Preface 
1X 
the grant is made is “efficient.” By this expedient 
the citizen delivers himself bound hand and foot into 
the custody of the official expert, who is able, by 
declining to regard the service as efficient, to compel 
him to raise more money in rates under penalty of 
“losing the grant.” It is seldom that we meet an 
expert who does not think that more money ought to 
be spent in his own particular department: the local 
authority or the individual ratepayer who hopes for 
a reduction of rates from “efficiency grants” is only 
to be likened to the proverbial donkey induced to 
proceed by a wisp of hay hung in front of his nose. 
“ What matter,” some will say, * if rates and taxes 
increase, provided efficiency is obtained 2” Of course 
if efficiency is to be judged simply by amount expended, 
this plan of giving control of the purse to experts in 
each department is an excellent one. But if it is to 
be measured by more reasonable standards, we may 
well doubt. The means of the community are limited, 
and a certain proportion between the different kinds 
of expense, both public and private, must be observed 
in order to make these limited means go as far as 
possible. There is nothing in the scheme to provide 
for this requirement, and if we suppose the difficulty 
to be got over by the establishment of real parlia- 
mentary control of expenditure, we have still to prove 
that the rule of the experts will be beneficent in each 
of the departments taken separately. 
Doubtless expert opinion is exceedingly valuable,and 
nothing can be more desirable than that the national 
government should maintain an adequate force of 
inspectors, drawn from various classes and trained in 
various institutions, and that these inspectors should