SECT. XXX.] RESULTS OF THE INQUIRY. 301 



SECTION XXX. 



WE have anxiously considered the practicability of making 

 the rate payable out of property of every description ; but 

 the difficulty of reaching personal property in general by 

 direct taxation, except through very inquisitorial proceed- 

 ings, has obliged us to determine on recommending that 

 the land should be the fund charged in the first instance 

 with it. 



Having, however, had reason to believe that the landed 

 property of Ireland was so deeply incumbered that a rate 

 of any great extent would absorb the whole income of 

 some of the nominal proprietors if it were to bear the 

 entire charge, we thought it right to communicate with 

 the masters of the Court of Chancery upon the subject, 

 and from the facts which they stated to us, it appears that 

 the average rent of land is under II. 2s. 6d. the Irish acre, 

 being equal to about 14s. 2d. the English ; that the gross 

 landed rental of Ireland amounts to less than 10,000,000/., 

 that expenses and losses cannot be taken at less than 10/. 

 per cent., nor the annuities and the interest of charges 

 payable out of land at less than 3,000,000?. a year ; so 

 that the total net income, as already stated, is less than 

 6,000,000/. 



We therefore think that the incumbrancer should be 

 called upon to bear a proportional share of the burden. 

 The security of his investment is bound up with the pro- 

 ductiveness of the land and the well-being of its inhabi- 

 tants ; and if, in order to insure those objects, an expen- 

 diture becomes necessary, such as we have pointed out, 



