The Economic Journal; |
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Author:
| Edgeworth, Francis Ysidro |
ISBN: | 978-0-217-07918-1 |
Publication Date: | Aug 2009 |
Publisher: | General Books LLC
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Book Format: | Paperback |
List Price: | USD $38.69 |
Book Description:
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LOCAL FINANCE IN SCOTLAND l Mk. Balfoub in the eloquent speech he delivered some months ago in the McEvvan Hall laid stress on the tendency of our times to have more and more Government, as he called it, in every department of the state. There is no direction in which this development has been more...
More DescriptionPurchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LOCAL FINANCE IN SCOTLAND l Mk. Balfoub in the eloquent speech he delivered some months ago in the McEvvan Hall laid stress on the tendency of our times to have more and more Government, as he called it, in every department of the state. There is no direction in which this development has been more apparent than in the vast increase in the importance of decentralised governments, of the free local bodies which administer our counties, parishes and towns. It has become a familiar idea to us now to hear imperial and local matters discussed as of equal moment, and one of our statesmen, who has recently acquired a peculiar standing as an instructor of the public, denned as the minimum of service due from a British citizen that he should keep a close and vigilant eye on public and municipal affairs. - That public and municipal should be coordinated, and coordinated at a time when the country wras trembling on the brink of a war with France, is surely full of significance. It would have been an empty phrase not many years ago. I think that the secret of this change lies in the endowment of local bodies with financial powers. When a political body acquires the power to impose taxes, a change takes place like that produced in the life of a state by a victorious war or an able policy which raise it to the rank of a great power. Local bodies are no longer mere pawns on the political chess board, which call forth the praise of constitutional writers by their ability to safeguard our freedom, they are now in a position to directly and immediately affect the welfare of the realm, a position which brings with it a public responsibility and a public importance which are new. Until quite recently it was not even considered necessary to have a complete record of the figures of local finan...