THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT. T HE knowledge requisite for a
settlement of the questions of local government and taxation is accumulating. The committee of last session and Mr. Goschen's report and speeches this session throw an amount of light upon the topics of overlapping areas, multiplicity of rates, and the history and statistics of local burdens which at first sight might have sufficed for disposing of the whole matter, but as usual in this country, when a subject is ripening for settlement, there is quite a host of contributions from every side, all adding more or less to the real facts known, or deepening and extending popular knowledge by voluminous discussion and new modes of stating and illustrating the leading facts. Among the most valuable of these contributions is an essay by Mr. R. H. Inglis Palgrave, which obtained a prize lately offered by the Statistical Society, and has now been published in the journal of that body. Mr. Palgrave had the misfortune to write just before Mr. Gosehen's report was made, but though a good deal of what cost him labour has thus been superseded, there is still a considerable amount of new fact in the essay, while it is otherwise excellent as a popular view of the whole subjects—the history of rates in recent years, the confusion of the present system, and the various theories as to the incidence of local taxes and the means of relieving the tax- payer. It would be useless to follow all the points in such a paper, but from its very comprehensiveness it exhibits one aspect of the question which is apt to be forgotten in the detailed dis- cussions, and which, with Mr. Palgrave's facts before us, it may be useful to describe. We refer to the danger of the total, or all but total, abolition of local government altogether, from sheer despair of disentangling the difficulties involved. To our minds there are many symptoms that local government itself is on trial.
One of the main difficulties lies in the definition of what is properly a local expense. One of the best bits in this paper of Mr. Palgrave's is a statement of the reasons why certain matters now left to local guidance are really proper subjects for Imperial care. The Police of the country, for instance, is not a work for each locality, but for the Central Government to supply to all localities. It is a defensive service, like the Army, the charge for which, as all benefit equally, should be borne equally by all. This is for accidental reasons clearly per. ceived and acted on in Ireland. As a matter of fact, too, Im- perial management would be more economical and effective than local, the criminal class itself being diffused and being best restrained by a central authority. For similar reasons, the management of the gaols should be Imperial, as the punish- ments are those of the State and for the general benefit of the whole community. The Militia, the maintenance of pauper lunatics and other sources of expense Mr. Palgrave also enu- merates as properly of Imperial concern. We need not discuss at present the justice of these arguments, but they are plausible, and are largely held, and, what is in point here, will lead to im- portant consequences if persisted in. If police, and gaols, and pauper lunatics, and similar matters are to be given over to Imperial management, because they concern primarily the whole community, what can there be left of local government at all? The business enumerated forms as it is the bulk of the work of county government, and we cannot see how, on the same prin- ciple, the relief of the poor is not to be treated as a State expense. The usual reasoning is that many subjects which are of Imperial concern are left to localities because the expense of Imperial management would be intolerable, and this is con- sidered especially applicable to poor relief ; but does any one think in his heart that the Poor Law Board, say, would not beat the Guardians in managing the London poor ? Can it be considered quite certain that the rigorous mechanical appli- cation of the workhouse test by the Imperial Government would not be many times cheaper than the present out-door relief in local hands, and at the same time a powerful tonic to the classes on the verge of pauperism ? There are not a few, besides, who refuse altogether to admit the relevancy of the argument that poor relief must be a local charge on account of the danger of the expense of Imperial management. They want their rights, and they do not see why localities arbitrarily divided should pay differently for a pauperism which belongs to the country, though it is congested by a variety of circumstances in particular spots. They do not object to the whole expense becoming greater, if the burden on the locality is diminished. Such are the arguments, and they are, in fact, and almost in form, a pleading that local government shall cease. If the central government is to pay, the central govern- ment will manage, and with poor relief, police, administration
of justice, the sanitary laws, the militia,—why not also educa- tion ?—all in central hands, there will be nothing left for locali- ties but perhaps drainage, building, and similar affairs concern- ing local property. We doubt if those who advocate the trans- ference of these burdens to the Imperial Exchequer would achieve in the end their ultimate object,—the great diminution and abolition of the taxes which are now local, but might easily become Imperial. But whether they gain their ultimate end or not, the immediate issue of their arguments, if they suc- cessfully persist in them, can hardly fail to be the abolition of local government.
