^i-m^^:
 
 \
 
 Liverpool : 
 
 November 1883. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 I ask your acceptance of the accompanying reprint of two articles, 
 which appeared in the Nineteenth Century in February and March last, on the 
 subject of Local Government and Taxation. 
 
 With a view to promised legislation, 1 have attempted to collect and review 
 in these articles the results of the labours of able men of all parties and most 
 varied experience. I claim no originality for the proposals. Mr. Goschen 
 pointed out the principles advocated, Mr. Stansfeld laid the foundation of the 
 simplification of areas and governing bodies, while many leading Conservatives 
 have declared the importance of the reforms which Mr. Whitbread and I have 
 constantly urged on Parliament and the Government, and which are described 
 in the second of the two articles. 
 
 Yours faithfully, 
 
 W. RATHBONE.
 
 LOCAL GOVERNMENT 
 
 AND 
 
 TAXATION 
 
 IN 
 
 ENGLAND AND WALES 
 
 BY 
 
 WILLIAM RATHBONE, M.P. 
 
 BsjjTinted from The Nineteenth Century, February and March, 1883 
 
 printers 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE & CO., NEW- STREET SQUARE, LONDON 
 
 1883
 
 LOCAL GOYERNMENT AND TAXATION 
 IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 
 
 I. 
 
 The Necessity for Eeform. 
 
 At a late hour and with much difficulty attention has been directed 
 to the defects and abuses of Local Government and the unfair inci- 
 dence and rapid growth of Local Taxation. Even now the public 
 seems hardly to realise the magnitude and dangerous consequences 
 of these evils. Their importance may well excuse the attempt made 
 in this paper to show how fatal would be any protracted neglect in 
 dealing with the question of Local Grovernment, to examine the 
 defects of our present system, and to point out the mischief to which 
 those defects give issue. In the second part of this Paper {see 
 page 20), I hope to suggest the direction which it appears to me that 
 a scheme for the reconstruction of Local Grovernment should take. 
 
 It is easy to understand how tlie topic of Local Government has 
 not, until lately, excited a very wide or very lively interest. We 
 have always been tolerant of abuses which do not palpably hamper 
 our individual liberty. Since the repeal of the Corn Laws we have 
 been an eminently busy and prosperous people ; too prosperous to 
 feel the innumerable but obscure evils which arise from a weak or 
 unintelligent administration of local affairs, and too busy to spare 
 the time, talent, and energy needed to remedy those evils. More- 
 over, this period of wonderful private prosperity has also been a period 
 of intense political excitement. All the attention which our citizens 
 could give to anything beyond their personal concerns was fixed on 
 the stirring and memorable events which, within this generation, 
 have transformed the United Kingdom and the whole of Europe. 
 Abroad the rise and fall of great States, at home a series of vast 
 political and social changes, left few Englishmen inquisitive enough 
 to scrutinise the machinery which provides, or is supposed to provide, 
 for our vulgar wants ; which makes sewers and macadamises roads ; 
 which furnishes schools for the children of the poor, asylums for 
 lunatics, and graves for alJ. Finally, our system of Local Govern- 
 ment was, by its own exceeding complexity, guarded from criticism 
 and condemnation. So gradual in its development that its history
 
 4 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION 
 
 could not be fully given without also giving the whole political and 
 social history of our country; so often amended that the Acts of 
 Parliament relating thereto would compose a very respectable library ; 
 so intricate that the local taxation of this realm is raised by no less 
 than three-and-twenty distinct kinds of local authority ; yet so rudely 
 constructed that to trace out the relations, the powers, duties, and 
 liabilities of the twenty-three might tax the best-trained legal 
 intellect ; so mysterious in its workings that we might safely challenge 
 the most practised man of business to tell even the names of the 
 various local bodies by whom he is taxed and ruled, our Local 
 Grovernment has eluded the general censure, because very few of us 
 could spare time and trouble to find out what it did or where it 
 resided. It has hitherto escaped the fate which must at length 
 overtake every bad government, because it was so bad as scarcely to 
 be a government at all. That rates have to be paid is a familiar 
 and not very pleasant fact ; but more than this our average citizen 
 scarcely knows, or even hopes to know. 
 
 Yet an intelligent and vigorous local administration is of im- 
 measurable consequence to a free, busy, and highly-civilised country 
 like our own. However petty the isolated action of any one local 
 authority may seem, the combined result of all the operations of 
 Local Government is enormous. For the year 1880-81 the total 
 receipts of the various local authorities throughout England and 
 Wales, including the metropolis, amounted to upwards of fifty-five 
 millions, and their total expenditure to upwards of fifty-three 
 millions ; and at the close of that year their total indebtedness had 
 risen to upwards of one hundred and fourty-four millions. As com- 
 pared with the Imperial, the Local Government works everywhere 
 and works always. The Imperial authority legislates, but the 
 local authority administers. The work of legislation is limited, 
 but the work of administration is endless. The work of legislation 
 must be undertaken by the few ; but the work of administra- 
 tion ought to be shared by the many. To the Local Govern- 
 ment is confided the regulation of police, the care of the public 
 health, the relief of the distressed poor, and the working of the 
 system of popular education ; in short, everything that most deeply 
 affects the internal, welfare of the community. In a society like 
 ours — a society ever assuming more complicated forms — a society 
 in which we feel more and more the need of joint action — the Local 
 Government finds its labours grow with the growth of its capacity. 
 Numerous as are our local authorities, immense as is our local 
 expenditure, much that Local Government should do is either not 
 done at all, or done very imperfectly. 
 
 Further, the local administration is the political school and form- 
 ing discipline of all citizens of a free country. It is a political 
 truism that local is the only permanent basis of national self-
 
 IF ENGLAND AND WALES. 5 
 
 government. It is an historical truism that everywhere in ancient 
 and mediaeval Europe, the free civic body was the centre of political 
 development, of intellectual expansion, of all the higher forms of 
 civilised life. And although in England local self-government never 
 assumed those large proportions, or glowed with that intense life 
 which distinguished the municipal freedom of Italy, Germany, or 
 Flanders, yet none the less has the humble organisation of counties 
 and boroughs proved to be the germ of those institutions which have 
 made our country the mighty mother of free nations, destined to fill 
 half the surface of the globe. A wise and honest local administration 
 bears witness to the diffusion of political intelligence and morality. 
 A clumsy and divided local administration disheartens those who are 
 desirous of serving their countrymen. 
 
 It is a matter of common complaint in our time that London 
 absorbs every day a larger proportion of those who possess some know- 
 ledge and some leisure. We often hear it said that the provincial 
 cities and rural districts are dispeopled of their wealth and intelli- 
 gence to swell the already monstrous growth of the capital. Nor must 
 we look upon this change as the merely natural and inevitable result 
 of railways, steamships, and telegraphs, which tend to centralise 
 numbers and riches in a few great cities. Men of the highest ability or 
 of the most restless ambition will generally resort to the capital. But 
 to the ordinary man of education and leisure — well off, but not wealthy 
 — London life offers very little satisfying occupation. He comes up 
 to town because doing nothing in town is a trifle less dreary than 
 doing nothing in the provinces. Provincial life is unbearable to such 
 men, because it affords no objects of interest and no scope for action. 
 But under a good system of Local Grovernment, men who in London 
 are absolutely insignificant, might in their own county or in their 
 own city feel the pride of power and enjoy the consciousness of doing 
 good. This result has been attained elsewhere : why should it not 
 be attainable here ? A friend of mine on his travels recently met a 
 Frenchman who appeared to be a person of wealth and consequence, 
 but who valued himself most on being ' membre du Conseil Grenerale,' 
 a member of the governing body of his department. Under a simple 
 and dignified system of Local Grovernment, one of our historic counties 
 or one of our gigantic cities should offer at least as wide a field to 
 local patriotism or to administrative ability as can be found in any 
 department of bureaucratic France. Such a system would do more 
 than anything else could do to combine in one common work the 
 different classes of society, and thereby extinguish their mutual 
 jealousies and animosities. And if the leisured classes do not justify 
 their existence by taking part in the local government, not only will 
 their strength be at an end, but their wealth and privilege will be 
 imperilled in a country where power has been given to the people. 
 
 Local administration, if corrupt and unjust, carries into every
 
 6 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION 
 
 class, every town, and every district those vices which the worst 
 Imperial Government can only teach to a few corn-tiers and statesmen. 
 Anyone who has studied with interest the effects of taxation on the 
 political, moral, and material welfare of nations, both in the Old and 
 New Worlds, must have been struck with the fact that taxation, 
 unjust in any particular direction, even when it seems to make 
 amends by indulgence in some other direction, brings with it waste 
 in expenditure and inefficiency, or worse, in administration. It does 
 all this in ways often utterly unforeseen and unnoticed, but not 
 surprising to those who have learnt from history that unsound 
 principles invariably work out evil results. If we wish to know to j 
 what lengths waste and demoralisation can go, we have only to look 
 at the extravagant local taxation prevalent in New York and other 
 American cities where our own vices have developed themselves with 
 the energy of youth. Such extravagance can be borne out of the 
 unlimited resources of the United States in its youth ; but it would 
 be fatal to the constitution of an ' old country ' like England. Thus, 
 within my own experience, local taxation in New York has risen from 
 12s. 6cl. per cent, to £2, 12s. 6d. per cent, on the capital of its 
 citizens — a charge which would more than absorb the whole income 
 of an average English landlord. Yet in all this there is nothing 
 inexplicable. Whenever the local government of a democratic State 
 is not so constituted as to attract the interest of those citizens who 
 possess wealth, leisure, and information, the same causes are at work ; 
 the same results will surely follow. As a most potent instrument of 
 social welfare, as a most effectual school of political virtue, an in- 
 telligent, thrifty, and spirited Local Grovernment is indispensable to 
 the health and strength of a great democratic community. 
 
 The vices of our present system of Local Grovernment are ultimately 
 reducible to three ; and these may be stated as follows : 
 
 I. The needless multiplication of local authorities and of the 
 areas under their control ; of authorities sometimes ill- 
 constituted for, and of areas often ill-suited to, their re- 
 spective purposes. 
 II. The excessive and unsystematic subdivision of the functions 
 of Local Government. 
 III. The disorder in local finance and the unfair incidence of 
 local taxation. 
 Let us consider each of these defects by itself, and somewhat more 
 in detail. 
 
 I. Areas and authorities devised for the purpose of Local Govern- 
 ment fall into two principal classes, — (1) the entire kingdom is distri- 
 buted into parishes, into poor-law unions, and into counties respectively ; 
 (2) the borough, the local board district, the Improvement Act district, 
 and the highway district, are only found here and there. It is con- 
 venient to bear this distinction in mind, but it must not be supposed
 
 m ENGLAND AND WALES. 7 
 
 to rest upon remote historic causes or upon wide legal principles. 
 Neither the one class nor the other has any true unity. Areas have 
 been marked out, authorities have been established or reformed at 
 various dates and for different purposes, without any regular plan of 
 connection or subordination. But in the attempt to make intelligible 
 a system so complex, the slightest resemblances may be of use. And 
 for some purposes an organisation which is to be found in every part 
 of the kingdom is more important than an organisation confined to 
 certain towns or districts. 
 
 These reasons will justify us in beginning our survey of Local 
 Grovernment with the parish, the union, the county, and their several 
 governing bodies ; and then proceeding to consider the borough and 
 other areas more or less exceptional. 
 
