The Economy of Local Rates 207
pinch of high rates, and cheapens it more only as the
pinch of high rates becomes greater and greater.
This seems to be just what is required to encourage
“onerous” expenditure in the localities which have
difficulty in meeting the proper amount and to dis-
courage it in those localities which can raise it so
easily that they are inclined to be too lavish. It is
true that the scheme does not, as a perfect scheme
should, exclude from equalisation differences of rates
arising from the different cost of given quantities of
service in different localities, but we have to strive for
the best possible, not for the absolutely perfect.
A very practical recommendation of the scheme is
to be found in the fact that a given sum of money
will go a great deal further in appeasing discontent
when it is spent in lowering high rates than when it
is spent in aiding large expenditure. This is so
because the highest rates and the largest absolute
expenditure by no means go together. The additional
grant of £3,363 which Lord Balfour of Burleigh gives
to Fylde would scarcely be noticed by the Blackpool
ratepayers, who would get the most of it, whereas the
same sum given to Mildenhall would reduce the rate
there from 269 to 1°7d.! Why should £1,600 a year
more be given to my own union, which is perfectly
able to bear all the expense, and in which nobody
ever complains of the rate for the poor ? The Local
Taxation Commission refrained from collecting any
statistics showing the percentage of expenditure to
rateable or assessable value in the different unions.
! Here and onwards to the end I use for purposes of illustration
the figures given for 1899-1900 in the Appendix to the Final Report
of the Royal Commission on Local Taxation, Cd. 1221, pp. 98-147.