Would the Minister allow me to put the matter in my own way? I think I am entitled to say that considerable lack of harmony was engendered in connection with the Mayo question. I am not going any further into the question than that. I am not going into the rights and wrongs of it. It is only an illustration of the main point in my motion that there is lack of harmony between the central body and the local authority, which lack of harmony this House should take notice of.
Passing from that, I wish to ask the House to examine the action of the local authorities under two heads —firstly, under their statutory obligations and, secondly, under their non-statutory obligations. I know perfectly well that statutory obligations rest upon the Minister. The law has set up an Appointments Commission, and much as anybody may think that the law is not exactly right, nevertheless it is the law. But if the law creates fundamental elements of discord throughout the country the amendment of the law should be considered. I admit, absolutely—I am sure the House will admit too—that as long as the law is there it must be enforced by the Minister and his Department.
As regards medical services, the same thing arises, but not in such a positive form. The Local Government Act of 1925 makes it mandatory on the county council to appoint local officers when called upon. I understand that it rests with the Minister to choose the time when these appointments should be insisted upon. In some cases, councils have not been called upon yet to make these appointments. In cases where they have been called upon, I think you will agree that there has been a considerable amount of protest. Whether or not the Minister was wise in forcing these appointments in some cases where he has done so, remains for the House to say. I do not think he was.
There are then non-statutory obligations. One of these obligations is in respect of salaries. I stand on the principle that wider discretion should be allowed to the local authority in the matter of salaries. It will be said, "You cannot get good men for less." As long as county councils are elected and given responsibility, they should be given a wider margin of discretion as regards the salaries they are to pay and the salaries that they think they can afford to pay. These people, rightly or wrongly—I am not going into the matter—believe that they cannot afford to pay these salaries, and that they can get equally good men for lower salaries. As regards roads, surely councils should be allowed to say what sums they can afford for this work, and surely grants should not be used as a lever to force them to impose higher rates than they, as responsible, elected bodies, wish to impose. May I go back for just one moment to the origin of this local government system? The origin of the local government idea was that people with local knowledge should be elected on a wide, local franchise to accept the responsibility for local administration. For many years that was undoubtedly the predominant factor in the local government structure. They had special knowledge not only of local conditions, but of the paying power of the ratepayers, and, rightly or wrongly, they were entrusted with that responsibility.
As time went on, it because necessary to direct and co-ordinate to an increasing extent the functions of the local authorities. It also became clear that certain services ceased to carry a purely local complexion and became national. From that emerged grants-in-aid, with corresponding conditions attached. I think now that the whole balance has shifted to the other side and that these local bodies have become almost instruments or creatures of the central body, with very little power, little or no responsibility, with their functions and powers almost limited to signing as directed on the dotted line. I do not think that we realise how we have altogether departed from our original idea and got into that reversed state. When we come to examine the motion, we will find, I think, that it has a very distinct bearing on that fact.
These grants-in-aid were originally permissive and they were given for the purpose of efficiency. They were given on an understanding that the local body would pay half the salaries of certain doctors or midwives or in relation to certain specified services. As time went on the original purpose was lost sight of and these grants became general. They are now, in effect, almost entirely general with the exception of certain grants in relation to medical services. The report of the Poor Law Commission sets out that these grants have now become almost general in character. In relation to these grants I should like to quote the evidence given by one witness. That witness stated that it is open to some doubt if the method of allocation is equitable to-day having regard to the time that has elapsed and the varying needs of the local authorities assisted. We have gradually grown into the system where the grants are used as a lever to force the local authorities to strike rates or, even further, where the grants are used almost as a penal instrument to extract rates. I do not think that can be justified in equity or in accordance with the original purpose. It is no argument because you pick a man's pocket to say to him that you will give him twice as much back to spend on a service of which you approve. Just as that man is a free citizen so also the local authority is a freely elected body and it should be allowed discretion to spend the money it raises in rates. These grants should not take the form of something like a sugared pill.
I will now pass to an examination of the differences of mentality which have produced this lack of close association and harmony between the central authority and the local authority. I may say that I have full sympathy with both points of view. The members of a local authority are naturally in touch with the feeling in their respective districts. The civil servant, on the other hand, who is attached to the central authority, quite naturally regards efficiency, progress, and better management in a totally different light from that of the member of the local authority. With the official in the central authority progress appears to be placed on a pedestal; it is the be-all and end-all of his existence. The very fact that he may possess a superior education gives him a superior point of view in regard to these matters. Living in an atmosphere of science and higher thought, one begins to say of the members of local authorities: "Those people should not be like that; they should not have this obstinate and crass resistance to progress. We know what is good for them far better than they do themselves. We know that they are living on a volcano, as it were, without modern sewers, sanitation or water supplies. They are content to have their drains and cess-pools, but we consider that that sort of thing should stop."
Roughly speaking, that is the attitude of the advisers of the central authority. I do not blame them. They have been educated and they read text-books; they can use long words and, naturally, they are quite irksome of the slow and rather stubborn mentality of the countryman who is quite content to let well alone. I can recollect one councillor saying: "It is too healthy we are; leave us alone." I am forcibly reminded in this connection of the words of a Conservative and an honest man. It was Lord Salisbury who said: "According to the doctors nothing is wholesome; according to the clergymen nothing is right; according to the soldier nothing is safe. They all want to be diluted with a strong admixture of commonsense." I think that could well be applied to a lot of those people who pour out these theories from public offices.
