The Economy of Local Rates 200
by the larger, such as the counties, and what are to
be assumed by the largest possible area, such as
England or the United Kingdom. I presume, for
example, that everyone expects that the cost of reliev-
ing vagrants will disappear from the union budgets
in consequence of new arrangements by which the
State will take over the work of preventing mendicant
and larcenous vagrancy, and that the counties will
take over the whole charge of lunacy instead of, as at
present, only a small fixed charge per lunatic main-
tained in the county asylums—one of the maddest
arrangements ever made by people who professed to
be sane, as it makes the county, which manages, bear
a fixed charge, while the unions which do not manage,
pay the varyi:~ charges resulting from difference of
managemeni. __t:rations of this kind will of course
reduce Lie . 1. ' money necessary for equalising
purpoe~