342 THEORY AND ADMINISTRATION 



it is really protecting the interests of the individual as a business man 

 and a taxpayer, and preventing the growth of a power which might 

 reach dimensions dangerous to the community as a whole. Never- 

 theless, it may safely be said that the general presumption is in favor 

 of leaving individuals to do whatever it is not either necessary or, 

 at least obviously, advantageous that the state should do for them. 

 State intervention can doubtless often be shown to be desirable, even 

 where it is not essential. But the burden of proof lies on those who 

 would introduce it, for natural laws generally, though I repeat not 

 always, work better than human devices intended to modify them. 



Before leaving this question let me note that I am speaking pri- 

 marily of national administration, not of public administration gen- 

 erally. There are some kinds of work not safe or suitable for the 

 government of the state, which local authorities may properly under- 

 take. The objections above indicated need to be qualified when we 

 apply them to local elected bodies, through which the energy of the 

 private citizen may exert itself and which may check the dominance 

 either of private monopolists or of an organized bureaucracy. In 

 England, for instance, we are now experimenting in large extensions 

 of the work of local municipal and county councils, and we hope 

 for good results. 



Let us pass to consider what are the principles that should deter- 

 mine the character of a national administration, and what are the 

 conditions of its efficiency. I do not enter into the question of its 

 structure, nor into the distribution of functions between it and the 

 local authorities of the country, for these matters depend largely 

 on the political constitution. They are different in a federation 

 like yours from what they are in a unitary country like Great Brit- 

 ain; they are different in free states and in absolute monarchies. 

 They are different in highly centralized countries like France from 

 what they are in England. Yet one point deserves to be noted: 

 To be strong for national purposes a government need not be cen- 

 tralized. For all administrative purposes the United States supplies 

 an obvious example, and an administration which controls all local 

 affairs may not only reduce the habit of independence among the 

 people, but may also, if the country is managed on a party system, 

 become an engine of mischief. The best scheme seems to be one 

 which leaves to local authorities, and preferably to elected local 

 authorities, all such functions as can safely be intrusted to them, 

 together with a limited power of taxation for local purposes, while 

 retaining some measure of control by the central administration in 

 case they overstep either the statutory limits of their powers or the 

 limit of a discretion exercisable in good faith, and in a spirit neither 

 corrupt nor oppressive. To fix the precise amount of control to be so 

 reserved for the central administration is no easy task. But it is 



