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