The Tinies is in great glee over a return of
local taxation, which shows, it says, that the local taxation of England is only 121,000,000, when Sir Massey Lopes and the reformers said it was £30,000,000. They didn't. They said the local expenditure was £30,000,000, and even this return, which excludes one im- portant item—money borrowed on Poor Rates—makes the total -expenditure £28,000,000. A county is not the better off because it is spending more than it raises, but the worse off, the interest -on the difference going to increase the dead-weight. We wish Sir Massey Lopes, or Sir T. Acland, or some other county authority would call for a return of the method under which the rating authorities borrow money, especially including all kinds of devices for the ultimate extinction of such debts. Why should a good solid English county or borough pay more than the State does ?
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