242 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES 



under the control of one committee or one officer makes for efficiency 

 and economy up to a point, the stage can easily be reached when the 

 activities and responsibilities both of the committee and the officer 

 become so large that neither they nor he are able to keep the threads 

 comfortably within their grasp. When this stage is reached the question 

 of devolution becomes just as important as that of centralisation at the 

 earlier stage. 



I have come to the conclusion that for Education Authorities, and I 

 believe for other Authorities also, the minimum size of any local govern- 

 ment unit should be an area with a population of 250,000 ; the ideal size 

 would be between 500,000 and 750,000, and the maximum size 1,000,000. 

 The establishment of areas of this size would, of course, pre-suppose the 

 total abolition of Part III Authorities, by conferring complete autonomy 

 on the largest, or on the amalgamation of others where they are 

 geographically contiguous, and by abolishing the rest. 



There is one other matter in this connection which is worth some 

 consideration, and that is the question of so redistributing areas that none 

 of them may in future be exclusively rural or exclusively urban. This is 

 a proposition which has commended itself widely to many social reformers 

 who have advocated a regional organisation for local government. I am 

 not sure that it is quite as important as some of its advocates have 

 supposed, partly because with the development of modern transport and 

 of town and country planning the difference in outlook and needs between 

 the town and country dweller is tending to disappear. I would, however, 

 admit that in such matters as technical education a purely rural area tends 

 to be penalised, at any rate where agriculturists have still to realise that 

 their industry is just as much in need of technical instruction as any other. 



To some extent the establishment of geographical units of a more 

 uniform and rational size would contribute towards the solution of the 

 major difficulty of personnel because, while it is true that some small 

 Authorities enjoy admirable committees and officials whereas some of the 

 larger ones are notoriously below standard in these respects, it will remain 

 true on the basis of probability that within reason the larger the area the 

 wider the choice it will have among people for its members of committees, 

 and the larger salary it will be able to afford and consequently the wider 

 field it will be able to draw upon for its administrative appointments. 

 Larger areas and higher salaries will not, however, by themselves over- 

 come the personnel difficulties which have bulked so largely in this 

 paper. Unless people who are competent to govern can be made to 

 realise that the preservation of liberty must depend on the capacity of 

 those who voluntarily serve the community, that is, unless people are 

 moved in greater numbers to offer themselves for public service by the 

 Socratic urge, namely, fear of being governed by worse people than them- 

 selves, the prospect of arresting the deterioration in the amateur personnel 

 of local authorities is small. 



Something of course may be done by so easing the burden falling upon 

 committees that members may be freed from the tedium of what are at . 

 present known as ' dustbin ' debates and enabled to devote themselves 

 to the wider issues of policy and the supervision of their officials. The 



