PKOTECTION TAXES ON FREE TEADE PRICES 203 



Light and Watching Eates, Sewers Rates (not Metropoli- 

 tan), Drainage and Inclosure Rates. The amounts of this 

 last class are not separately returned in early reports on 

 Local Taxation. 



The four first-mentioned rates formed the chief items 

 of Local Taxation. If, as it is believed, the value of agri- 

 cultural land has fallen to about the value of 1815, it be- 

 comes not only historically, but practically, interesting to 

 give the amount of Local Taxation so far as it can be made 

 out in 1815, 1827, and 1841. The total amount, and, 

 where practicable, the items, will be found set out in the 

 note,' and in Appendix XIII. These years, it will be 

 observed, are years in which it was reasonable that Local 

 Taxation should fall heavily upon agricultural land, because, 

 under the protective system, the community at large was 

 heavily taxed for its support. 



In 1848 England adopted a Free Trade Policy, but 

 she did not readjust her Protection taxes. On the contrary, 

 she has every year added to the burden upon agricultural 

 land. In reason, if agriculturists have no Protection, they 

 ought to have fair taxation ; in fact, they have neither. 

 Personalty or building land eats its cake in the form of 

 Free Trade, and keeps it in the shape of relief from taxa- 

 tion. House property never had, and therefore never 

 lost, the benefit of Protection ; but it is in building land 

 that the increased value of the soil now consists. The 

 whole force of the double blow inflicted by the loss of 



' The returns in early reports for any given year supiDlj- the item of 

 one rate, another supplies a second, but 1827 is the first year in which 

 all four are given. In 1803 and 1814 Poor Rate was 5,318,205^. and 

 8,388,974/.; in 1792, County Rate was 218,215/!. ; in 1803, 317,977/.; in 

 1814,573,504/. Highway Eates averaged for the three years 1811-12-13, 

 1,407,200/. ; in 1827, Church Eates were 5G4,388/. For other details, see 

 Appendix XIII. 



