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.