 The parish as defined for poor-law purposes — that is to say, the 
 place for which a separate poor-rate can be made or a separate over- 
 seer appointed — does not always coincide either with the ancient civil 
 or with the modern ecclesiastical parish. When the ancient civil 
 parish proved too unwieldy separate overseers were appointed for each 
 township within its bounds. When the parish church could no longer 
 contain an increasing population, portions of the old parish were 
 formed into new ecclesiastical parishes. Some parishes lie in more 
 counties than one. Many hundred parishes are broken up into iso- 
 lated fragments. Parishes of an area less than 50 acres and contain- 
 ing less than 50 inhabitants are not uncommon. Some parishes are 
 governed by a common vestry consisting of all the rated inhabitants, 
 and some by an elected body known as the select vestry. 
 
 The union respects the boundaries of the poor-law parish, because 
 the union is an aggregate of parishes. Under the Poor-Law Amend- 
 ment Act of 1834 it was formed on the general idea of taking a 
 market town as the centre and uniting the parishes whose inhabitants 
 resorted to its market. It was designed to be so small as to allow 
 every guardian to have a personal familiarity with all the details of 
 its management. In some cases its limits were determined by the 
 situation of workhouses already existing ; in others they were modified 
 to suit a variety of local circumstances and feelings. Unions under 
 the former Acts were left untouched and have disappeared only by 
 degrees. Single parishes sometimes claimed to be treated as unions. 
 Extra-parochial places could not be included in unions until later legis- 
 lation had made them parochial. All these causes have helped to make 
 the unions of the present day unequal in size and irregular in form. 
 In 1873, out of 647 unions then existing, there were 181 which 
 extended into two or more counties, and of these 32 were each in 
 three counties, and three each in four counties. Unions do not respect 
 municipal boundaries and are not respected by the boundaries of 
 Local Government districts. 
 
 Besides the county proper, certain liberties, such as Ely, Peter^
 
 8 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION 
 
 borough, and the Cinque Ports, as well as eighteen boroughs styled 
 counties of cities or counties of towns, are for many purposes treated 
 as separate counties. But the county in the ordinary sense of the 
 term is distributed into petty sessional divisions. Each petty sessional 
 division may consist of any number of parishes or parts of parishes, 
 and seldom corresponds with any other area. Besides justices, the 
 county has a lord-lieutenant, a sheriff, and other officers. But the 
 lord-lieutenant and the sheriff represent the Crown, and the others 
 exercise a very limited influence on the administration of the county. 
 This is practically in the hands of the justices, who are appointed by 
 the Crown upon the recommendation of the lord -lieutenant. But 
 some hold their seats ex officio or by virtue of an Act of Parliament. 
 All the justices of the county sit in the Court of Quarter Sessions. A 
 Petty Sessions may consist of one or more justices of the county acting 
 in a petty sessional division. A Special Sessions is a Petty Sessions 
 summoned for a special purpose, by notice to all the justices of the 
 petty sessional division. In these various sessions the county business 
 is transacted. All other areas defined for the purpose of Local 
 Government are administered by bodies chosen on some scheme of 
 representation. But the county is administered by persons almost 
 exclusively of one rank in society and nominated by the Crown. 
 
 Of the areas which we have ventured to call exceptional the 
 principal are the borough, the local board district, the Improvement 
 Act district, and the highway district. In every respect the borough 
 is much the most important of these. Many boroughs continue upon 
 their ancient footing, but the majority have been remodelled under 
 the Municipal Corporations Acts. Some of the unreformed boroughs 
 are mere villages. They concern us here only as an anomaly and 
 an abuse. But all the great cities of the kingdom, except the 
 metropolis, are to be found in the list of the reformed boroughs. 
 These boroughs vary in population from upwards of 500,000 to less 
 than 3,000, and in rateable value from upwards of £3,000,000 to less 
 than £10,000. Their limits have not been fixed upon any general 
 principle. They are not always conterminous with the parliamentary 
 boroughs or with the urban sanitary districts bearing the same 
 names. Their boundaries intersect the boundaries of parishes and 
 counties and are intersected by the boundaries of unions. But the 
 boroughs have been generally adopted as units by the Acts of 
 Parliament which provide for public health and elementary educa- 
 tion. They are governed by corporations composed of a mayor and 
 aldermen, and of burgesses acting by a town council, which varies in 
 number from twelve to forty-eight councillors. 
 
 In every borough the mayor and last ex-mayor are justices of the 
 peace for the time being. A separate commission of the peace 
 granted to any borough empowers its justices to act within the 
 limits of the borough, as if they were county justices. No qualifica-
 
 IN ENGLAND AND WALES, 9 
 
 tion by estate is required for their office. Moreover, the Crown may 
 grant to a borough a separate Court of Quarter Sessions, held not as 
 in a county, by the justices, but by the recorder as sole judge. We 
 shall afterwards have to consider the effect of this privilege upon the 
 finances of the borough. 
 
 The Local Government District has been constituted under the 
 Public Health Act of 1875, or under the Acts which it repealed. At 
 the present day there are about 700 such districts in England and 
 Wales. Some of them are also municipal boroughs. Their origin, 
 their extent, their outline are very various. In some instances the 
 people of the neighbourhood wished to escape highway expenditure ; 
 in others they needed an effective sanitary regulation ; and they 
 availed themselves of the above Acts. Owners of particular properties 
 have opposed the establishment and modified the boundaries of Local 
 Grovernment Districts. How well they harmonise with other local 
 areas, one example will serve to show. The Local Grovernment 
 District of Mossley, in Lancashire, comprises parts of four townships, 
 of two unions, and of three counties. Many of these districts have 
 less than 2,000, some less than 500 inhabitants. They are governed 
 by incorporated local boards, whose numbers depend on the decision 
 of the Local Government Board. Any owner or ratepayer in the 
 district is an elector, and possesses a number of votes proportioned to 
 his rating ; but none can have more than six votes. 
 
 Improvement Act Districts have been constituted under local 
 Acts of Parliament for purposes similar to those of the Local Govern- 
 ment Districts. They are governed by trustees or commissioners, 
 elected in various ways according to the provisions of the special 
 Acts. 
 
 The Highway District is the chief but not the only area charged 
 with the maintenance of highways. For this purpose the law 
 recognises three distinct kinds of area and authority. The first is 
 the rural parish. Some thousands of rural parishes in England and 
 North Wales are still highway areas ; but, inasmuch as many hamlets, 
 villages, and tithings, which are not poor-law parishes^ are, in virtue 
 of local custom, highway parishes, it results that the parish is one 
 thing for poor-law purposes and another for highway purposes. Ii 
 the parish contains more than 5,000 inhabitants, the vestry may elect 
 a highway board, otherwise a parish surveyor is entrusted with the 
 whole care of the highways within the parish. In the year 1880 
 nearly 40,000 miles of road were under the control of this primitive 
 organisation. The second highway area is the urban sanitary district, 
 and this again may be either the borough, the Local Government 
 district, or the Improvement Act district, each under its appropriate 
 authority. The total mileage subject to such authorities cannot be 
 ascertained. The third and most important highway area is the 
 highway district formed under the District Highways Acts, by the
 
 10 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION 
 
 aggregation of rural parislies. The District Highway Board consists 
 of the justices who reside within the district, and of waywardens 
 elected by its several parishes. District Highway Boards have charge 
 of more than 67,000 miles of road in England and Wales. Finally, 
 and in addition to all these areas and authorities, Turnpike Trusts 
 still subsist in considerable though rapidly diminishing numbers. 
 
 Such, then, are the principal areas and authorities now existing 
 for the purposes of Local Government. Although the enumeration 
 may not be exhaustive, their number is sufficiently striking. But it 
 is not their number which is most remarkable or which most calls 
 for censure. What is most extraordinary and most to be condemned 
 is the chance medley of often overlapping areas and authorities, and 
 the random way in which areas have been defined and authorities 
 have been constituted. Mr. Goschen rightly described such a state 
 of things as chaos. I have not hitherto stated the various functions 
 exercised by each of these authorities. Where the governing bodies 
 are very numerous, the functions of government must be very much 
 subdivided. But in our present system of Local Government we 
 should vainly endeavour to trace any methodic distribution of the 
 several functions to the several authorities. For this reason I have 
 distinguished under separate heads the needless multiplication of 
 bodies to do the work and the needless parcelling out of work to be 
 done. It seemed most conducive to clearness to state, on the one 
 hand, what are the principal organs, and, on the other hand, what are 
 the principal duties of our Local Government. 
 
 11. The excessive and unsystematic subdivision of the functions 
 of Local Government. 
 
 Of these functions the most important are the relief of the poor, 
 the enforcement of the laws relating to public health, the providing 
 of public places of interment, the maintenance of police, of highways, 
 of elementary schools, and of asylums for lunatics. In the attempt 
 to make intelligible the distribution of these tasks among the 
 authorities above enumerated, I must entreat the reader's patience. 
 For only in one instance can we give a simple and universal rule. 
 The union is everywhere the area, and the board of guardians every- 
 where the authority charged with the relief of the poor. 
 
 The sanitary administration provides for one set of objects in town 
 and for another in country. In both town and country it includes 
 the regulation of the water supply, the maintenance of sewers and 
 drains, and the inspection and prevention of nuisances. But in town 
 it also comprises all such improvements as the laying out of new 
 streets and of parks and gardens, or the erection of public baths and 
 wash-houses. The rural sanitary district is usually the union with 
 its board of guardians. But the urban sanitary district may be either 
 the borough governed by the town council, the Local Government 
 district subject to a local board, or the Improvement Act district
 
 IN ENGLAND AND WALES, 11 
 
 under its commissioners. For sanitary purposes, a smaller urban 
 district contained in a larger and an Improvement Act district coin- 
 ciding with a local board district are merged in the larger urban 
 district and in the local board district respectively. Oxford and 
 Cambridge and several other towns have an organisation of their 
 own. Sometimes the limits of a sanitary area of one class intersect 
 those of a sanitary area of another class, and thus give rise to com- 
 plexities which space will not allow me to unravel here. 
 
 The first of the Burial Acts, passed some thirty years ago, may be 
 regarded as the earliest statutory provision for public places of inter- 
 ment. Under these Acts the burial area is primarily the common- 
 law parish, and the burial authority a board of ratepayers nominated 
 by the vestry. But the board, once appointed, is independent of the 
 vestry, since it has power to fill up its own vacancies. And the 
 Burial Acts may also be adopted by any poor-law parish, or by any 
 ecclesiastical parish, or by any township or district, although embraced 
 in a common-law parish which has already a burial board of its own. 
 And when any portion of a common-law parish has acquired a separate 
 burial board, the remnant of that parish is entitled to have a similar 
 board. An Order in Council may confer the powers and duties of a 
 burial board upon the town council of a borough, or upon the local 
 board or improvement commissioners of a local board district or Im- 
 provement Act district. And the burial board for any ai;ea comprised 
 within the area of any urban sanitary authority may transfer their 
 powers and duties to that authority. 
 
