On the jurisprudence of chargeability for sanitary works and for poor rates, police rates, and other branches of local administration.

  • Chadwick, Edwin, 1800-1890.
Date:
1873
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the jurisprudence of chargeability for sanitary works and for poor rates, police rates, and other branches of local administration. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    (luctlon and enjoyment—as an unreiuuneratlve tax! It were possible, by an advanced expenditure, to obtain a yet higher order of efficiency here, and an increased remunerative return. To pass to another branch of local taxation and administra- tion. At the time of tlie passing of the Poor-law Amendment Act, the poor-rates, as returned, amounted in round numbers to seven millions; but there were labour rates and other im[)Osts, levied parochially, that amounted in many districts to one-third, and in some places to one-half, the amount that were not taken into account, and the real amount levied paro- chially could not fairly be estimated at less than nine millions. To whatsoever extent this impost was in excess of a correct remunerative administrative standard, the impost was also certainly taken in account in the sales and lettings of real j)i’operty at that period. In the same jjro^iortion to the population, the impost would now be about eleven millions in England and Wales. By the partial adoption of the measure which I prepared, and which was adopted by my colleagues, of reducing the outlets of expenditure from 16,000 parishes to about 650 unions;—by the services of staffs of paid local officers, and a central supervision of inferior officers, enforcing attention to their duties, the impost was reduced in the first year of clear action to about one-half, or little more than four millions; in other words, the administration was made to approxi- mate to a remunerative condition. During the time of the partial operation of the principles of amendment, that is to say for about fourteen years, there was a clear gain to the occupiers or the owners of real property of upwards of fifty millions in the aggregate. But by attacks on the correct administrative princijde, by changing the administration from officers of special aptitude, givinguudivided attention to the subject—to officers of nospecdal aptitude or interest in the service; by giving out-door relief as a rule, by an extensive return to allowances in aid of wao-es, and by a general dereliction of administrative principle, the