Our present system of Local Government has the defects of bureaucracy without its merits. There are County Councils and District Councils and Parish Councils. These are elected by the ratepayers; and the people who are elected have not always got the necessary ability, and those who have the ability cannot always give the necessary time. The result is that the clerks and other officials have to do the Councils’ work, if it is going to be done at all; and they are not invariably the sort of men to whom such work would be entrusted. Under the bureaucratic system the Councils would be abolished and their work entrusted to officials of high standing, who would be qualified men; and they would do their best, as they would have full credit for successful work and be responsible if things went wrong. The officials have no such incentive now, as their acts are nominally the Councils’ acts, and they have neither credit nor blame.
With such administration it is not surprising that the rates in Bovey parish have risen to 8_s._ 10_d._ and 9_s._ 5_d._ in the £, or 18_s._ 3_d._ for the year--an inordinate sum for any rural parish. And no drastic reductions can be made now, as £1600 a year is required for interest and sinking-fund on loans, which will not be completely cleared till 1952. All the money that is squandered by the Councils is charged upon the rates; and nobody is ever punished for his blundering.
Take one case as a specimen of what is going on. A retaining-wall was being built, half a mile from here, under the direction of a District Council official. There was plenty of granite close at hand, but he was having stone of an inferior kind brought down there by steam lorries from a quarry nearly three miles off; and it came in lumps of insufficient size for a retaining wall. On seeing how the wall was being built, I wrote to say that it would certainly fall down, and the work had better be stopped, especially as there was scandalous waste of money in sending to a distance for inferior stone. But the work was carried on; and a few days after it was finished, the wall fell down exactly as I said it would. It was rebuilt in such a way that part of it will probably fall down again. The ratepayers are paying for the building of that wall and for its rebuilding, and the official goes scot free.