 The modern police organisation consists of the county police, the 
 borough police, the canal and river police, and special constables. 
 For police purposes the county includes liberties, but excludes all 
 municipal boroughs in which a separate force has been established. 
 Detached fragments of a county are merged in the county within 
 which they lie. Adjoining counties may adjust their boundaries for 
 police purposes, so as to include in one area the whole of any divided 
 town or place, or to obviate the bad effect of other irregularities ; so 
 that the county for purposes of police, and the county for other pur- 
 poses, may be two different areas. The police force of the county 
 consists of a number of men and officers fixed by the Quarter Sessions, 
 and of a superintendent for every Petty Sessional Division. The 
 Quarter Sessions appoint and remove the chief constable, who is 
 charged with the direction, control, appointment, and dismissal of the 
 superintendents, inferior officers, and men. But in respect of their 
 police jurisdiction, the Quarter Sessions are subject to the control of 
 the Secretary of State. 
 
 The watch committee of the council of every municipal borough 
 must provide a number of police sufficient for the borough. Subject 
 to the approval of the council, the watch committee also fix the 
 salaries of the municipal police, and they or any two justices can
 
 12 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION 
 
 exercise the power of dismissal. A municipal borough, however, may 
 agree with a county for consolidation of police on the terms that the 
 chief constable of the county shall have the direction and dismissal of 
 the borough police. Canal and river police are appointed by two 
 justices or by the watch committee of a borough to act as constables 
 along such canal or river on the application and at the cost of the 
 company of proprietors. Although their powers are defined, they do 
 not appear to be subject to any special authority. There are also river 
 police forces established under local Acts. The special constable 
 needs no description. 
 
 The remaining objects of local administration may be more briefly 
 dealt with. Under the first head of my indictment against our 
 system of Local Grovernment I have already sketched the organisation 
 charged with the maintenance of highways ; the several areas of the 
 parish, the highway district, and the urban sanitary district and their 
 corresponding authorities ; the turnpike trusts which have not yet 
 wholly disappeared ; the number of miles of road maintained on each 
 of these methods, and the inconveniences attending each. I have 
 only to add that the duty of repairing bridges falls usually on the 
 county or hundred. The educational authorities of the country have 
 no distinct area for the exercise of their function. For the purposes 
 of elementary education the borough or the poor-law parish is the 
 area. When a parish lies partly without a borough, the excluded part 
 is treated as a distinct parish. The authority is a school board or else 
 a school attendance committee of the board of guardians or of 
 the town council. In the borough the school board is elected for 
 the whole borough ; elsewhere it is elected for the parish. So for the 
 purposes of the Lunacy Acts the areas are the county and the 
 borough. But neither of these terms is used in the strict sense. In 
 this instance every county, riding, or division of a county is reckoned 
 a separate county. So likewise is every county of a city or county of 
 a town which has a separate court of quarter sessions. Most boroughs, 
 again, are merged in their respective counties. In county and 
 borough alike, a committee of visitors appointed by the justices is 
 the acting authority in lunacy. Finally, the prisons have been trans- 
 ferred within the last few years from the control of the justices of 
 the peace to that of the central government. To have left to the 
 magistrates an active part in the management of prisons would 
 have been far better. But in this, as in other departments of Local 
 Government, the bad habit of altering piece by piece, without any 
 comprehensive survey of our wants, has given us a change but 
 no improvement. 
 
 Before quitting this part of my subject, let me give two illustra- 
 tions of the extent to which the functions of Local Grovernment are 
 subdivided. In the year 1875 a single parliamentary borough com- 
 prising 40 square miles and inhabited by 158,000 souls was divided
 
 IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 18 
 
 for poor-law purposes into three parishes and two unions ; for purposes 
 of Local Grovernment into three municipal boroughs and six local 
 board districts, and for sanitary purposes into nine urban and two 
 rural sanitary districts. The administration of local affairs through- 
 out the district employed three mayors, about sixty aldermen and 
 councillors, at least as many commissioners or members of local 
 boards, nine separate staffs of surveyors, clerks, and auditors, two 
 boards of guardians and two sets of clerks to guardians, besides over- 
 seers, collectors, chief officers of police, and members of school 
 boards. Again, take Liverpool as described in 1877 in a paper read 
 before the annual Poor-law Conference by Mr. Hagger, one of the 
 ablest members of our Local Grovernment Civil Service : 
 
 By Liverpool I mean the continuous succession of buildings constituting 
 what would be properly called the town. It comprises or extends into three 
 poor-law areas — the parish of Liverpool, the West Derby Union, and the extra- 
 parochial township of Toxteth Park. 
 
 When the county was divided into unions, the parish of Liverpool, which 
 was then conterminous with the municipal borough of Liverpool, was formed 
 into a separate poor-law district as a single parish, and twenty-three of the 
 surrounding townships were formed into the West Derby Union. Subsequently, 
 the municipal borough was extended, so as to include two of the adjacent town- 
 ships and portions of two others. Then the township of Toxteth Park was 
 separated from the West Derby Union, and formed into a distinct poor-law area, 
 under a separate board of guardians. There have been also forijaed within the 
 same area eleven local board districts and a second municipal borough, that of 
 Bootle. Thus, there are within this area — which is practically that of the West 
 Derby Union — two municipal councils, three boards of guardians, eleven local 
 boards of health, twenty-four bodies of overseers ; and there are besides five 
 burial boards, two school boards, and one highway board, making a total of 
 forty-eight local authorities acting in complete independence of each other ; the 
 complication being increased by the fact that a single board exercises its 
 difi'erent functions over diflferent areas. Thus, the West Derby Board of 
 Guardians have control over the whole twenty-two townships in the union for 
 poor-law purposes, whilst they are the rural sanitary authority in only ten of 
 them, and the educational authority in eighteen and a half. 
 
 Now, consider for a moment what this means. Think of the number of 
 elections, of the varied qualifications required of the candidates, of the various 
 franchises, and of the numerous modes of exercising them, of the superfluous 
 machinery employed in the actual performance of many portions of the work, 
 and in the collection of difi'erent rates, of the friction — saying nothing of occa- 
 sional ruptures — which must inevitably be felt in the working of so many 
 independent authorities in such matters as drainage, highways, settlement of 
 paupers, acquisition of lands, assessment, &c., and you will have some idea of 
 the waste of energy, time, and resources which the present state of things 
 entails. 
 
 Under such circumstances as these we can appreciate the force of 
 Mr. Hagger's observations a little further on in the same paper : — 
 
 An ordinary ratepayer finds it almost impossible to understand how he is 
 governed ; he feels that he knows little or nothing about it, and he avows this 
 as his reason for taking no part in it. I venture to say there are few persons in
 
 14 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION 
 
 this room who have not heard this reason assigned, over and over again, when 
 they have been trying to induce others to take part in matters affecting their 
 locality. And how can it be otherwise ? Elections take place at all times of 
 the year ; what qualifies a man for one office is no qualification for another ; a 
 ratepayer has a single vote in one case, in another a plural one ; he has, when 
 there is a vacancy in the burial board, double the voting power that he can 
 exercise when he votes for a guardian or a member of a local board ; but if 
 he is fortunate enough to be an owner of property, he can, as such, vote in the 
 latter case, but not in the former. He sees that the guardians must be elected 
 annually, but that members of the local board sit for three years without 
 re-election ; that when he wants to serve his friend who is a candidate for the 
 burial board by plumping for him, he can only indirectly help him by abstaining 
 to vote for others ; but that when the election is for a member of the school 
 board, he can do so directly by cumulating all his votes upon him. Further, he 
 finds that sometimes he can vote by filling up a paper, whilst at others he must 
 attend at a polling station ; sometimes he is qualified to vote without having 
 taken any personal trouble in the matter, at others he finds that he cannot vote 
 because he has not made a formal claim ; and, although he may sometimes let 
 all the world know how he votes, there are other occasions when to do so will 
 invalidate his vote and get himself into trouble. Is it any wonder that he feels 
 somewhat puzzled about it 1 There is probably not one in fifty of the fairly 
 educated ratepayers in our large towns who can say off-hand what his voting 
 power really is, and when and how he can exercise it. And if this be true of 
 the fairly educated minority, what can be said of the majority 1 
 
 III. The disorder in local finance and the unfair incidence of local 
 taxation. 
 
 From what I have said respecting the present constitution of 
 Local Government the reader will have already inferred something as 
 to the present state of local finance. For the purpose of assessing 
 rates the union makes one valuation and the county another. The 
 borough, if it thinks fit, may make a third. There are almost as 
 many distinct rates as there are independent authorities. There is 
 the poor rate, the highway rate, the borough rate, the general district 
 rate, and the county rate. A borough possessing its own Court of 
 Quarter Sessions is not always liable to the county rate, but is liable 
 to pay to the county the expense of prosecuting its prisoners at the 
 county assize or Quarter Sessions. A separate machinery is or may 
 be employed to collect every one of these rates. A separate series of 
 accounts shows the amount received and spent by each authority in 
 each area. Variations are naturally introduced from time to time 
 in the modes of making up returns. All of these circumstances help 
 to explain the too common ignorance and indifference as to local 
 income and expenditure. 
 
 It is impossible to ascertain the total amount of local taxation at 
 any given moment, because all the returns are much in arrear, and 
 because the returns sent in by different authorities are not made up 
 to the same date. It is impossible to compare with any certainty the 
 expenditure in rural and in urban districts, because the boundaries of 
 unions and parishes intersect the boundaries of boroughs and local
 
 IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 15 
 
 board districts. It is impossible to determine the proportions in 
 which the county expenditure is charged on boroughs, on local board 
 districts, and on rural places, or the proportions in which the school 
 rate is charged upon local board districts and upon rural parishes 
 partly included in them. It is impossible to furnish an accurate 
 statement of ordinary income and expenditure within urban sanitary 
 districts and for purposes merely urban, partly because the capital 
 expenditure on sewers, on streets, on gasworks and waterworks, is not 
 distinguished from the recurring annual expense of maintenance and 
 supply, partly because places which provide their own gas and water 
 are not distinguished from those in which they are supplied by private 
 enterprise. Finally, it is altogether impossible from the accounts of 
 twenty-three several kinds of local authority, all differently constituted, 
 all presiding over areas which often overlap or interlace, using diffe- 
 rent periods of account and levying rates or contributions on different 
 bases and on different valuations, to extract any clear budget of local 
 finance, to know exactly the total annual income or expenditure or 
 the total indebtedness of the Local Grovernment of this kingdom, or 
 to compute the proportion which these several sums bear to one 
 another in the same year or to themselves in former years. 
 
 Under these circumstances statistics are not very trustworthy. 
 But such information as they can afford justifies the forebodings 
 excited by the first general view of the confusion of bcal finance. 
 Upon comparing the admirable memoranda on the subject of Local 
 Government, drawn up in 1877 by my friend Mr. K. S. Wright, with 
 the later returns of local taxation prepared by the Local Grovernment 
 Board, I find that in the year 1870-71 the rateable value of England 
 and Wales amounted to £107,398,000, and in the year 1880-81 to 
 £135,645,000, an increase of not much more than 26 per cent. But 
 during the same period the amount annually levied in rates rose from 
 £17,405,000 to £26,808,000, and the amount annually derived by 
 local authorities from all other sources, including grants from the 
 Imperial Treasury and loans, from £8,006,000 to £28,538,000. So 
 that the total receipts of the Local Grovernment in the space of ten 
 years rose from £25,412,000 to £55,346,000. Within the same space 
 of time the local expenditure advanced from* £24,324,000 for the 
 year 1870-71 to £52,590,000, an increase of 116 per cent. At the 
 close of the year 1870-71 our local indebtedness stood at the figure 
 of £38,250,000, but at the close of the year 1880-81 it had attained 
 to £144,335,000, an increase of 279 per cent. It would be un- 
 reasonable to suppose that this prodigious growth of expenditure 
 represents a proportionate growth of negligence and dishonesty. 
 One may freely admit that each successive year imposes fresh duties 
 on our Local Government, and compels a larger outlay on local 
 purposes. But the citizen who pays rates and taxes may fairly claim 
 some assurance that he has value for the money so freely given.
 
