Preface 
be constantly advising and criticising local elected 
authorities both privately and in particular reports 
published in the locality concerned as well as in 
general reports which appear in bulky blue books 
inaccessible to the ordinary citizen. From my own 
experience of ten years service on the council of a 
small county-borough, ending in 1908, I feel sure that 
the activity of the national government might be 
greatly extended in this direction with immense 
advantage. But the same experience convinces me 
that the more the inspectors and the departments 
represented by them have to rely on argument and 
persuasion, and the less they have absolute power of 
control the better is the work likely to be performed. 
Perhaps I may be allowed to give an example of the 
kind of dispute which often occurs between local 
authorities and the experts in Whitehall who write in 
the name of bogus ““ Boards.” During the last great 
epidemic of smallpox it was recognised that the disease 
was gradually creeping from the seat of government 
towards our county-borough and we desired to pfe- 
pare for the onslaught. We proposed to take down 
an already existing iron building which was in an 
unsuitable situation and put it, with an entirely new 
one, in an isolated place to which no objection could 
possibly be taken. The expenditure was obviously 
sapital expenditure, and therefore in the ordinary 
course the council applied to the Local Government 
Board for leave to borrow the sum required, spreading 
repayment over a few years. The official who for this 
purpose personified the Board, however, being an 
expert in building, did not think wood and iron good 
enough for smallpox patients; the iron would rust in