711 
Preface 
forward demands for relief if they realised that 
increase of taxes is not the only probable consequence 
of an immediate relief of rates. The English people 
are said to have bought their liberties—chiefly through 
the municipalities—but if the demand for a transfer- 
ence of expense from the localities to the State is 
successful, they are likely to sell them again, and to 
sell them for a mess of pottage. It is true that the 
Government offices, with perhaps one or two excep- 
lions, are sufficiently intelligent to distrust their own 
capacity to administer the whole of England in detail, 
and honest enough not to wish to do what they know 
they will do badly. But unsought powers may be 
thrust upon them by politicians who despair of moving 
local councils in what they believe to be the proper 
direction either by their arguments or their votes. 
The unofficial bureaucrat is abroad in the land, 
bringing before men’s eyes glowing pictures of a 
country governed by experts who will create efficiency 
in every branch of national life—regardless of expense. 
The New Chadwickianity which is being preached is not 
founded on a crude system of centralisation involving 
the disappearance of the organs of local self-govern 
ment, nor on coercion enforced by reluctant law courts. 
It leaves all the old forms intact and proposes to 
lay no rude hands on the persons of recalcitrant 
councillors. It is founded on the ingenious expedient 
of inducing the nation to allow itself to be taxed to 
supply funds which are to be redistributed between 
She various localities according to general regulations 
laid down by parliament, one of which is that the 
locality must satisfy the inspectors of some Govern- 
ment department that the service in respect of which