 16 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION 
 
 Such value lie does not always receive, even in tlie large boroughs. 
 And in the smaller districts his contributions are expended, often to 
 no purpose, and sometimes with results positively mischievous. 
 
 All ordinary local rates are levied solely on real property. But in 
 the assessment of the district rate and of rates levied in rural places 
 for special sanitary purposes, agricultural land, tithes, railways, and 
 canals are rated only to one-fourth the extent of their rateable value. 
 The exemption is given on the ground that these kinds of property 
 gain less than others by the outlay on sanitary improvement. I have 
 not the means of estimating its justice or expediency. But I must 
 dwell for a moment on the unfairness of not making personal property 
 contribute its share to local taxation. This immunity is no conces- 
 sion to democratic prejudice. On the contrary, if we examine its 
 results in a great city like Liverpool, we shall find that the wealthy 
 banker, merchant, or shipowner contributes perhaps* £1 per cent, of 
 his income to the rates; the labourer, say £4 per ^ent. of his income; 
 the struggling professional man, between £2 and £3 per cent. ; and 
 the retail tradesman, as much as £12 per cent., or perhaps more. A 
 more unjust imposition cannot easily be conceived. 
 
 As a rule, the occupier and not the owner is directly charged 
 with the payment of rates, except where compounding is in force in 
 relation to small tenements. Under this rule public improvements 
 which raise the permanent value of the property often cost the land- 
 owner nothing. Under this rule all the burthen of a temporary rise 
 in the rates is laid upon the occupier in those very seasons of distress 
 when he finds it hardest to make ends meet. Whatever the land- 
 owner does contribute to the local revenue he contributes indirectly 
 
 that is, -he appears to contribute nothing. In a democratic age he 
 
 could not find himself more dangerously situated. Our present 
 
 method of assessing local taxation gives to the owner of land, and to 
 
 the owner of capital, a seeming preference which is not for the true 
 
 interest of either. Because the landlord contributes nothing directly, 
 
 because the capitalist contributes little, whether directly or indirectly, 
 
 to the local revenue, neither landlord nor capitalist concerns himself 
 
 as he ought in the local administration. Their indifference does 
 
 harm both to themselves and to the public — to themselves, because 
 
 the richest and most defenceless citizens cannot safely abandon to 
 
 others the task of raising and expending the public money, or neglect 
 
 any means of justifying the pre-eminence which they enjoy; to the 
 
 public, because they leave local affairs to be managed by members of 
 
 one class. Although in rural districts the farmers, and in urban 
 
 districts the tradesmen, cottage owners, and others who carry on most 
 
 of the work of local administration, often display a thrift, an ability, 
 
 and a devotion to the public service for which their country owes 
 
 them a deep debt of gratitude ; yet she must necessarily lose much 
 
 by not enlisting in the performance of that great work the varied
 
 IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 17 
 
 experience and skill of every class, and especially of those classes 
 which have the highest education and most leisure. If the whole 
 body of landowners and capitalists felt the sting of wastefulness or 
 jobbery in local administration, then individuals among them would 
 find it worth while to serve on local boards. Experience supports 
 this view. For wherever the owner of cottages is directly rated he 
 is active in local administration. In Scotland the owner and the 
 occupier equally divide the burthen of most local rates, and both 
 are equally industrious in the conduct of local affairs. It may be 
 added that they manage local affairs very much better there than in 
 England. 
 
 Large grants from the Imperial Tj-easury, unless carefully guarded 
 by the terms and precautions under which they are given, will not 
 sensibly mitigate the injustice, whilst they may seriously enhance 
 the waste consequent on such a system of finance. Of what avail can 
 it be to lavish the Imperial revenue upon such a multitude of petty 
 local bodies ? They are too feeble to attract the service of the most 
 competent administrators. They are too insignificant to feel the 
 pressure of public opinion. They are too numerous and too remote 
 to fear the supervision of the central government. The more such 
 bodies receive, the more they spend. Subsidies out of the Imperial 
 revenue only stimulate the evils of their constitution. The point at 
 which their prodigality must finally become intolerable ns moved a 
 little further off; but their prodigality is not thereby made less. 
 Nor do these subsidies make amends for the injustice committed 
 under the present system of levying the rates. Could any Chancellor 
 of the Exchequer guess in what proportions the money granted in 
 relief of local taxation has been derived from real and from personal 
 property, or from owners and from occupiers respectively ? Or could 
 he tell what ratio in any particular district the diminution of local 
 bears to the increase of imperial taxation ? When the local taxation 
 is fair, when the local authority is competent, when the grant is so 
 given as to reward economy instead of making improvidence easy, 
 then, and not until then, will it be wise to assist the local at the 
 expense of the Imperial Treasury. 
 
 Such being the defects of our present system of Local Government, 
 the mischiefs which they occasion are obvious. So long as the mul- 
 titude of petty local bodies continues to exist, each local body will 
 continue to elude the vigilance of public criticism. Whom can the 
 ratepayer watch, on whom can he fasten any grave responsibility ? 
 If he inhabit a borough he may be governed by the town council, 
 by the vestry, by the burial board, by the school board, by the 
 board of guardians, and by the county quarter sessions, and his home 
 is situated at once in a borough, a parish, a union, and a county. 
 If he reside in a rural parish he may be subject at one and at the 
 same time to a school board, a burial board, a highway board, the
 
 18 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION 
 
 guardians of the poor, and the justices of the peace, and his dwelling 
 is probably comprised at once in a parish, a union, a highway district, 
 and a county. In either case all the respective authorities and areas 
 may be complicated in ways previously suggested. Each has its 
 separate rate and its separate debt. The aggregate of rates may be 
 heavy and the aggregate of debt may be large ; but no one body is 
 responsible for either. The collective work may be ill-done ; but no 
 one body can be blamed for much of what goes wrong. If the rates 
 happen to be low, the debt trifling, and all the work well done, there 
 are so many to divide the honour that it is scarcely worth earning. 
 No single local authority has much to hope from the public applause, 
 or much to fear from the public censure. 
 
 Again, the present state of Local Grovernment discourages many 
 of the best and ablest citizens from taking any active part in local 
 politics. However strong their desire to serve their fellows, they do 
 not see that they have any fair scope for their powers. They can 
 do nothing in the hope of appreciation. Their district has no true 
 government. It would be inconvenient and disgusting, if not im- 
 possible, for them to undergo the trouble and vexation of half-a-dozen 
 different elections, to take part in the meetings of as many different 
 boards, and to find at last that all their sacrifices had brought no 
 substantial result of honour to themselves or of advantage to others. 
 From impotence they pass into despair, to end iia selfish indifference. 
 Where men have but little chance of serving the public, there men 
 will feel but little will to serve. 
 
 If the present condition of Local Government offers protection 
 to incompetence and idleness, whilst it puts obstacles in the way of 
 abiUty and industry, it is natural that the local administration should , 
 be costly and inefficient. I do not mean to say that the work of . 
 Local Government is ifbt often admirably performed. Thank God 
 England has still many citizens whose goodwill in the service of ■ 
 their country needs to be stirred by no flourish of applause, and 
 whose energy is only aroused by the obstacles in their path. But 
 I do say that Local Government in England is so constituted as to 
 effect the smallest possible result with the greatest possible friction. 
 I do say that it affords opportunity for doing work ill and for spend- 
 ing wealth recklessly. I do say that it fosters to a luxuriant growth 
 in all our citizens, in electors and elected alike, those faults whichi 
 intensify its own inherent mischiefs. And I am prepared to justify 
 all that I have said by numberless examples and illustrations drawn 
 from the actual state of local affairs and of local finance. 
 
 So long as twenty boards or more have power to raise and spend 
 the local revenue, so long will every improvement cost far more than 
 it should. So long as we continue to violate the plainest rules of i 
 equity by making some citizens pay for what concerns the welfare of 
 all, so long we must expect to see private interest conflicting with
 
 IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 19 
 
 the public good. A thriftless local expenditure is to be deprecated, 
 not so much for the actual loss which it occasions as for the possible 
 good which it prevents. An unequal imposition of local burthens is 
 hateful, not so much for the pain which it causes as for the injustice 
 of which it sets an example, and for the selfishness to which it lends 
 an excuse. The value of fairness in the adjustment of public bur- 
 thens, and of economy in the outlay of public wealth, is not to be 
 measured by pounds, shillings, and pence, but by their happy effect 
 in making government, whether local or Imperial, the visible embodi- 
 ment of good sense, of equity, of honesty, and of humanity, and in 
 teaching every citizen to feel that the State is neither more nor 
 less than the community organised for the attainment of the common 
 good. 
 
 The foregoing criticism of Local Government as it now stands 
 may suggest the extent and character of its needed reformation. An 
 adequate measure of reform must select the areas most suitable for 
 the purposes of local administration and abolish all the rest. It 
 must constitute in a liberal and judicious spirit the authorities 
 which are to preside in those areas, and it must centre in them the 
 functions shared among the multitude of boards now in existence. 
 It must make the incidence of taxation more just, consolidate the 
 rates, rectify their assessment, and provide for a simple and uniform 
 system of returns. In my second paper I shall attempt \o develop 
 with more fulness of detail the principles upon which I think that 
 the amendment of our system of Local Grovernment must proceed.
 
 20 LOCAl GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION 
 
 II. 
 
 Keforms Suggested. 
 
 Both the late and the present Grovernment have committed them- 
 selves to the introduction of a measure giving representative county 
 government. The question of county government is by general con- 
 currence treated as one of practical politics to be immediately dealt 
 with. I shall therefore ask the readers of the Nineteenth Century to 
 consider what form impending change should take in order to bring 
 about improvement instead of deterioration. Lord Derby, Mr. 
 Sclater- Booth, and others have expressed or implied doubts whether 
 a County Board would find anything serious to do, if it were merely 
 to take over the administrative work of the magistrates. Certainly 
 a new board without enough to occupy its energies would be in 
 danger of justifying its existence by taxing and spending at the cost 
 of the unfortunate ratepayers. Not in the county as such, but in the 
 innumerable and overlapping primary local areas, and by the ever- 
 multiplying local bodies, have funds been most lavishly spent, debts 
 most rapidly increased, and complaints of mismanagement and waste 
 chiefly provoked. To create a County Board without bringing it 
 into relation to and enabling it to co-operate with the administra- 
 tive bodies below it, would be simply to repeat the mistake which 
 has contributed so much to the present confusion of Local Government, 
 the mistake of adding a new board invested with governing and 
 taxing power whenever it became necessary to provide for the dis- 
 charge of any new function. To establish the County Board in this 
 fashion is to begin with the superstructure before laying the founda- 
 tion. As the dignified and dignifying head of a simplified and 
 strengthened system of Local Grovernment, assisting to make clear, 
 simple, and effective what is now obscure, confused, and inefficient, a 
 County Board would have ample work to do, and would find able 
 heads and willing hands for its performance. Such a County Board 
 is a necessary part of any complete scheme of representative Local 
 (jovernment. I propose to show how, without making one new 
 experiment, we can secure all this merely by reducing to a system 
 the experience which we now possess, by amalgamating the present 
 organisations and putting them to a proper use, and by abolishing 
 what is superfluous, and therefore mischievous, rather than by intro- 
 ducing anything novel or imtried. 
 
