Science and Administration 



lies in the creation of local administrative bodies, 

 charged with specific duties, and subject to popular 

 approval as well as to the statutory control of the 

 central government ; and this is the solution which 

 has been sought by the political instinct of the 

 people of Great Britain. 



It is not easy, however, to regard the present 

 arrangement as the last word of scientific ad- 

 ministration. It proceeds, no doubt, upon the 

 sound general principle that questions involving 

 local circumstances only are best left to the de- 

 cision of local bodies ; while the general principles 

 of administrative action are properly determined 

 by the central authority. But the meshes of such 

 a principle are wide indeed ; and it offers, in itself, 

 no complete security either for the effectiveness 

 of local popular control, or for the persistence, 

 in local administration, of scientific principles of 

 action. The responsibility of local administrative 

 bodies is not sufficiently definite to secure the full 

 benefit of their growing experience and of the 

 development of public opinion ; and, on the other 

 hand, the central control under which they act is, 

 on the whole, too much devised simply as a check 

 on their action, and too little as a deliberate 

 adaptation of means to ends towards which the 

 efforts of local administration should be directed. 



The work of remedying this twofold defect 

 requires, on the one hand, a much fuller and 

 more regular system of consultation between the 

 central and local authorities ; on the other hand, 

 it requires a much greater degree of initiative in 



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