Lord Northbrook on Monday made at Winchester the most substantial
defence yet offered for the government of the counties by the country gentlemen. He showed that in Hamp- shire, the seventy gentlemen who have really done the work have managed the prisons so well that their plan has been adopted by the Legislature ; have raised and nearly paid off the necessary loans for public buildings ; have managed the lunatic asylums and the highways; and have so administered the finances that while the assessment has been raised from a million in 1843 to two millions in 1884, without a single com- plaint, the total rate has been diminished from 31d. a year to 2d. We may rely upon it, that whatever good the County Councils may secure, they will not emulate this economy. The small ratepayers will not feel the burden, and they will press for fresh "improvements," some of which may be beneficial, but all of which will involve expenditure. A halfpenny rate in Hampshire will pay the interest on £100,000, and the tempta- tion to borrow the money and spend it, will be almost as great as in urban municipalities. This is almost the only point on which we seriously distrust local self-government.
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