 Those who have done me the honour to read the article upon 
 Local Grovernment in England and Wales, published in the last 
 number of this Eeview, may remember the principal heads of the 
 indictment brought therein against our present system of Local 
 Grovernment* These were, firstly, the needless multiplication and
 
 \ JN ENGLAND AND WALES, 21 
 
 j; 
 
 ;' interplication of areas and authorities created for the administration 
 of local affairs ; of authorities sometimes ill-constituted, and of areas 
 often ill-defined for their respective purposes ; secondly, the excessive 
 subdivision among these areas and authorities of the several functions 
 i of Local Grovernment ; and thirdly, the disorder in local finance, and 
 the unfair incidence of local taxation. In their combined result 
 these evils produce the chaos of our local administration ; an adminis- 
 i tration without unity and without method ; an administration whose 
 organs are adjusted neither to the whole of which they form part, 
 nor to one another, nor to their own proper ends ; an administration 
 pervading the whole kingdom, and charged with the most important 
 duties ; yet so constituted as to elude the public censure or the public 
 praise, and to repel those very citizens who are most able — and who, 
 if practicable, would be most willing — to give it the benefit of their 
 services. This administration imposes in each successive year in- 
 creasing burthens upon the ratepayers, and in each successive year 
 sinks deeper and deeper into debt. Whilst its proceedings become 
 ever more momentous, the public grows ever less able and less willing 
 to follow their course. This indifference has already done much 
 harm, and, if it were to continue, would be fatal. The complex 
 conditions of our modern social life, and, above all, the growth of 
 democracy, have given to the reconstruction of our Local Grovern- 
 ment an importance truly incalculable. Such a make*shift for a 
 Local Grovernment as we now endure — a Local Grovernment whose 
 constitution and working not one citizen in a thousand could explain ; 
 a Local Grovernment destitute of life, power, and dignity — defrauds 
 our people of their best patriotic and political training. Such a 
 Local Government as we may hope to enjoy might combine members 
 of all classes in working for the common good. 
 
 At the conclusion of my former article I expressed the hope that 
 I might be able to furnish some hints towards the amending of our 
 Local Government. This I shall now attempt to do, adhering as 
 much as possible to the order followed in the former article. I shall 
 begin by considering how many distinct areas are really needed for 
 the purposes of Local Government, and the principles which should 
 guide us in selecting from those now in existence such areas as it 
 may seem advisable to retain. I shall then offer some reflections 
 upon the best way of constituting the authorities which are to preside 
 over those areas, and the most convenient apportionment between 
 them of the functions now dispersed among some three-and-twenty 
 various kinds of local bodies. I shall conclude with a few suggestions 
 on the best method of restoring order, economy, and fairness to our 
 system of local finance. The proposals contained in this article I do 
 not claim as my own. Many I have directly derived from the com- 
 munications of men far better qualified than myself. Neither do I 
 offer them to the public as composing a complete and elaborate
 
 22 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION 
 
 scheme of reform. Such a scheme could only be produced by a 
 Minister having at his command all the knowledge, all the expe- 
 rience, and all the practical skill of the various departments con- 
 cerned with our local administration. Well knowing how much 
 there is to be said on this subject ; knowing, also, how imperfect is 
 all that I can say, I offer these suggestions hoping that they may yet 
 be in some degree useful. 
 
 In my former article we saw that, for the purposes of Local 
 Government, there now exist in England and Wales no less than six 
 or seven principal varieties of area : the parish, the union, the county, 
 the borough, the local board or Improvement Act district, and the 
 highway district. We also saw that these areas overlapped and 
 intersected one another in the most vexatious and incomprehensible 
 fashion. We saw that the parish does not respect the boundaries of 
 the county, and that it is often broken up into separate fragments. 
 We saw that the union breaks through the boundaries sometimes of 
 the county, and often of the municipal borough, or of the local board 
 district. We saw that the municipal borough is not always conter- 
 minous with the urban sanitary district, bearing the same name, 
 and that the local board district sometimes comprises parts of various 
 townships, unions, and counties. We quoted Mr. Hagger's statement 
 to the efifect that, within the area practically of a single town union, 
 there may exist no less than two municipal councils, three boards of 
 guardians, eleven local boards of health, twenty-four bodies of over- 
 seers, five burial boards, two school boards, and one highway board ; 
 in all no less than forty- eight local authorities acting often in over- 
 lapping districts, yet in almost complete independence of one another. 
 And we found reason to believe that this random medley of areas and 
 authorities was more than a mere anomaly ; that it has proved the 
 gravest obstacle to an enlightened and vigorous administration of 
 local affairs ; that it hinders many of the most capable administrators 
 from taking part in the affairs of their several districts; that it 
 prevents the public from ascertaining what they pay in rates, and 
 what they obtain in return ; and that it makes impossible any order 
 or method in the raising and expending of local revenue. We cannot 
 too often repeat that, without the extinction of this the first and 
 gravest of local abuses, there can be no final and satisfactory reform 
 of Local Grovernment as a whole. 
 
 Nor is it hard to discern the principles on which a reformer should 
 deal with this question. In the first place, distinct varieties of area 
 should not be more numerous than the purposes of local administra- 
 tion require. In the second place, the larger area should, as a rule, 
 be an exact multiple or aggregate of the smaller area — that is to 
 say, the larger area and the smaller area should not overlap or 
 intersect. Thirdly, for each area there should, as a rule, be one 
 local authority, and no more. Only by a strict adherence to these
 
 IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 23 
 
 principles can we make Local Government simple ; and until Local 
 Government has become simple, it will never become economical or 
 efficient. Not until every ratepayer can see at a glance in what area 
 he resides and to what authority he is subject, will public opinion 
 exercise any perceptible inj3uence upon the conduct of local affairs. 
 Not until the local board has become a conspicuous and powerful 
 body can we hope to secure all, or nearly all, the public spirit and 
 ability available for local administration. 
 
 In selecting from the areas now in existence those which ought to 
 be retained, it is imperative not to disturb more than is absolutely 
 needful the arrangements and interests, and to utilise as far as 
 possible the institutions which now exist. It is also of great con- 
 sequence to select the area best suited for the most important function 
 of local government to be exercised therein, and not the area which 
 might be better suited for other functions of less importance. 
 Bearing in mind these considerations, we shall attempt to ascertain 
 the most suitable primary area for purposes of Local Government. 
 
 For this purpose we must, if possible, choose some area now 
 existing in every part of the kingdom. Excluding the county, which 
 could never be a primary area, we have only two which fulfil this con- 
 dition — the parish and the union. Ought the parish or the union to 
 be the primary area ? Mr. Goschen's Bill of 1871 proposed to adopt 
 the parish, at least in rural places. And the parish has s6me recom- 
 mendations. It is ancient and venerable, old almost as the begin- 
 nings of our political and religious history, whilst the union has been 
 made general within the lifetime of many middle-aged men. Besides, 
 the parish rarely overlaps the county boundary, and has been made 
 the primary unit of the union and the petty sessional division. 
 
 I do not wish to undervalue the arguments, whether of utility or 
 of sentiment, which may be alleged in favour of the parish ; but I 
 think that the arguments against its adoption have much greater 
 weight. In the iirst place, the parish for poor law purposes — the 
 parish which we should have to adopt as the primary area for local 
 administration — is not always the same thing with the ecclesiastical, 
 the civil, or the highway parish. In the next place, many parishes 
 are so very small, or so very thinly peopled, that they could not 
 furnish enough men willing and able to undertake the charge of local 
 affairs, or enough work to engage the serious attention of such men. 
 Other parishes are larger than a primary area should be. In the 
 process of grouping the small and breaking up the large parishes, 
 much of the advantage which the parish derives from sentiment would 
 be lost. Moreover, parishes now intersected by the boundaries of a 
 borough or of an urban district would have to be remodelled. Then 
 the vestry must be reorganised, and new parish officers must be 
 appointed. At the same time the existing organisation of unions 
 and of highway districts must be dissolved. Asrain, experience has
 
 24 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION 
 
 conclusively shown that for poor relief an area much larger than 
 the ordinary poor-law parish is absolutely necessary. Taken alto- 
 gether, these objections appear to be conclusive against the adoption 
 of the parish as a primary area. 
 
 We may allow that as a primary area tlie poor-law union is not 
 quite satisfactory. In the year 1834 men were more concerned to 
 assert' its principle than to define its most convenient boundaries. 
 The original limits of the union were often determined by conditions 
 of temporary rather than of lasting expediency. They were modified 
 by local influence, and by the situation of existing workhouses. 
 They have often been rendered obsolete by the shifting of population, 
 or by the prevalence of new modes of communication. In many other 
 instances, the urban district has been rudely carved out of the rural 
 union. But in favour of adopting the union as the primary area, we 
 may allege that it has been constituted within the last fifty years 
 for a definite purpose of local administration ; that this purpose was 
 one which, above all others, required a convenient area and a vigorous 
 governing body ; that the unions were mapped out by one central 
 authority, presumably acting upon a single principle of utility, and 
 that no general complaint has been made in respect either of the size 
 or of the arrangement of the unions. The union already enjoys a 
 representative constitution ; a constitution with the capacity for 
 improvement. It has intelligent and experienced officers. It is 
 accustomed to control and audit by a central authority. In places 
 where there is no school board, the board of guardians is the authority 
 for purposes of primary education. It acts as the rural sanitary 
 authority. And it may be said that in choosing the board of guardians 
 to discharge these duties Parliament has committed itself to the prin- 
 ciple of the union. On the whole, therefore, the union seems best 
 fitted to answer the requirements of a primary area for purposes of 
 local administration. We have next to consider what change in the 
 constitution of Local Government its adoption for this end would 
 involve. 
 
 Firstly, as regards the unions now in existence, some 180 of these 
 extend into more than one county. If the larger area is to be an 
 exact multiple or aggregate of the smaller area, such unions must be 
 broken up. The parts contained in different counties must be respec- 
 tively merged in some other union belonging to the same county, or 
 erected into independent unions, if their size and importance so 
 require. There is no reason to suppose that the execution of this 
 plan would be attended with any grave practical difficulty. The 
 machinery which it requires has been supplied by the legislation of 
 1875 and 1879. And in the great majority of such unions the parts 
 lying in a different county from that which contains the bulk of the 
 union have a population of less, and often much less, than 2,000 
 souls. Single cases might arise in which disturbance would be really
 
 IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 25 
 
 inconvenient ; but these would furnish no valid argument against a 
 general endeavour to simplify areas. The County Board, with its 
 local knowledge, could advantageously assist in these adjustments. 
 
