RESPONSIBILITY FOR HIGH RATES.
[To THZ EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Si,—In the month of December, 1904, a notice was placed on the church-door of a Staffordshire parish to say that, as the Staffordshire County Council proposed borrowing money, and as the total debt of this county, after borrowing this money, "would exceed one-tenth of the annual rateable
value of the rateable property in the said county notice is given that Colonel W. R. Slacke, R.E., one of the Inspectors of the Board [of Local Government], will attend at the County Buildings, Stafford, on Tuesday, the 6th day of December, 1904, at half-past ten o'clock in the forenoon, to hold a local inquiry into the subject-matter of the said tpplication" (for the loan). As it happened, no one in this part of the county could get a train to take him to Stafford by 10.30. I therefore called on the ratepayers, and was commissioned by them in the name of the parish to enter a protest against this wanton extravagance. I wrote to the Local Government Board accordingly. I had an answer some time later that they had agreed to this scheme. I wrote to them then to ask whether they (the Local Government Board) had ever regarded the voice of ratepayers of a parish which was unanimously against any extravagant scheme mooted by any County Council. They refused to cite any one case. (Could they do so ?) Does not this mean that the Local Government Board refuse to exercise the powers vested in them for checking extravagant loans by County Councils ? The Board solemnly go through the farce of despatching an official to inquire into complaints, &c. This official has, I suppose, his travelling expenses, &c., provided by the rate- payers—and for what? The Local Government Board neither expect to hear complaints, nor will attend to them if made. The Local Government Board are almost entirely responsible for the ratepayers' burden. Neither Protection nor Free- trade will ruin the country so much as rates. If either party at the approaching Election will engage to appoint such a Minister at the Local Government Board as will see that the Local Government Board do their work efficiently, that party will have the votes of many men like myself.—I am,
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