ability of the party charged, such ability being estimated with reference to property whether in the parish or out of it.'*

Meanwhile other rates had been, and were being, raised by various local authorities. By the 12 Geo. II, c. 29, 1739, a consolidation of various county rates took place; and this general rate was directed to be paid by each parish and township, in proportion to the assessed value of each, in one whole sum, to be taken out of the poorrate, or to be levied on the district in like manner as the poor-rate. There was therefore a strong inducement for the local authorities to underrate the assessable value of the parish. This was the condition of things when the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 was passed. Unions of parishes were then formed, but each parish still continued to pay for its own poor, and to contribute to the common charges of the union, not on the basis of rateable value, but in proportion to the number of its paupers. A uniform principle of assessment was not, therefore, very material as between parish and parish; and though there were permissive powers vested in the union to adopt union chargeability, this power was only used in one solitary instance. The principle of union chargeability was very fundamental in the scheme of reform of which the Act of 1834 was a first instalment. Accordingly, in 1836 a Parochial Assessments Act was passed. By design or oversight no mention was made in this of stock-in-trade; and the silence of the Act was thought, in places where stock-in-trade had hitherto been assessed, to authorise its exemption. The courts, however, decided, in the case of R. v. Lumsdaine, that the Act had not repealed the liability of stock-in-trade-a decision which practically rendered illegal ninety-nine per cent. of the local rating of the country. To obviate this difficulty, an Act was at once passed exempting stock-in-trade, and personalty generally, from contributing to the poor rate. The Act is kept in force from year to year by the Expiring Laws Continuance Act. This exemption of personalty, contrary, it is alleged, to the intention of the Act of Elizabeth, constitutes the main grievance of those who now contribute in respect of land and houses.

* Cannan, History of Local Rates,' p. 79.

The history of assessment has many other ramifications which must be noticed. Originally assessments seem to have been made in a somewhat rough and ready way by the overseers and justices. Appeals to the courts were rare; but gradually, as time went on, a definite body of doctrine began to emerge. Regard seems at first to have been had to the number of acres occupied; then attention was paid to the value of each holding; and down to the time of William III the actual or rack-rent seems to have been taken as the standard. Obviously, however, certain properties require more repairs than others. Accordingly there came in a practice of differential assessment by the allowance of deductions. This was at first without express or detailed legal authorisation, but generally in pursuance of the equitable purpose of taxing according to ability. From the year 1770 onwards the courts seem to have sanctioned a rough principle of valuation. All land was assessed at three quarters of its yearly value, and all houses at one half. A judgment of the year 1830-R. v. Lower Mitton-lays it down that the rate on a particular property should be

'according to the annual profit or value which the subject of occupation within the parish produces. That, generally speaking, would be properly estimated at the rent which a tenant would give, he paying the poor (and other) rates and the expenses of repairs, and the other annual expenses necessary for making the subject of occupation productive; and a further deduction from that rent should be allowed, where the subject is of a perishable nature, towards the expense of renewing or reproducing it.'

This practically is the standard adopted in the Parochial Assessment Act of 1836, and still constitutes the principle of assessment. The Act was at this time required to render equitable the proportion of contribution from different parishes to the county rate, and secondly, to further the general policy of the Poor Law Commissioners, which was to enlarge the chargeability from the parish to the union. The Act, however, was merely permissive; and according to the Local Taxation Report of 1843, only 4444 parishes out of 15,635 had at that date adopted its provisions. The valuation of parishes for county purposes was still at that date in a most anomalous condition. All

parishes were undervalued; so no one parish gained the whole advantage of evasion. Valuation in most cases had not been made for twenty or thirty years; and in sixteen counties 'the principle of the existing scale was unknown to the clerks of the peace.'

In 1845, by the 8 and 9 Vict. c. 3-now superseded by the County Rates Act, 1852—the justices were authorised to make a separate valuation; and, as between parish and parish, for county contribution purposes, the law, if utilised, seemed to put matters on an equitable footing.

