Pr 
eface 
X1i1 
when the scandal had already been unearthed by local 
public spirit, and when publicity was all that was 
required to cause it to be speedily abated. 
The Home Office yoke has been light, partly, per- 
haps, because it cannot graduate the penalty accord- 
ing to the supposed offence, but must exact the full 
fine of half the cost of pay and clothing or nothing. 
A much stronger and more important example of the 
so-called “efficiency” grant is to be found in the 
financial arrangements providing for education. Here 
there is no question of giving or withholding the whole 
of the State’s contribution; the grants are made piece- 
meal, so that one portion can be withdrawn when the 
inspector is dissatisfied with one detail and another 
when he is dissatisfied with another. This makes the 
control far more powerful, and the power it gives has 
Leen ruthlessly exercised. According to the theory 
which I am criticising, education ought to be the best 
of all our services, and it ought to be better in Eng- 
land than anywhere else in the world. It is not usually 
regarded as such. Capable local administrators may 
well think twice before accepting an apparent relief 
of local rates which is likely to be coupled with an 
extension to other departments of a control like that 
wielded by the inspectors and secretaries who exercise 
the powers of the Board of Education. 
I have not thought it necessary to follow the current 
fashion of appending a bibliography or even a list of 
authorities. The footnotes are sufficient to put the 
reader on the track of further information when he 
requires it. But it may perhaps be useful to say here 
that Dr. J. Watson Grice’s recent work, National and 
Local Finance, contains a fuller history of the subject