204 History of Local Rates 
important—at any rate, if we look to the future 
rather than the present—is the fact (a) that industries 
are localised by geographical causes, and some 
industries are worse paid than others; and (b) that 
poor people cannot afford to live in the most salubrious 
places. 
Lord Balfour of Burleigh endeavours to allow for 
this want of correspondence between population and 
poverty by giving, in addition fo the difference 
between 4d. in the £ and 3s. 6d. a head, a secondary 
grant of one-third of the actual expenditure over and 
above the 3s. 6d. a head. This seems a very unsatis- 
factory expedient. It enables every locality, whatever 
its needs and powers, when once the low 3s. 6d. limit 
is exceeded, to get for 13s. 4d. what really costs 20s., 
and that is sure to be very uneconomical in all the 
localities where there is no great pinch to counteract 
it. The whole scheme looks much more specious in 
the expositions of Lord Balfour of Burleigh himself 
and that of Sir E. Hamilton and Sir G. Murray than 
it does in the table,! published later, in which its 
actual ‘working is calculated for each union. It is 
somewhat of a shock to see a scheme which is intended 
to be equalisatory reducing the rates of the lowest- 
rated union in England, Fylde, from 3°3d. to 1°9d. 
simply because that union has the good fortune to 
include Blackpool and Lytham. Easter is not much 
of a holiday in Lancashire, but I have no doubt that 
an early Easter in the census year would make an 
enormous difference to the grant obtainable by some 
south coast unions. While the rates of the lowest- 
1 Royal Commission on Local Taxation. Final Report, 1901, 
Cd. 638, pp. 65-90, 132-142.