HEAVY TAXATION OF LAND ^ 321 



mous, the increase in public burdens had more than kept pace. 

 During the ten years ending in 1792, the average price of wheat had 

 been 47s. per quarter ; the national expenditure under twenty 

 millions a year ; the poor-rate less than If milHons ; there was also 

 no property tax. During the ten years ending in 1812, wheat 

 averaged 88s. a quarter. While wheat had thus not quite doubled, 

 wages had risen by two-thirds ; the national expenditure had i 

 multiphed five-fold ; tithes had increased by more than a fourth ; 

 a property tax had been imposed on owners and occupiers of land. 

 The poor-rate had quadrupled ; the county-rate had risen seven- 

 fold ; the permissive charge of 6d. in the pound for the road material 

 of highways had been of late years habitually levied. A very large 

 proportion of this pubhc burden was borne by agriculturists. Upon 

 the landed interests fell more than half the new property tax,' 

 the greater part of the county-, poor-, and highway-rates, the war i 

 duties on hops and malting barley, the tax on agricultural horses, | 

 and an exceptional share of the tax on leather, which swelled the 

 cost of every kind of harness gear. Thus the rise of the price of 

 agricultural produce was to a great extent discounted by the growth 

 of taxation, and it was the war, not the Corn Laws, which had given 

 agricultural producers the monopoly of home markets. 



In other respects circumstances were exceptional. During the 

 war, the social advantages of landownership and its apparently 

 remunerative character, as well as the large fortunes reahsed in 

 recent trade, combined to give land a fancy value. New capitahsts 

 gratified both their ambitions and their speculative instincts by 



1 The Property Tax for 1814 produced Gross £15,325,720, and Net 

 £14,545,279. It was made up thus : 



Sched. A (lands, tenements and hereditaments) £4,297,247 



Sched. B (occupiers of land) - - - 2,176,228 



Tax on houses 1,625,939 



Total - - £8,099,414 



Sched. C, Funded property - - - - £3,004,861 



Sched. D, Profits on Trades and Professions - 3,021,187 

 Sched. E, Naval, military, and civil lists 



together with provincial oflBces - - 1,113,244 



Total - £7,139,292 



Supplementary accounts, duties, penalties, etc. 87,014 



Total £15,325,720 



This tax was repealed in 1816. The number of agricultural occupiers 

 contributing to the property tax under Sched. B was 474,596, as against 

 152,926 assessed under Sched. D. 



X 



