126 SPAIN - MISCELLANEOUS 



mony with each other, though quite distinct. For the mapping of the land, 

 the execution of special works for the preparation of a map was seriously 

 commenced: for the written statement of the legal relation between the 

 real estate and the owners, the Register of Landed Property was instituted, 

 a consequence of the Mortgage law ; then, in order to have a practical 

 means for fixing the land tax, the amillaramiento , that is to say a written 

 inventory of the real estate in relation to its value, was prepared. 



At the end of the nineteenth century, laws were introduced to rectify 

 the lists of valuations, or to revise individual valuations, on July 17th., 

 1895 and August 24th., 1896, instituting as a solution the cadastre for 

 cultivated areas, on the basis of the plans made for the map in preparation. 

 We must add the law of March 27th., 1910, with many others, for reorg- 

 anization of the finances affected by the colonial disasters, in which, while 

 the cadastre for cultivated areas was maintained, it was made to serve 

 as the basis for a written description of the various landed properties, which 

 was called the Fiscal Register. The only practical advantage of all these 

 laws was the preparation of the cadastre with detailed plans now in 

 force. 



§ 2. Institutions preparing the way for the detailed cadastre. 



As we have seen, the Government understood the need of the services 

 that could be rendered by the cadastre, before public opinion or the Govern- 

 ment itself were quite sure of the practical manner in which to realise the in- 

 stitution and even as to its quite special functions and bearing. The need 

 becoming urgent, the Government had recourse to a system consisting 

 in the division of the difficulties, occupying itself with each case specially 

 rmder its various aspects, without waiting to find a clear and definite principle 

 on which to base a general rule applicable in all cases. 



The Government could only wait for the completion of the cadastre, 

 to estabHsh the land tax regularly and in as equitable a manner as 

 possible. It was also necessary to establish it by means of verbal re- 

 ports in the case of landed estates, the value of which was estimated for large 

 areas and these reports, as we have said, were called Amillaramientos. The 

 Government is not sure of the accuracy of these particular reports consid- 

 ered separately, but it has less doubt with regard to them as a whole, since 

 from them and the valuation scale, called cartillas evaluatorias, it obtained an 

 idea of the wealth of a municipal district taken as a whole ; it declared this 

 wealth a fixed amount and based on it its calculation of the total amount 

 (cupo) of land tax to be borne by the landholders in proportion to their 

 wealth. In each case, the arrears due from previous years, that for any 

 reason it has not been possible to collect, must be added. 



This system is still in force in most of the Spanish provinces, since 

 the land tax, as we shall soon see, is only based on the cadastre in a fifth 

 part of the kingdom. 



