AFFORESTATION IN SCOTLAND. 



RATES. 



It is not easy to deal, in a few lines, with the rating question 

 as affecting afforestation, and in view of the frequently reiterated 

 promise by successive Governments to take up the whole question 

 of local taxation, it would appear inadvisable to go into the 

 matter at any length in the course of this Report. It is 

 necessary, however, to point out that the rating question — of 

 considerable importance all over the British Isles — appears in a 

 specially acute form in the Northern and Western Highlands, 

 where a not inconsiderable portion of the plantable area and 

 waste land is situated. In the majority of cases, the parishes 

 in the Northern and Western Highlands are poor ; assessable 

 values are low ; rates are above the normal for rural districts ; 

 and in many cases the situation is such that the expenditure of 

 a very few tens of sovereigns, or the reduction of ratepaying 

 subjects by a few hundred pounds, is followed by an appreciable 

 increase of the rates. 



Two aspects only of ihe rating cjuestion will be dealt with by 

 the writers: — (i) The probable effects the afforestation proposals 

 would have on the rates; and (2) the degree in which the 

 inequality of the rates in the different districts of the Highlands 

 would limit the advantages which afforestation might bring to 

 the poorer parishes unless remedial action were taken. 



The question of valuation for rating purposes presents diffi- 

 culties, chiefly because woodlands are at present valued at the rent 

 at which they might, in their natural state, reasonably be expected 

 to let, from year to year, as pasture or grazing lands ; and a lease 

 of woodlands in the sense of the present proposals has hitherto 

 been unknown in Scotland. This valuation will be set aside 

 when a proprietor and a tenant agree upon a rent and enter into 

 a formal lease of woodlands, because the rent in the lease must 

 be taken as the basis for fixing the value of the woodlands, as of 

 other subjects, for rating purposes. In the case of leases of less 

 duration than twenty-one years, the actual rent or other considera- 

 tion stipulated for in the lease must appear in the Valuation 

 Roll. But in the case of leases of longer duration, the Assessor 

 has power (see Sect. 6 of the Valuation Act of 1854) to set aside 

 the rent entered in the lease, and to value the subjects at what 

 he considers to be their fair annual value; this provision being 

 evidently based on the assum])tion that the rent accepted for 