 Secondly, as regards boroughs and local board districts. These 
 would continue to exist under the new order of things. But every 
 borough and every local board district should be constituted a separate 
 union. The local board districts which are too small to be safe or 
 efficient primary areas for the principal purposes of local adminis- 
 tration would have to be amalgamated with neighbouring districts. 
 There are a few important places, such as Birmingham, Liverpool, 
 &c., which will require to be specially dealt with in any plan pro- 
 posed. I am well aware that this change involves much more than 
 a temporary disturbance of local arrangements. For pauperism is 
 not evenly distributed between town and country ; and if we sever 
 them for the administration of poor relief we raise grave problems 
 respecting the incidence of the poor rate. But it is better to reserve 
 the examination of these problems until we come to discuss the ap- 
 portionment of the tasks of Local Government and the reorganisation 
 of local finance. We may then be able to suggest a distribution of 
 the burthen of poor relief fairer and more economical than is possible 
 under our present system. 
 
 If the borough and the local board district were constituted as 
 separate unions, all the remaining areas of local administration smaller 
 than the county might be abolished, subject to certain reservations 
 in the case of the parish. The highway district, the burial district, 
 and the Improvement Act district would be altogether superfluous. 
 In every union other than a borough or local board district, we 
 should have to appoint a local board. In this way each county would 
 be completely divided into boroughs and local board districts. The 
 total number of such districts in each county would vary, but may be 
 estimated at an average of thirty. In every place there would then 
 be one and the same simple area for all the primary purposes of Local 
 Government ; and in this area one and only one authority, tlie 
 council in a borough, and in every other union the local council, 
 under whatever name, would have the power to tax and the power to 
 spend. In order to attain this great result we need not constitute 
 any new area. 
 
 In the reformed primary authority would vest all the powers now 
 exercised by the authorities which would then be consolidated or 
 superseded — that is to say, all the powers of the overseers, of the 
 board of guardians, the local board, the school board, the highway 
 board, and the burial board, as well as all the powers now conferred 
 on various local authorities by the Lighting and Watching Act, the 
 Acts passed to encourage the establishment of public baths and 
 wash-houses and free libraries, and other Acts of a similar nature. 
 Inasmuch as the borough would then be the union also, and the
 
 26 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION 
 
 borough would have to bear all the burthen of its own pauperism, it 
 might prove advisable to transfer the administration of indoor relief 
 to the County Board ; and reasons of finance point in the same direc- 
 tion ; but these come to be considered at a later stage of our inquiry. 
 For the present we shall return to the new local council. Charged 
 with such a variety of functions, it would exert more power, and 
 therefore enjoy more dignity than any of the other bodies which it 
 had replaced. As compared with the present type of local board, 
 some increase in its numbers and a partition of its various duties 
 between district committees might be needful. But the detailed 
 organisation of each committee, the scope of action to be assigned to 
 each, and the degree of independence which it ought to enjoy, could 
 only be determined by careful consideration, and unfolded in a 
 methodic scheme. Our business at present is not to frame a complex 
 theory, or to anticipate the details of legislation, but rather broadly 
 to suggest those innovations which events have shown to be necessary 
 and which may recommend themselves to the plain good sense of 
 every Englishman. 
 
 The constitution of this primary authority, as well as of the new 
 County Board, is a much more delicate matter. We shall have got 
 rid of the multitude of elections, the variety of modes of voting, and 
 the different degrees of voting power. Every man who would be 
 qualified to vote should also be capable of election. Members of 
 local boards and town councils should have their term of office pro- 
 longed. A four years' term might not be too much, but if it were 
 adopted, half the members, in whatever mode elected, should go out 
 every second year. Lastly, the voting power of those who own 
 property should be made less invidious in form and more certain in 
 operation. For those financial reforms, of which we shall speak 
 hereafter, will bring personal as well as real property, the owner as 
 well as the occupier, within the range of direct local taxation. 
 Property may with justice claim to be much more largely represented 
 in the local than in the Imperial Parliament. I would not be 
 understood to say that every Englishman has not a very heavy stake 
 in the efficiency of local administration, or that the occupying rate- 
 payers should not take the largest share in the election of local 
 authorities. I would only observe that a great deal of the work done 
 by these authorities, that part of their work on which they expend 
 the largest sums, is very much in the nature of the management of 
 property. In the old times, when a man built a house he sunk his 
 own well and his own cesspool; nowadays the community brings 
 water to his very door and carries off his sewage in the common 
 sewer. Those who have the benefit of this work should pay for it, 
 should know what they pay, and should be taught to understand 
 and take an interest in the mode of doing it. The distinction which 
 I have endeavoured to express is not merely theoretical. Our
 
 m ENGLAND AND WALES. 27 
 
 constitution recognises the fact that the Imperial Parliament is 
 principally concerned with legislation, and the local Parliament with 
 administration, including the management of property. For while 
 members of Parliament are, or soon will be, elected everywhere by 
 household suffrage alone, in many local elections we have the plural 
 vote ; ex officio members sit upon the board of guardians, and the 
 county government has been left altogether in the hands of the 
 magistrates. 
 
 Few persons will affirm that these arrangements are satisfactory. 
 But if both the taxation and the representation of property were 
 made more direct and systematic, the one would be more economical, 
 the other more effective, and both more just than they are now. 
 Then the owners of property might reasonably claim to elect a certain 
 proportion of members of the local board. Already owners can claim 
 in the election of guardians and of local boards a voting power up to 
 a certain point proportioned to their property. 
 
 Thus far we have discussed the primary area and the primary 
 authority. We may assume that for some purposes of local adminis- 
 tration a more extensive area and an authority invested with larger 
 powers are also requisite. Such an area we have in the county. 
 But the constitution and functions of the county government are 
 matter of discussion. The late Grovernment proposed, and the present 
 Grovernment stands pledged to introduce a measure foi* the establish- 
 ment of representative County Boards. In this place, therefore, I 
 may be permitted to remind the public of those wants which the new 
 County Boards are intended to supply, and to give some slight 
 indication of the duties which they may have to fulfil. 
 
 The establishment of County Boards has been demanded on two 
 distinct grounds. The farmers and ratepayers claim that a body 
 wholly nominated by the Crown, and in substance drawn from a single 
 class, shall no longer administer the affairs of the county. The general 
 public desires the creation of a body intermediate between the primary 
 local authorities and the Imperial Grovernment, authorised to deal 
 with all matters in which those authorities have common or con- 
 flicting interests, and able to discharge at least part of that task of 
 control and supervision which now belongs to the Local Grovernment 
 Board, perhaps even some of the duties of Parliament in respect to 
 Private Bills. 
 
 The requirements of the farmers and ratepayers might be met by 
 associating a certain number of elected guardians, or of members of 
 town councils and local boards, with the county j iistices when they 
 sit in special or quarter sessions for administrative purposes. But 
 the needs of the public at large can only be met by adopting some 
 more thoroughly representative scheme of county government, and 
 in the years 1877 and 1878 Parliament accepted at least the prin- 
 ciple of elective County Boards. Whether or no these boards will
 
 28 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION 
 
 have enough work to employ their time and attention, will depend 
 very much on their relation to the rest of our Local Government. 
 
 If Parliament were merely to establish County Boards without 
 taking any steps towards a general reorganisation of Local Govern- 
 ment, County Boards would find very little to do. The County Board, 
 if it is to be real, should take over all the administrative work of 
 the quarter sessions. It should control and direct the valuation of 
 property, not only for the purpose of levying the future county rate, 
 but also for the purpose of all rates and contributions. We shall see 
 hereafter that our local finance cannot be placed on a proper footing, 
 unless we establish a single universal valuation and consolidate the 
 numerous rates now levied. For reasons already hinted at, the 
 County Board should take charge of the workhouses, and administer 
 indoor relief. To it should belong the management of asylums and 
 the maintenance of the county buildings. It should have the re- 
 sponsibility of granting licences to sell intoxicating liquors. The 
 county bridges and such highways as are not intrusted to the inferior 
 local authorities would naturally be under its care. It should exer- 
 cise powers of approving, and in some degree controlling, the annual 
 budgets of these authorities. It might watch and occasionally inter- 
 vene in inquiries and legislation affecting watersheds, drainage, and 
 rivers. Time and the changes of things would continually bring 
 increasing business to the County Boards. And if the above sugges- 
 tions are not wholly misleading, the County Board will not want 
 work to do. 
 
 If, for the moment, we accept the above as a rude outline of the 
 functions of the County Board, what may we infer as to its proper 
 constitution ? Here there is room for a great variety of opinion. 
 But it seems the opinion of most of those who have proposed plans 
 dealing with the subject, that the justices should elect some members 
 of the County Board, although not necessarily out of their own body. 
 Such members may be regarded as the special representatives of 
 property. The remaining members would be elected by the general 
 body of the ratepayers. On this point there has been much contro- 
 versy between the partisans of direct and of indirect election. The 
 indirect method is the less troublesome and expensive, and may be 
 supposed to guarantee that the electors are themselves qualified to 
 judge of the candidates. But the body finally elected on this method 
 might represent too exclusively the majority of the intermediate 
 electing body. Direct election would secure us against this danger. 
 Yet, if the Coimty Board were chosen on the direct method, the 
 local board or town council would lose in dignity. For, in that case, 
 those who aspired to sit on the County Board would not be obliged 
 to pass through the board of inferior rank. And since it is equally 
 important to give a thoroughly representative character to our 
 County Boards, and to secure for our local administration, as well in
 
 IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 29 
 
 its lower as in its higher stages, the service of our most competent 
 citizens, we might well accept a compromise between the direct and 
 indirect methods of election. One-third of the members of the 
 County Board might be chosen by the justices and two- thirds by the 
 ratepayers. Of the members representing the ratepayers, half might 
 be chosen by the direct and half by the indirect method. How many 
 members the County Board should contain must be determined 
 separately for each county. For what space of time members 
 should retain their seats is a detail which must be left to the legis- 
 lator. I do not profess to do more than to suggest topics for the 
 consideration of those who are interested in the subject of this 
 article. 
 
 Thus far I have dwelt upon the reform of areas and authorities. 
 The changes above recommended would all tend, I believe, to secure 
 the simplicity and unity of our local administration. Simplicity 
 and unity will bring strength, and strength will be attended by 
 dignity. The management of local affairs would then offer more 
 attractions to men of ability and public spirit, and the labours of 
 such men would be turned to the best advantage. In one word, we 
 should have a thoroughly competent local administration. And in 
 its competence we have the best, the only good security against that 
 centralised administration so frequently censured by public men and 
 developing so rapidly in spite of their censure. Anummense work 
 of government has to be done. If the local authority cannot or will 
 not do it well, why then the Imperial authority is inevitably called 
 in to do it. This is the history of the growth of centralisation in 
 this country. But if our local administration were once placed on 
 its proper footing, the tendency of things would be in the opposite 
 and more natural direction. The local bodies might then relieve 
 the departments of State, perhaps even the Imperial Parliament 
 itself, from some of the labours which they are least fitted to perform 
 with advantage. We should then have decentralised administration, 
 and we should have done something to decentralise national life. 
 We should have done what in us lay to enrich and invigorate the 
 life of the provinces, to check the absorption into our vast capital of 
 almost everybody who enjoys the blessings of education and inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 It now remains to speak of local finance, and if I am obliged to 
 speak of it at some length, the importance of the subject must be my 
 excuse. Without a sound system of finance, good government, local 
 or Imperial, cannot be obtained. I have had to insist often heretofore, 
 I shall often hereafter have to insist upon the wastefulness of our local 
 finance as it now stands. But I would not have my readers conceive 
 me as advocating a stingy or cheeseparing local administration. To 
 spend great sums on great objects is often the truest and best economy. 
 On some departments of Local Government we can hardly spend too
 
 t30 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION 
 
 much so long as we spend wisely. We should grudge nothing necessary 
 to insure the health and education of our people. But at present we are 
 burthened with heavy impositions, yet find it hard to know what we get 
 in return. We put up with a condition of local finance which violates 
 all the fundamental rules of public and private economy. Many autho- 
 rities have power to institute valuations, to tax and to spend. Each of 
 these authorities has its own system of accounts, and may have its 
 own machinery of collection. The returns are not brought down to 
 date. They do not enable the ordinary reader to grasp the details of 
 the subject. The assessment of rates on real, to the exclusion 
 of personal property, and on occupiers rather than owners, is an acci- 
 dental result of judicial legislation or interpretation, and is in itself 
 inexpedient and unjust. The cost and the benefit of improvements 
 are not always distributed in due proportion. Finally, the relief 
 afforded by the Imperial to the local exchequer is given in such a 
 way as rather to stimulate local extravagance than to lighten local 
 burthens. 
 