In 1861, for the first time, the contribution of each parish to the common fund of the union was based on rateable value; and it became imperative to adopt, for poor-law purposes, an intelligible and uniform principle of assessment. In 1862, accordingly, the Union Assessment Act (25 and 26 Vict. c. 103) was passed. The guardians are thereby required to elect an assessment committee. To this body the overseers of the different parishes submit their valuation lists. Power to object both to over and under-valuation is given to all concerned. There is an appeal to Quarter Sessions and to the High Court. This is practically the present plan of poor-law assessment. The Union Chargeability Act of 1865 completed the policy of 1834, and, except in one or two small items, abolished parish chargeability, and substituted union chargeability for all poor-law purposes. Within each union therefore (fraud and error excepted) an equitable principle of assessment may be said to obtain; but there is no guarantee of uniformity as between union and union, and consequently as between the parishes which constitute separate unions. This makes it necessary to maintain still a separate valuation for the county rate, and also for the municipal or borough rate. Then there is another valuation required for the Land Tax, and yet a fifth for the Inhabited House Duty, which are collected for the imperial Exchequer.

In the metropolis the principle of uniform valuation has proceeded a step farther. There the institution of the Metropolitan Common Poor Fund in 1867 made a uniform system necessary. This is secured by the Valuation (Metropolis) Act, 1869. Quinquennial assessment is obligatory, and the uniformity of standard is largely assisted by the device of making the surveyors of taxes—

the representatives of the national Exchequer-assessors, with powers of objection; and also by giving a right of appeal to every public body authorised by law to levy rates within the metropolis. The London Equalisation of Rates Act, 1894 (57 and 58 Vict. c. 53), has made a further use of this general assessment.

The Commissioners have made in their first Report a unanimous recommendation in favour of one uniform assessment over the whole country for local as well as imperial purposes. The majority of the Commission favour a more centralised assessment authority, i.e. the county authority, working by assessment committees, and strengthened by the presence of assessors, representative of the Treasury and of other spending authorities. An interesting expression of dissent, recorded by Mr Elliott, dwells on the loss of local knowledge resulting from the supersession of the union authority, and also the risk of friction, which is already considerable, between the county council of an administrative county and the borough councils (not being county boroughs) and urban district councils that exist within its boundaries.

We dare not, in the space at our disposal, enter on a discussion as to how far the additional burden which is borne by the owner of personal property as a taxpayer compensates for his exemption from assessment to rates. The whole subject is obscured by a variety of considerations. It is impossible to speak positively with regard to the real, as opposed to the nominal incidence of taxation. Taxation is paid by persons, not by things; and an inequitable distribution of burdens between different classes of property is not necessarily inequitable as regards the persons who pay. Further, the question is raised how far a purchaser or inheritor of property, burdened with a time-honoured liability to rates, is aggrieved by the fact that other property which he may or may not possess is taxed more lightly or not at all.

If we pursue the question further, and enquire how heavy taxation can be levied with least injury to trade, we are met by the difficulty that, to be productive, taxation must be levied on some common necessary, and that, while it may be possible to relieve interests which at present seem injuriously affected, the necessary revenue cannot be obtained without imposing a burden elsewhere,

which sooner or later, in one way or another, will be an influence in restraint of trade and industry, and of the services to the consumer which arise therefrom.

The deliberations of the Commission were naturally governed by the precedent of earlier attempts to distribute the burden of local taxation between taxpayers and ratepayers; and, in pursuance of our design to expose as clearly as possible the issues at stake, a brief summary of events is necessary.

As we have already seen, the grievance of the owners of real property, as against the owners of personalty, in respect of local rating, was of old standing. When, in 1846, Sir Robert Peel abolished the Corn Laws, he gave an undertaking to provide for transferring a part of the local burdens from the rates to the Exchequer, as a compensation to the landed interest for the removal of protective duties. The memorandum of Sir Edward Hamilton* gives a most interesting and lucid account of this and subsequent transactions. It is worthy of notice that a year earlier Peel had expressed himself hostile to any such transfer, and it is impossible not to feel that his conversion was largely due to the political exigencies of that critical year of 1846.† Be this as it may, the concession made by Sir Robert Peel practically opened the flood-gates.

By gradual additions the relief granted to local taxation from the Exchequer has risen, as shown in the following table (see next page) from Sir E. Hamilton's memorandum.

Sir Robert Peel's measure of 1846 put on the national Exchequer the whole cost of criminal prosecutions and the maintenance of convicted prisoners, half the cost of medical relief in England and Scotland, salaries of poorlaw schools and union auditors, and the whole cost of the Irish constabulary; and a point was made that, in each of these changes, there was a guarantee of improved administration or other public benefit. The protectionist

Memoranda chiefly relating to the Classification and Incidence of Imperial and Local Taxes; C. 9528, p. 7.

Two small grants for criminal prosecutions and removal of convicts made first in 1835 are hardly important enough to form an authoritative precedent.