X1V 
Preface 
of my sixth chapter and a valuable account of the 
corresponding relations between the State and the 
localities in France, Belgium and Prussia. It is to 
be hoped Dr. Grice’s example will be followed by 
other inquirers, so that we may soon have better 
knowledge than at present of the public administra- 
tion of foreign countries. This might, at any rate, 
shake the absurd self-satisfaction which makes us 
pride ourselves that we are not, like the unfortunate 
peoples of continental Europe, governed by a bureau- 
cracy. A few months ago a distinguished continental 
professor, who had been commissioned by his govern- 
ment to inquire into local taxation abroad, assured me 
that he, like others, had been brought up in the belief 
that England was the home of local self-government, 
but that he found that we enjoyed less of it than any 
of the countries he knew. 
EDWIN CANNAN. 
London School of Economics and Political Science. 
January, 1912,