 The changes which we have above suggested will free us from 
 some of these evils. If there were in each district only one primary 
 authority, then there would be in each district only one machinery 
 for collecting the rates, only one system of accounts to keep, and only 
 one valuation. This valuation might be made by the primary 
 authority, under the supervision of the County Board. The many 
 local rates now levied should as far as possible be consolidated into a 
 single rate. We saw in the former article that the general district 
 rate, the rate levied by the local boards now in existence, is assessed 
 on the principle of exempting railways, canals, and agricultural land 
 to the extent of three-fourths of their value, whilst the poor rate and 
 the remaining rates are levied upon the full value of all real property. 
 It might, therefore, prove most equitable, and would certainly 
 occasion the least disturbance, to divide the consolidated rate into 
 two parts, the one to be levied on the same basis as the poor rate, the 
 other on the same basis as the district rate. And in this way the 
 reform of local finance might be carried out, yet leave unaffected the 
 parliamentary and municipal franchises, which are based upon pay- 
 ment of the poor rate. These changes w^ould la}^ the foundations of 
 a simple and intelligible system of local finance. Once it had become 
 simple and intelligible, it would be open to criticism by the general 
 public ; and what we have next to suggest are the means of making 
 this criticism as easy as possible. 
 
 It would be most desirable that both the local authority and the 
 County Board should cause to be prepared, at a fixed period, full 
 estimates of expenditure for each year. The estimates prepared for the 
 local authority should be submitted for the approval as well of the Count}^ 
 Board as of the Local Government Board. The estimates prepared for 
 the County Board should likewise be communicated to the Local
 
 IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 31 
 
 Government Board and to the various local authorities within the 
 county. After they had undergone a scrutiny and correction of their 
 kind, and had been finally approved, copies of the estimates both for 
 the local authority and for the County Board should be kept at their 
 respective offices, to be freely inspected by anyone interested in the 
 rate levied under such estimates. Nothing could contribute more to 
 a frugal husbandry of the public wealth than some system such as 
 this, enabling every ratepayer to see at a glance how much he paid 
 and what he was supposed to receive in return. For in local as well 
 as in Imperial finance there will always be extravagance where there 
 is no publicity. Once exempted from general criticism, a representa- 
 tive government can be more wasteful, not to say more corrupt, than 
 a despotism. As matters now stand, there is in local finance no 
 sufficient publicity and no efficient criticism. Information can only 
 be obtained by those who are willing to work their way through vast 
 masses of confused and shapeless material. Few have the leisure, 
 still fewer have the patience, to undertake a labour like this. Busy 
 as we are with our private concerns, we cannot spare time to supervise 
 our rulers under such difficulties. The reformer's first duty is to 
 make it easy for the local opinion to act upon those who raise and 
 spend the local revenue. 
 
 This plan of an annual budget of local expenditure, brought for- 
 ward and discussed at a fixed period of the year, is so ioiportant a part 
 of any orderly and efficient system of Local Grovernment, that I shall 
 be excused if I enlarge a little further on it. The local council, 
 whether of district or county, should receive from its committees the 
 estimates of their financial wants for the coming year, on, say, the 30th 
 of September, and publish them ; but the estimates should not come 
 into effect for three months, say until the 1st of January; and in the 
 meantime they would be discussed, and objections to them, if any, by 
 ratepayers, County Board, or Local Government Board, would be 
 considered. The consideration of finance would bring with it the 
 consideration of past policy, and of any instructions to be given to the 
 committees, or rules laid down for their guidance in the coming year. 
 The annual debates on these topics would naturally attract public 
 attention, and ensure public vigilance such as cannot now attach 
 to the multifarious action of innumerable authorities, and their 
 generally uninteresting and unreported debates. The effect of such 
 publicity and provision for due consideration is shown by experience 
 to be so great as to make quite unnecessary the amount of inter- 
 ference on the part of the central power which we labour under now. 
 Sir Charles Dilke's recent speeches in Chelsea show that the new 
 President of the Local Government Board is fully alive to the im- 
 portance of securing efficiency by publicity rather than central 
 interference. 
 
 If these debates on local budgets were supplemented by an annual
 
 32 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION 
 
 debate in Parliament on the vote for contributions towards local 
 expenditure, separate from that on the general budget, we should 
 have further security against abuse and aid to improvement ; for the 
 President of the Local Government Board might then point out for 
 imitation improvements made in the best managed local districts, or 
 hold up abuses for condemnation, thus showing how dangers may be 
 avoided, or progress secured. 
 
 But it is not only of heavy taxation and profuse expenditure that 
 the ratepayer may justly complain. The present incidence of local 
 burthens rests on no principle of equity. Some of the principles on 
 which it should be readjusted are not far to seek. I would offer the 
 following suggestions as to the best way of mitigating this hard- 
 ship : 
 
 (1) Personal as well as real property should be made to contribute 
 to the expenses of Local Grovernment. 
 
 (2) Owners as well as occupiers should be made to contribute 
 directly to the rates. 
 
 (3) Those who are specially benefited by certain local improve- 
 ments should also be charged in a special manner with their cost. 
 
 Let us examine these recommendations one by one. 
 
 (1) We may assume it to be fair that personal as well as real 
 property should contribute to the expenses of Local Grovernment. 
 How, then, is this to be effected? Neither political economists nor 
 men of business would consent to give to our local authorities any 
 power of indirect taxation. But the income-tax is derived from 
 every description of property, and by charging upon the income-tax 
 whatever sums the Imperial granted in aid of the local treasury, 
 we should relieve the pressure of rates upon real property. This 
 relief, however, would not be adequate, unless the sums so granted 
 were much larger than at present. Here we encounter in a more 
 alarming form the difficulty already alluded to — I mean the difficulty 
 of supplementing local revenue, without encouraging local extra- 
 vagance. Merely to assign for local purposes a branch of the Imperial 
 revenue does no good. It should be so assigned as not to impair the 
 motives to thrifty local administration. We shall hereafter have to 
 consider the best means of attaining this end. 
 
 (2) Next to adjusting the balance of taxation as between real 
 and personal property, it is desirable to adjust that balance as 
 between owners and occupiers. We have seen that in the present 
 state of affairs the owner has over the occupier always an appa- 
 rent and sometimes a real advantage. We have also seen that the 
 owner in the end suffers for having this advantage ; that it pre- 
 vents him from discerning how great is his stake in the proper 
 administration of local affairs ; and thus emboldens him to neglect 
 his duty in the public service. Such a neglect on the part of those 
 who enjoy more wealth and leisure than almost any other class is as
 
 IN ENGLAND AND WALES. 33 
 
 dangerous as it is discreditable. The proposal to divide the pay- 
 ment of rates between owners and occupiers is a truly conservative 
 one. It has been recommended by two committees of the House 
 of Commons in two successive Parliaments : in a Liberal Parliament 
 for England in 1870, in a Conservative Parliament for Ireland in 
 1878, and has already been made by Mr. G-oschen in his Bill of 1871. 
 A proposal founded on the same principle was made as far back as 
 the year 1843, in a report of the Poor Law Commissioners upon 
 Local Taxation, signed by Sir Greorge Nicolls, Sir Greorge Cornewall 
 Lewis, and Sir Edmund Walker Head. In that report the Commis- 
 sioners express themselves as follows : ' Then also the right of the 
 landlord to a superior share of power in vestry and in the election of 
 guardians, to protect himself from injustice in the imposition and 
 from mismanagement in the administration of the taxes, to which he 
 would then be seen to be the sole* contributor, would not be viewed 
 with the present jealousy, if indeed it were at all contested. This 
 result would be not only valuable for the sake of the abstract fairness 
 of giving protection to those whose interests are really involved, but 
 would be equally desirable for the sake of those classes who, though 
 not interested as taxpayers, are otherwise deeply interested in the 
 proper administration of the laws ; for perhaps the greatest abuses 
 which ever prevailed in the administration of the poor laws arose 
 from this fact that the tax fell, and that it was foun^ out by the 
 occupiers that it did fall upon the landlords, while the administration, 
 expenditure, and appropriation of the tax was given exclusively to 
 the occupiers, who did not really bear the burthen.' 
 
 Landowners assert that the rates levied on agricultural land are 
 in a large degree ultimately paid by the owner. Therefore it is for 
 the interest of the owner that he should be seen to pay what he really 
 does pay. It is for his interest that the rise and fall of rates should 
 come home directly to him. It is for his interest that the local 
 bodies should not burthen the land with heavy debts, perhaps not 
 discharged for generations. And it above all concerns him to be 
 roused out of that apathy with which he too often views the adminis- 
 tration of local affairs. 
 
 Some caution would be needed, however, in applying this prin- 
 ciple to existing tenancies. In the case of tenancies for long terms, 
 which commenced before the great increase in rates consequent upon 
 the Acts dealing with public health and elementary education, where 
 the rents were not fixed in contemplation of the recent and heavy 
 
 * Great as is the authority of Sir George Cornewall Lewis and his fellow Commis- 
 sioners of 1843, I think few would now contend that the owner is the sole contributor 
 towards local taxation. Permanent debt he no doubt bears ; but expenditure made 
 and discharged during the continuance of a lease, and even where there is no lease, 
 expenditure caused by temporary distress falls, and falls most unjustly and most 
 cruelly, upon the tenant.
 
 34 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION 
 
 burthens imposed upon real property, it seems unjust that the 
 occupier should continue to bear alone the entire weight of such new 
 burthens. In the case of recent leases entered into by both parties 
 with a full knowledge of these impositions, it seems no less unjust 
 that the owner should at once be charged with half the rates. Again, 
 if a half of the rates were at once thrown on the owner, a general 
 termination of tenancies from year to year, and a rise of rents corre- 
 sponding to the added burthens of the owner, might ensue. Justice 
 and expediency seem to demand a compromise. Thus it might be 
 practicable to arrange that in the case of existing tenancies the 
 owner should be charged immediately with one-fourth only of the 
 rate, and not with the other fourth until the expiration of ten years, 
 or of some similar period. 
 
 (3) In the third place, those who are specially benefited by local 
 improvements should also be charged in a special manner with their 
 cost. 
 
