And I have no hesitation in saying that that
agency should be the Central Government. Perhaps the strongest argument
in favour of that course is that, when relief is given locally, the
money must be raised by one of the worst taxes in the whole of our
fiscal system, local rates, which are tantamount to a tax, in many
districts exceeding 100 per cent., upon erection of houses and buildings
generally. It is foolish to imagine that any useful end is served by
keeping down taxes at the expense of rates.
Serious as is the problem of national finance, the fiscal resources of
the Central Government are still far more elastic and less objectionable
than those which the local authorities possess. I suggest, accordingly,
as a policy for the immediate future, the raising of the scale of
national relief to a more adequate level, coupled with the abolition of
what I have termed wholesale outdoor relief in the localities. What it
is right to pay on a uniform scale should be paid entirely by the
Central Government, and local outdoor relief should be restricted to its
proper function of the alleviation of cases of exceptional distress
after special inquiries into the individual circumstances of each case.
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