184 History of Local Rates 
in satisfying demand. He finds his self-interest best 
served when he best satisfies demand. The machinery 
of local government is merely a necessary supplement 
bo his individual effort in this direction. It makes a 
combinationof his interest with that of other proprietors 
in the same locality, and arranges for the joint interest 
being well served by putting the actual management in 
the hands of people who are either the actual de- 
manders, or are one or two degrees nearer them in the 
market than the owners. The local authority in 
waintaining, cleaning, or lighting streets, in creating 
and maintaining trunk sewers and disposing of sewage, 
in removing house refuse and in performing a multi- 
tude of other services is merely engaged in the effort 
to satisfy demand, just as nearly all individuals are in 
the ordinary business by which they make their 
livings. 
No doubt the satisfaction of demand is not the finest 
of all aims, even from a purely economic point of view. 
To attain the economic ideal we should satisfy the 
wants of the people, present and to come, as completely 
as possible, and the satisfaction of demand has 
certainly never yet been coincident with the satisfac- 
tion of wants. But in the absence of any really 
practical means of substituting by some complete 
scheme the direct satisfaction of wants for the satisfac- 
tion of demand, the commonsense of mankind suggests 
the desirability of approximating the satisfaction of 
demand to the satisfaction of wants as far as possible. 
Now at the present time the simplest and most 
effectual means of causing such an approximation 
seems to be found in ‘various measures which take 
away purchasing power from the rich, and give what is