The outlook of the local man is something quite different to that of the man attached to a central department. The local men are elected on their own councils and they do not want to spend money. Sometimes, perhaps, they have got a mediæval mentality, but I do not say they are wrong because of that. They merely want to be left alone and to go ahead in their own peculiar way. They possess the local knowledge and, moreover, they have a pretty shrewd understanding that all these things mean expense and that they are very hard pressed. The ordinary farmer who is struggling to make ends meet, who has to pay rates and annuities and who is hard put to it to give his children a little money when they marry, has his own particular viewpoint on local matters. His attitude towards all these reforms is totally different to that adopted by the official of the central authority. I do not think we can properly realise these two extremes and the danger there is in the superior person with the higher training and with his zeal for progress imposing forcibly his views upon these plainer and more unsophisticated people.
Who is right? I am not prepared to say who is right. He would be a brave man indeed who would say which attitude is the right attitude. I might suggest that neither attitude is right. What are the tests to be applied? Is progress to be a test; is it the aim and object to have very advanced medical services, to have the most up-to-date sanitation, or is it right to be free and happy, to be allowed to live your own life in your own way according to your local traditions? I am not going to say which attitude is right; I am not going to say where real wisdom lies. I do say that right lies in liberty of choice; right is to let the people themselves decide and that is what we are getting away from more and more. We are allowing the civil servant to decide. The civil servants put on these schemes. We are getting to the position now where a civil servant may be added to those who claim as their prerogative power without responsibility. It is a real danger that more and more as Government becomes centralised the wishes of the smaller people become overlooked and real happiness is being lost. Real happiness is liberty; it is not materialism. Do not imagine that the five years' plan in Russia has brought about real happiness. Real happiness is to be allowed to do within very wide limits what one would like. Progress is undoubtedly desirable, but progress must come from below.
When the locally elected representatives of the people demand progress I would be prepared to give them all the progress they want. If they demand it let them have all the sanitation reforms and doctors that they want, and let them pay as much as they like. It is for them to decide, and not for the theorists or those in the positions higher up. That is the fundamental point where I join issue with the present tendency. Assuming that that basic idea is right—that the people should decide—how are we going to apply that in practice to our present structure of local government? I suggest it can be done by dividing functions as far as possible and by creating a unified responsibility.
A large sum of money comes to these councils in the way of grants—about one-third. There are nine millions spent by the local authorities in various ways, and about one-third of that amount is provided by grants in various forms. Would it not be possible for the State to take over certain services completely, say, main roads or mental hospitals, and run them as State services? With regard to the roads, the the actual work could be done by the county surveyor and his staff, but it would be paid for entirely out of grants. The people could then have as good roads as they liked. In the same way let the bye-roads be left to the local authority. If they want bad bye-roads, let them have them. I do not suggest that they would be stupid enough to have bad bye-roads. They will be in a position to decide the type of road they require, and they will not be subject to the suggestions of the man higher up who, whatever academic qualifications he might possess, might say: "I know better than you what sort of road you ought to have." By a more equitable distribution of those grants you could get over a lot of your existing difficulties. Of course it is quite possible abuses would have to be checked. I hope the Minister will not suggest that I am advocating unlicensed liberty for the local authorities. They want a watchful eye kept upon them, and wherever definite action is necessary it should be taken. I was glad to see that definite action was taken the other day in the criminal courts. That is the type of definite action which is quite understandable.
With regard to the re-allocation of the grants, I have here the evidence given by the Secretary to the Local Government Department, Mr. McCarron. He said, in reply to the Chairman: "I think you have had evidence of the purpose of all these grants. Anyone who goes into it will see that they no longer have any definite aims. They present no character other than the simple one of being a subvention from the taxpayers to the ratepayers." The Chairman asked: "I agree with you, but still the fact that they are earmarked for a particular expenditure does in itself create a certain amount of trouble in the return and checking of forms that possibly might be done without?" Mr. McCarron replied: "Certainly, and ought to be done without. It is, unfortunately, a meaningless process which is a waste of time and an irritation to everybody." In another place Mr. McCarron says: "I would be prepared with anyone to resist any encroachment on our existing public grants, but what I want is a better allocation of them."
Perhaps I will be allowed to read an extract from the Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission:
I realise that the grants in aid of rates from the Central Fund justify some measure of regulation and control. The central authority might well refuse to assist local councils unconditionally, yet I consider the objections to divided control so strong that means should be sought to obtain the fullest possible degree of financial separation. This might be done by making certain services representing the total of existing grants entirely State services, and allowing the remaining services to be entirely local services. This would entail an examination of the entire field of local expenditure which was not within our terms of reference, and I recommend the enquiry to be carried out.
Those were the words I wrote five years ago. I had forgotten all about them until a few days ago, but they read to me as fresh to-day as they did five years ago. I still absolutely believe that that is the right method of procedure. If the House accepts that as a general principle the whole matter can be carried out by way of inquiry. Of course it involves a difficult, detailed and complex examination of the whole thing. It is the sort of inquiry that I ask the House to claim—an inquiry into the allocation of grants so that they may be more equitably divided.
There are certain services that could become entirely central services and that could be paid for out of grants, and then there are services that should remain local services. It is by investigating the whole matter in the manner I suggest that you will recapture the harmony and the goodwill which are now badly lacking between the local and the central authorities. It is unwholesome that such conditions should exist between two important services in the State. The House may wish something different; Senators may wish a centralisation of all services. It may be that the people in the country also may wish to abolish in effect all local councils and centralise all administration. If that is the general view, then by all means let that be done, but the all-important question is to eliminate as far as possible bickering and bad feeling, because any lack of harmony is really bad for the country as a whole and for the parties concerned.
