204 History of Local Rates
important—at any rate, if we look to the future
rather than the present—is the fact (a) that industries
are localised by geographical causes, and some
industries are worse paid than others; and (b) that
poor people cannot afford to live in the most salubrious
places.
Lord Balfour of Burleigh endeavours to allow for
this want of correspondence between population and
poverty by giving, in addition fo the difference
between 4d. in the £ and 3s. 6d. a head, a secondary
grant of one-third of the actual expenditure over and
above the 3s. 6d. a head. This seems a very unsatis-
factory expedient. It enables every locality, whatever
its needs and powers, when once the low 3s. 6d. limit
is exceeded, to get for 13s. 4d. what really costs 20s.,
and that is sure to be very uneconomical in all the
localities where there is no great pinch to counteract
it. The whole scheme looks much more specious in
the expositions of Lord Balfour of Burleigh himself
and that of Sir E. Hamilton and Sir G. Murray than
it does in the table,! published later, in which its
actual ‘working is calculated for each union. It is
somewhat of a shock to see a scheme which is intended
to be equalisatory reducing the rates of the lowest-
rated union in England, Fylde, from 3°3d. to 1°9d.
simply because that union has the good fortune to
include Blackpool and Lytham. Easter is not much
of a holiday in Lancashire, but I have no doubt that
an early Easter in the census year would make an
enormous difference to the grant obtainable by some
south coast unions. While the rates of the lowest-
1 Royal Commission on Local Taxation. Final Report, 1901,
Cd. 638, pp. 65-90, 132-142.