208 PROTECTION TAXES ON FEEE TRADE PRICES 



Protection taxes and Free Trade prices ; they are, therefore, 

 abundantly justified in demanding either Protection prices 

 or Free Trade taxes. 



It will be admitted on all sides that Local Government 

 Reform is necessary. Local organisations growing up 

 haphazard, and created from hand to mouth, are needlessly 

 complicated, and the spread of population intensifies their 

 ineffectiveness. The mischief is brought home to rate- 

 payers by the astounding growth of local debt. Between 

 1868 and 1885 local rates, exclusive of tolls, dues, and 

 rents, rose from 16 to 26 millions, while during the same 

 period Imperial taxation, excluding the Post Office, and 

 miscellaneous receipts, only increased from 48,570,000L in 

 1868 to 53,223,000Z. in 1885. During the ten years 

 ending in 1884 the liabilities of the local authorities, in 

 respect of outstanding loans, rose from 93 to 165 millions, 

 and at the present moment the local debt is little less than 

 a fourth of the National Debt. This enormous burden 

 accumulates unchecked, if not encouraged, by its interested 

 administrators. Ratepayers, aghast at the amount of their 

 indebtedness, cannot see, much less control, its growth, 

 their pockets are emptied on every side by local bodies, 

 each invested with large powers to tax or borrow They 

 cannot, at the same moment, keep an eye on quarter ses- 

 sions, vestries, burial boards, sanitary boards, poor law 

 guardians, parish overseers, drainage or sewers commis- 

 sioners. Thus this burden grows day by day, uncontrolled 

 by any central body, affecting different areas in different 

 degrees, each portion administered by different authorities, 

 elected on different methods, exercising their respective 

 powers over intermingled areas which are not conter- 

 minous, and enjoying a practical anarchy and collective 

 irresponsibility. A strong central body with consolidated 



