202 
History of Local Rates 
to discover facts which will form a good and sufficient 
guide. The number of children is the most im portant, 
and is actually used at the present time in determining 
the financial relations between the State and the local 
authorities. If would be easy enough for any intelli- 
gent person, with a knowledge of the elementary rules 
of arithmetic and with certain statistics already avail- 
able before him, to draw up a scheme which would 
make the money at present devoted by the national 
government to elementary education really and sub- 
stantially equalisatory by distributing it according to 
the principle which I have just suggested ; it is all a 
matter of detail. Buf the ascertainment of amount 
of service required is usually much more difficult than 
it is in the case of elementary education. 
In regard to the prevention of destitution Lord 
Balfour of Burleigh, with the late Sir Edward Hamilton 
and Sir George Murray, took population as the guide 
in the ascertainment of the cost of the work to be 
done. Every rateable area was in their scheme to 
receive from the State as a primary grant the differ- 
ence between the produce of a 4d. rate and 3s. 6d. per 
head of population.! 
There are, I think, two fatal objections to this plan. 
In the first place the population is not ascertainable ; 
and in the second it is, when ascertained, an untrust- 
worthy guide for the purpose in hand. (1) Censuses 
can only be taken at infrequent intervals, such as 
every ten or five years, so that they are generally 
considerably out of date. When not mixed up with 
pecuniary considerations they are fairly accurate, but 
! Royal Commission on Local Taxation, Appendix to &inul Report, 
i902, Cd. 1221, pp. 205-28.