There is another formidable difficulty in the nature of the local revenues. We suppose it is quite sound as a matter of theory that in adjusting the taxation of a country where cer- tain charges are made local and others Imperial, the whole may be considered together, and only the general incidence of the combined burden thought of in striving at equality. But as a matter of fact, with the charges in different localities varying in intensity, it becomes necessary to adjust Imperial taxation equally by itself, and then adjust local taxation in a similar manner. But this is a literal impos- sibility, and as regards local taxation is not even attempted by our present system. An income-tax is the most obvious expedient, but the practical difficulties of a local income-tax have made it fail everywhere—in Scotland, in America, and in past times in England, the original intention in fixing the basis of the poor-rate having obviously been to strike equally at every source of income. Perhaps an octroi in large towns would be the best agency, and we do not see, at any rate, why an octroi on alcohol levied with an Imperial tax, and perhaps a duty on one or two other articles of general consumption or luxury, should not succeed, but we suppose an octroi of any sort in too much discredited to he considered. There remains only the rating tax on real property, to which the objections are innumerable,—the most dangerous, we believe, being just this, that there is no popular agreement respecting its inci- dence, while, according to the best theory, its real incidence is very different from. that intended by the law. The law intends that the burden should fall on the occupier, but taxes on rental, say economists, fan on the owner, only touch the occupier remotely and indirectly, and in the case of property occupied for business will fall on the consumer, who may not reside in the locality at all, if the owner's rent is not diminished. IIow can a tax of this description answer any purpose of a local tax falling equally, and stimulating the inhabitants of a locality to look after its administration ? The mischief of waste in administration may be prevented so long as the belief is general among the occupiers in a locality that they pay the rates, but the inequalities on this theory are unendur- able, while the excitement and discontent are aggravated by the inconsistent complaint of the owner that he is the real sufferer. In large towns, we fear, especially in the metropolis, the actual mischief of waste does arise, because the occupiers as a class are finding out that they have little real interest in the rates. The whole burden is little compared with the rent and other charges which occupation of a house involves, and they get rid of the subject most easily by thinking of rates as rent. We see, then, in this unsatisfactory nature of the only local form of taxation we have or can devise another danger of local self-government. Unless there is a good equal tax, a principal object of leaving certain matters of government to localities will not be answered at all, and the present rates, though the arguments against them would not justify their total abolition—they might be retained for State purposes— are hardly defensible as local impositions. The difficulties we have stated appear to us really very serious, and should incline those who are now stirring up the topic of local burdens to ask what goal they are driving to. The constant iteration that certain affairs which are locally managed ought to be managed and paid for by the State, and the hubbub and confusion about the only local tax practically possible, with the real doubts as to its suitability for a local tax at all, clearly point to the same solution of the difficulties. They may be evaded for a time by ingenious solutions like Mr. Goschen's,—to put local government in a more or less perfect manner in the hands of those who are the possible sufferers by rates, either as owners or occupiers,—but as soon as there is pressure, as soon as another bad harvest screws up the rates another point, the old cries of inequality will be raised, while the substantial difficulty arising from the occupiers finding out their real interest will always remain. A permanent solution on the footing of retaining local government will be extremely
difficult. Behind all, too, is the tendency of the modern facilities of communication to abolish the very idea of " localities " on which local self-government has been based. People shift about from one part of a town to another, or from one town to another town, or from town to country, or country to town, at the slightest suggestion of profit, or fancy, or pleasure. A business man in London will reside for one lustrum in Brighton, another in a Surrey villa, a third in town, from considerations which make little change in the habits or interests, or what we may call the atmosphere of his life. The local unit to such a man is plainly not the "union," or ancient parish, or other local division which may contain the particular spot where he happens for the moment to reside. How, then, can there be local self-government in the old sense, when you have not the local attachment, the microcosmic patriotism, to begin with ? No doubt there are some people who are still local, the inferior tradesmen especially ; but then the people who are rooted to small spots are unsuited for managing any government, and are the very authors of the scandals which make local government a by- word. Why not make up our minds, therefore, to a thorough State government as the inevitable tendency of circumstances, leaving only to "localities" such matters as drainage, which can be dealt with most properly by local owners under some kind of central supervision ? Possibly there may be room for a compromise in the formation of larger units, though we doubt if even the Metropolitan School Board is large enough to embrace the real London, but units such as the metropolis 80 called are quite large enough not to let the governments they form pass for genuine local authorities. They deal with State interests in the manner of States and subject to the same limitations. We should hesitate to say that no solution is possible except the substitution of some kind of State rule for the present local authorities, but the alternative before us is worth considering, and should certainly not be overlooked by the statesmen who are struggling with the problem.
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