal the electors are the inhabitants (black and white) of the communes which have been given full powers.

This view ignores that man has ideals of absolute value, truth, beauty, goodness, that he consciously communes with the God who is in all, and through all, and over all, that it is his mind which recognizes the vastness of the universe and thinks its universal law, and that the mind which perceives and conceives cannot be less, but must be greater than the object of its knowledge and thought.

Dordrecht, Leiden, Haarlem, Delft, Vlaardigen, Rotterdam in Holland, and Middleburg and Zierikzee in Zeeland, repeated with modifications the characteristics of the communes of Flanders and Brabant.

He was quite aware that the industrial wealth of the great Flemish communes was financially the mainstay of his power, but their very prosperity made them the chief obstacle to his schemes of unifying into a solid dominion the loose aggregate of states over which he was the ruler.

The kingdom is divided into 69 provinces, 284 regions, of which 197 are classed as circondarii and 87 as districts (the latter belonging to the province of Mantua and the 8 provinces of Venetia), 1806 administrative divisions (mandamenti) and 8262 communes.

In 1906 there were 1805 mandamenti and 8290 communes, and 4 boroughs in Sardinia not connected with communes.

This has been due to speculation, to the unrestricted pasturage of goats, to the rights which many communes have over the forests, and to some extent to excessive taxation, which led the proprietors to cut and sell the trees and then abandon the ground to the Treasury.

A characteristic Italian industry is that of straw-plaiting for hat-making, which is carried on principally in Tuscany, in the district of Fermo, in the Alpine villages of the province of Vicenza, and in some communes of the province of Messina.

By the act of 1903 the state contributes half and the province a quarter of the cost of roads connecting communes with the nearest railway stations or landing places.

Elementary, of two grades, of the lower of which there must legally be at least one for boys and one for girls in each commune; while the upper grade elementary school is required in communes having normal and secondary schools or over 4000 inhabitants.

In both the instruction is free They are maintained by the communes, sometimes with state help.

Of the secondary and higher educatory methods, in the normal schools and licei the state provides for the payment of the staff and for scientific material, and often largely supports the ginnasi and technical schools, which should by law be supported by the communes.

A fourth of this sum was to be handed to the communes to be employed on works of beneficence or education as soon as a surplus was obtained from that part of the annuity assigned for the payment of monastic pensions; and in Sicily, 209 communes entered on their privileges as soon as the patrimony was liquidated.

The public worship endowment fund has relieved the state exchequer of the cost of public worship; has gradually furnished to the poorer parish priests an addition to their stipends, raising them to 32 per annum, with the prospect of further raising them to 40; and has contributed to the outlay incurred by the communes for religious purposes.

The suffrage is extended to all citizens over twenty-one years of age who can read and write and have either attained a certain standard of elementary education or are qualified by paying a rent which varies from 6 in communes of 2500 inhabitants to 16 in communes of 15p,ooo inhabitants, or, if peasant farmers, I6s.

One-tenth of the tax is paid to the communes as compensation for revenues made over to the state.

I must be remembered that the sums realized by the octroi go in th main to the various communes.

Up to that year some of the regions of the kingdom, such as Tuscany, continued to have a kind of autonomy; but by the laws of the 20th of March the whole country was divided into 69 provinces and 8545 communes.

In addition, the communes have a right to levy a, surtax not exceeding 50% of the quota levied by the state upon lands and buildings; a family tax, or fuocatico, upon the total incomes of families, which, for fiscal purposes, are divided into various categories; a tax based upon the rent-value of houses, and other taxes upon cattle, horses, dogs, carriages and servants; also on licences for shopkeepers, hotel and restaurant keepers, &c.; on the slaughter of animals, stamp duties, one-half of the tax on bicycles, &c. Occasional sources of interest are found in the sale of communal property, the realization of communal credits, and the contraction of debt.

The former category comprises the maintenance of provincial roads, bridges and watercourse embankments;, secondary education, whenever this is n.ot provided for by private, institutions or by the state (elementary education being maintained by the communes), and the maintenance of foundlings and pauper lunatics.

The total was in 1900, 49,496,193 for the communes and 6,908,022 for the provinces.

During the forty-seven years war, when pope and emperor were respectively bidding for their affiance, and offering concessions to secure their support, the communes grew in self-reliance, strength and liberty.

Though the institutions of the communes varied in different localities, this is the type to which they all approximated.

The rise of the Lombard communes produced a sympathetic revolution in Rome, which deserves to be mentioned in this place.

Though the communes gained so much by the war of investitures, the division of the country between the popes and emperors parties was no small price to pay for inde- Munlelpendence.

No sooner had the compromise of the investitures been conduded than it was manifest that the burghers of the new enfranchised communes were resolved to turn their arms against each other.

It was only the habit of interurban jealousy which prevented the communes from at once combining to resist demands which threatened their liberty of action, and would leave them passive at the pleasure of a foreign master The diet was opened at Roncaglia near Piacenza, where Fredericli listened to the complaints of Como and Lodi against Milan, of Pavia against Tortona and of the marquis of Montferrat against Asti and Chieri.

Opposed by an anti-pope whom the emperor favored, Alexander found it was his truest policy to rely for support upon the antiimperialist communes.

Looking back from the vantage-ground of history upon the issue of this long struggle, we are struck with the small results which satisfied the Lombard communes.

According to the terms of this treaty, the communes were confirmed in their right of self-government by con6uls, and their right of warfare.

The communes, no less than the popes, felt that they must prepare themselves for contest to the death with a power which threatened their existence.