Lord St. Aldwyn delivered a well-reasoned address on Saturday last
to a meeting convened by the Gloucestershire Chamber of Agriculture to consider the question of rates and Imperial taxation. He did not think it of the least use to ask any Chancellor of the Exchequer to take over the whole cost of elementary education or of the highways. Things which were managed locally must generally be paid for locally. But he thought that much might be done without asking that ratepayers should be relieved of the cost of services for which they were responsible and for which—except through their own fault—they got a fair return for their money. The best principle had been propounded by Sir Massey Lopes in 1868, and in accordance with this principle—that the Exchequer should relieve ratepayers of expenditure not dependent upon local control—the prisons had been made an Imperial charge and had profited in every way. The State ought now to take over the management of lunatic asylums, workhouses, and the police. Lord St. Aldwyn ended by saying that the labours of local government were becoming too heavy. The danger was that the tradition of public service by the right people would be injured, and responsibility would fall into the hands of undesirable administrators. We agree, but we should like a much more thorough reform of our rating question than that proposed by Lord St. Aldwyn.
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