THE PURITY OF LOCAL ADMINISTRATION. [To TER EDITOR OP TEE
"SPRCTATOR.1
SIE,—May I ask your permission to make a statement on a point raised in your review in the Spectator of April 25th of my "Essay on the Reform of Local Taxation" ? You indicate my answer to the question, What is the first neces- sary step towards reform ? in the following sentence :—" The first step is to simplify (and, we may add, purify) local administration so that a plain, honest man can act as an administrator." Although the use of the parenthesis may indicate with sufficient clearness that the enclosed words are not the author's, still the phrase "plain, honest man" might give rise to the belief that the writer of the essay belonged to the number of those who are at present so loud in their con'• plaints against the mismanagement of local affairs. I there- fore beg you, in the interests of securing a fair judgment to bur local bodies, to give me an opportunity of saying that the facts which have chanced to fall within my own experience entirely prevent me from being in sympathy with the censors .of the general conduct of local government. No doubt there are occurrences on record to which the word "scandal" must be applied. But any general feeling of distrust on the part of the public springs, I firmly believe, from nothing but want of knowledge. Most men are profoundly ignorant re• garding the management of their so-called " self-governmenV and such a state of mind, one knows, is a fertile field for un- easiness and vague suspicion. My own knowledge I admit to be confined—it extends only to the affairs of some ten local bodies—but on the other hand it is intimate, for it is the knowledge acquired at audits where every account and every book was open to inspection, and where explanations could be demanded from Councillors and their officials. In the course of these examinations various illegalities have been detected —tbe law is so complex that there are some things which no one dreams of doing as the statutes direct—but of dishonest things, and even of questionably honest things, I personally have not known an instance. Indeed, my own experience leads me to believe that the more intimately a person
becomes conversant with the workings of local government, the higher will be the opinion he forms of the dutiful- ness of Urban and Rural Councillors. Such, at any rate, has been the direction in which my own opinions have developed. Your reviewer was perfectly correct in the point he seized as the first condition preliminary to reform—namely, a simplification of the administrative frame- work of local government—but all that, in fairness to local Councillors, can be said is, I think, this : If our venerable and historic, but sadly neglected, system of local rating is to be raised to the standard of efficiency attained in other countries, if, for instance, it is to be improved in accordance with the principles of financial justice which an assiduous study of the subject has established in France and Germany, then the imposition of assessments must be made more dis- criminating. Discrimination, however, implies complexity, and the present administrative machine cannot bear the burden of any additional labour. Lord Groschen's phrase, "a chaos of authorities, a chaos of rates, a chaos, worse than all, of areas," is a true description to this day. I ventured to argue that if this accumulation of use- less complexities were cleared away, there would not only be a great fund of energy set free, but that local problems, by being less confused, would become more interesting, and would consequently appeal to the imagina- tion of a wider public. In a country where sell-government is traditional such stimulated public interest could not fail to induce more men of high capacity to devote themselves to local services, and the means would thus be provided of grappling with many difficult problems of taxation which now lie unsettled, although their importance can hardly be exaggerated. This was the argument, without any arriere Pence about improving administrative purity. I might now add the further consideration that a diffusion of knowledge regarding local affairs would also be the best method of destroying the floating suspicions and vague apprehensions which at present exert a most baneful influence in hampering development and progress.—I am, Sir, &c.,
18 Duke Street, Edinburgh. J. Row-F000.
[Our correspondent is quite mistaken if he thinks we meant to bring anything approaching a general charge of corruption against our local bodies. We had no such intention. Our view is, not that these bodies are corrupt, but that unless great care is taken, and unless a high standard prevails, there is danger of them being corrupted.—En. Spectator.]
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