72 DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN ENGLAND 



case there was any proved unfairness in the assessment which 

 the Parliament had adopted. 



The most notable feature in this valuation is the much 

 higher rate at which the Welsh counties are assessed. But on 

 the other hand, some counties, notably Devon, which had been 

 greatly overcharged, are put into their proper scale of con- 

 tribution, and others, Rutland in particular, are put at a much 

 higher rate. But again there is evidently an intention of 

 being strictly impartial. The counties which had throughout 

 supported the dominant party are not treated with favour. 

 London, which had made such great sacrifices for the Parlia- 

 ment's cause, is taxed rather more highly in December than it 

 was in March, and the home counties are in many cases put 

 up considerably. But Cambridge, though not so glaring a case 

 of over-taxation as Devon, has its assessment greatly reduced 

 in the winter valuation. Cheshire, on the one hand, has its 

 proportion nearly doubled. Sussex, on the other hand, is 

 largely reduced. 



The reader will do well to compare the two valuations, in 

 order to contrast the inadequate and imperfect guesses of 

 previous attempts with this careful and exact assessment, one 

 which I do not doubt precisely indicates what were the relative 

 opulence and poverty of the English counties. It will be seen 

 that very little progress had been made in the north of 

 England, and that those counties which have now become 

 the most prosperous and progressive part of England, were 

 still nearly as backward as they were in the days of the 

 Plantagenets. And the indirect evidence which these figures 

 supply is supplemented by the notices which Hough ton gives 

 of those industries in the north which were beginning to 

 struggle into existence, and were afterwards to grow to such 

 gigantic dimensions. The expenditure of the Civil War was 

 heavy, the maintenance of the army costly and vexatious, the 

 excise searching and annoying, but the country was elastic 

 under it. 



A proposal was made under date of November 8, 1660, to 