 To a great extent the expenses of gas and water supply are already 
 met, not by a rate in the strict sense of the term, but by a charge on 
 those who consume them. The principle already applied to gas and 
 water supply should be applied thereto on a larger scale, and should 
 be further applied to the making and maintaining of sewers where 
 undertaken by the local authority. The principle of making people 
 pay in proportion to the benefit received seems fairer than the prin- 
 ciple of special districts, which must be arbitrarily formed and may 
 become the means of doing great injustice. If it were adopted, works 
 of the class above named could be carried out in places where they 
 would be otherwise impracticable. For instance, a better supply of 
 water to a village is felt to be necessary. The requisite measures are 
 opposed by persons who reside in the same area, but at such a distance 
 that they can reap no benefit. Their opposition would cease at once 
 if the principle of payment for benefits received were adopted. It 
 would provide for a portion of local expenditure already amounting 
 to several millions a year, and always on the increase. It could not, 
 indeed, be applied to the annual charge for existing water or sewerage 
 works, in so far as this charge represents the cost of construction and 
 not the cost of maintenance and supply. For the cost of construction 
 cannot fairly be shifted to the consumer from the ratepayer without 
 the consumer's consent. But this exception would merely make it 
 necessary to state in the demand note under a separate head the 
 charge in respect of capital. 
 
 Thus far I have spoken of the best methods of rectifying the 
 incidence of local taxation; but if the grants from the Imperial 
 Treasury are to be continued and increased, we must also consider 
 how best to do this without encouraging extravagance. Several 
 expedients might be suggested ; here I shall only touch on one or 
 two.
 
 IN ENGLAND AND WALES, 35 
 
 The State might contribute to the charge of indoor as opposed to 
 outdoor relief of the poor. Everj^one will allow that of all modes of 
 local expenditure, the administration of outdoor relief is the most 
 open to abuse, and that its abuse is most mischievous and demoralis- 
 ing ; yet a false economy often induces the guardians of the poor to 
 prefer granting outdoor rather than indoor relief. Criticism and cen- 
 sure have not finally repressed this tendency to corrupt the public at 
 the public expense. For waste of local revenue is by no means the 
 worst consequence of injudicious outdoor relief; such relief encourages 
 the indolent and improvident. It induces many to remain as hope- 
 less paupers in their old homes, instead of going to other places where 
 they could find employment. It is unfair to the independent poor, 
 because it exposes them to the competition of those who live partly 
 upon the rates and partly upon their own miserable earnings. On the 
 other hand, a wise economy in outdoor relief has accomplished won- 
 ders. Sir Baldwyn Leighton has shown how the exercise of such 
 economy in the Atcham Union reduced the number of outdoor paupers 
 from 1,195 in 1834 to 139 in 1870, and reduced the expenditure on 
 poor relief from £9,800 for the year 1837 to £4,200 for the year 
 1868. At the present time the proportion of paupers to population 
 in the Atcham Union is only one- third of the average proportion else- 
 where. And the same excellent authority computes that a like 
 economy followed by boards of guardians throughout the kingdom 
 would effect a saving of from £2,000,000 to £3,000,000 a year. 
 Since, therefore, a strict administration of outdoor relief is on every 
 ground desirable, each union should be left to bear the entire expense 
 of outdoor relief. But outdoor relief and indoor relief stand on a dif- 
 ferent footing. There is not the same risk of abuse with indoor relief. 
 A well-managed workhouse is from its very order, discipline, and work 
 for the able-bodied, distasteful to the idle and dissolute, and the good 
 management or otherwise is at once revealed to an experienced eye 
 by a few simple tests. And the State can contribute to the expense 
 of indoor relief without encouraging the guardians to extravagance. 
 An imperial capitation grant for every person receiving indoor relief, 
 less than the smallest sum sufficient for his proper maintenance, but 
 sufficient to do away with the delusive apparent economy of outdoor 
 relief, would not be open to exception.* It would not weaken the 
 motives to a thrifty management of the union. Every saving which 
 the local authority could effect would still be felt by the ratepayers. 
 And the local authority would be more disposed than at present to 
 apply the workhouse test where on sound principles it was desirable 
 to do so. 
 
 If the Imperial Grovernment thought proper to assist the local 
 
 ^ If the maintenance of an indoor pauper is calculated at 3s. Qd. per head, a grant
 
 36 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION \ 
 
 authority to any further extent, it might contribute to the payment 
 of superior officers, such as the clerks to guardians, relieving 
 officers, or masters, matrons and trained nurses in workhouses, and in 
 workhouse hospitals, to the payment of all such officials as require a 
 special training or hold responsible posts. It might give these 
 subsidies on such conditions as would insure the fitness of the public 
 servants whom it paid. But all contributions by the Imperial to the 
 expenses of the Local Grovernment should fulfil the same conditions. 
 Instead of giving facilities for sloth and negligence, they should be 
 the rewards of industry and economy. And I have already hinted 
 that they should be so charged on the Imperial revenue as to 
 lighten the present unfair impositions upon the occupier of real 
 property. 
 
 We may thus sum up briefly the above suggestions for the reform 
 of local finance. The reform of local finance requires that within 
 the limits of each area there should be one and only one taxing and 
 spending authority, only one valuation, one rate, one machinery of 
 collection, one system of keeping accounts and making returns ; one 
 invariable rule in the preparation and publication of estimates. The 
 reform of local finance also requires that grants from the Imperial 
 Treasury should be given on terms which promote local economy, 
 and on condition of good and careful local administration; that' 
 personal property as well as real property should contribute to local 
 expenses ; that the owner as well as the occupier should be directly 
 rated; and that, so far as possible, those who are more especially 
 benefited by the local expenditure should, to some extent, make 
 special contributions to the local revenue. Doubtless, objections 
 may be made in one or two instances to the principle of these 
 changes ; and even those who may accept in every case the principle 
 will continue to differ concerning the details. But none of these 
 changes have been proposed in a spirit of merely wanton innovation ; 
 and it is my sincere belief that all or nearly all will have to be made 
 before we can put our local economy upon the best and soundest 
 footing. 
 
 I may point out that the proposed readjustments of rating and 
 taxation, besides being just in themselves and calculated to promote 
 efficient and economical local administration, are also calculated, if 
 carried out in one complete measure, both to facilitate the passage and 
 to smooth the working of the changes proposed. The proposals will 
 give most substantial relief to agriculturists and other ratepayers, and 
 remove a sense of injustice ; while the owners of real property will 
 be in the end more than compensated for sharing the direct, as they 
 now claim that they bear the indirect, incidence of the rates by 
 having one of the heaviest rating expenditures materially lightened. 
 The necessity of dealing with the Licensing question asserted alike by 
 thft House of Commons and the Grovernment makes it of ffreat im-
 
 IN ENGLAND AND WALJES. 37 
 
 portance that there should be no unnecessary delay in establishing 
 representative bodies to whom the country can with confidence entrust 
 that difficult and delicate duty. The Government clearly realise 
 this when they state that they propose to deal with the Licensing 
 question as a part of Local Government. It is evident that liberal 
 provision should be made for the compensation of any officers who 
 would on a simpler system be no longer required, but this would 
 substitute a temporary expenditure for a permanent and growing- 
 outlay. 
 
 During many years the vices of our Local Government have 
 wasted the resources and enfeebled the political life of our country. 
 Silently and steadily they have grown and have become almost 
 inveterate. But at last those who have long anxiously laboured to 
 interest the public in the reform of Local Government may hope to 
 see that reform undertaken by a Cabinet which all allow to possess 
 great administrative ability and courage, and by a Prime Minister 
 able to make clear and interesting to everybody all the financial and 
 political bearings of questions the driest and most intricate. The 
 satisfaction which this prospect inspires is not confined solely to the 
 friends of the Government. Feeling the intricacy of the question, 
 more than one Conservative has expressed the wish that Mr. Glad- 
 stone would employ his great abilities at once in reforming our 
 Local Government and in placing our taxation. Imperial as well as 
 local, on a just and sound footing. These tasks are closely connected 
 the one with the other ; both are of extreme difficulty, and that both 
 should be satisfactorily performed must be the anxious desire of all 
 parties and of all classes. 
 
 Since all political parties wish to see the question of Local 
 Government settled, it would be wise and patriotic on the part of all 
 to join in its settlement. Conservatives, no less than Liberals, might 
 well take an active part in the work of restoring life, strength, and 
 dignity to that local self-government, which has been at once the 
 basis of our English liberty and our defence against disorder and 
 excess. A strong and efficient self-government, together with a just 
 system of local and Imperial taxation, is probably the strongest and 
 most defensible bulwark against a violent or aggressive democracy. 
 It would bring that class which enjoys most wealth and leisure to 
 unite with other classes in performing their fair share of public duty. 
 In this way, the only way now possible, it would preserve to them 
 a large share of the power and pre-eminence which they have hitherto 
 enjoyed. It would secure to every class as much of the leadership as 
 that class deserved, which is all that any class can retain in an age of 
 democracy. That he and his Government should achieve this double 
 task would indeed be to Mr. Gladstone the glorious crown of a 
 glorious life. 
 I may be pardoned foj: reneatino- that th^ sno-Q'Pisf.inns nflpArprl fn
 
 38 LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND TAXATION. 
 
 the public in this article make no claim to originality. On the con- 
 trary, their merit, if they have any, lies in this, that they are the 
 outcome of the labours of many men who had nothing in common, 
 save that they were reformers of Local Grovernment and local taxa- 
 tion, of men belonging to all parties and of the most varied expe- 
 rience. Mr. Groschen pointed out the principles advocated, and Mr. 
 Stansfeld laid the foundation of the simplification of areas and of 
 governing bodies ; while many leading Conservatives have declared 
 the importance of the reforms which Mr. Whitbread and I have urged, 
 and, in this article, I venture to press on the acceptance of the Grovern- 
 ment and Parliament. Many of these suggestions, again, are due to 
 the chairmen and officers of boards of guardians and other local 
 bodies, who have rendered to the country services invaluable, although 
 too often unappreciated. Nor are these suggestions derived merely 
 from theory. They are founded in some instances on the recommen- 
 dation of Committees of the House of Commons, or of responsible 
 statesmen, but oftener on successful experience in branches of Local 
 Grovernment of the United Kingdom. The proposal that each local 
 authority should prepare an annual budget of expenditure is an 
 exception. But a similar rule has long since been enforced with the 
 best results among the Dutch, who much resemble our people both 
 in general character and in fondness for local self-government. In 
 Holland they have made their system of Local Grovernment strong, 
 simple, and efficient. Consequently, it gives great satisfaction to 
 those who live under it, which is more than can yet be said of ours. 
 
 How much the task of attempting the reform of Local Govern- 
 ment has been lightened by the labours of Mr. K. S. Wright, will be 
 understood by those who have studied his memoranda on the subject. 
 Thorough in research, unsurpassed in legal and political acuteness, 
 admirably clear and concise in expression, these papers have enabled 
 any ordinary reader to understand in a day what, without them, 
 only the ablest inquirer could have learnt by years of laborious 
 investigation. Indeed, some such exhaustive analysis ought to have 
 preceded all attempts to meet by fresh enactments the ever-increasing 
 demands of modern civilisation. 
 
 I cannot conclude without acknowledging the valuable assistance 
 which I have received from my friend, Mr. F. C. Montague, in the 
 preparation of this and the previous article. 
 
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