DEPUTATION TO THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND. 65 



economical from the afforestation point of view. You would 

 only want one competent forester in charge and a very small 

 staff, because the head forester would be able to get labour 

 every day in the year, except at seed time and at harvest. If 

 you could sympathetically consider that suggestion we should 

 be grateful." 



Mr J. H. Milne Home said : — " I have been asked to deal with 

 the question of the taxation of woodlands, and in doing so I 

 would like to make clear that in considering this question the 

 Council of the Society are very anxious to state that they are 

 not asking for any relief from taxation over and above the 

 proper share which owners of woodlands should bear, but they 

 do feel that, owing to what I might term almost an accident, 

 the burden is considerably beyond what other sections even 

 of the land bear at the present time. The views of the Council 

 on this question are contained in the Memorandum which 

 has been submitted to the Reconstruction Committee, of which 

 I think you have a copy, but I should like to amplify those 

 views. 



"This question may be looked at in two aspects— the first is 

 the valuation of woodlands and the second is the taxation, 

 which is for the most part based on the valuation. In speaking, 

 therefore, of the burden of taxation on woodlands in terms of 

 a rate per jC^ I wish to make it quite clear that the poundage 

 is the Valuation Roll figure, which is, after all, a supposed and 

 somewhat artificial valuation, and which, even if it represents a 

 fair average value for grazing, has no necessary relation to the 

 profits, if any, derived from the woodlands. 



" For the purposes of Imperial Taxes and local rates, wood- 

 lands are in some respects (but not in all) treated in the same 

 way as agricultural subjects — that is, there is assumed to be a 

 profit or income to the owner in the shape of a fixed annual rent, 

 such as is received for a farm let to a tenant. That rent is in 

 both cases liable, under certain deductions, to Schedule A, 

 Income Tax, and possibly to Super-Tax also. The owners' rates 

 are levied on the same valuation. But woodlands are also 

 liable for all the occupiers' rates and taxes, even although it is 

 obviously impossible to let woodlands upon terms in any way 

 comparable to the letting of an agricultural holding, It thus 

 comes about that not only does the owner of woodlands pay 

 local rates as both owner and occupier — which is perhaps 



VOL. XXXII. PART I. E 



