THE EXTRAVAGANCE OF LOCAL ADMINISTRATION. (To THE EDITOR or THE
" SPECTATOR.") SIR,—Your plea (Spectator, August 27th) for overhauling the whole administrative machine is unanswerable. It applies mainly, if not wholly, to national services, and I wish to put in a plea for a similar overhaul of the local machine. Salaries have been increased and officials multiplied until—in spite of the enormous subsidies received by local authorities from the taxes we pay into the Exchequer—our half-year's rates have risen from 3s. in the .2 in 1918 to 78. 8d. in the current half- year. That is, I submit, a sufficient reason for overhaul. Let me give an instance of waste that has recently come to light. Formerly the preparation of lists of Parliamentary voters was arranged partly by overseers of parishes and partly by county clerks, each of whom employed a printer for his part : thus type was set up twice for the same job. The attention of the county clerk having been called to the waste that was going on and ' a direct refusal to consider the matter having been received, it was submitted to the Local Government Board. They took charge of this work in 1918, and on June 13th last the Home Secretary stated in the House of Commons that changes made had reduced the total annual cost by £500,000. Economic reform will never come without co-operation between the various local bodies and their officers, and experience shows that co-operation cannot be expected to originate from within.
—I am, Sir, S:c., J. WILSON. Vale Court, Colerne, Chippenham.
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