PROTECTION TAXES ON FREE TRADE PRICES 200 



powers, is imperatively needed to enforce economy, pro- 

 mote efficiency, and exercise control over conveniently- 

 sized and well-arranged districts. 



But administrative reform ought not to hinder financial 

 relief. Excessive taxation and its wasteful distribution are 

 two distinct abuses capable of separate removal. What- 

 ever portion of local taxation is reduced for agriculturists 

 must be necessarily transferred to some other form of 

 property. Nor would it be difficult to establish a local 

 taxation income-tax, and use existing returns to assess 

 realised personalty. But if this method of supplying the 

 deficiency is rejected, other alternatives exist. Subventions 

 from general taxation are clumsy expedients, but the 

 State supervision which they carry with them, if reform of 

 local government is postponed, becomes a valuable advan- 

 tage. Another and simpler method of relief is affi3rded by 

 the allocation of certain taxes, like the dog, gun, game, 

 and carriage licenses, to local authorities.^ 



But the mode of financial relief hardly belongs to the 

 present inquiry, which is not so much intended to suggest 

 remedies as to insist upon the unfair incidence of protec- 

 tion taxes upon agricultural land. Here, and not in its 

 incidence upon building-land, lies the inequality of the 

 present system. Here, whatever increment has been gained 

 is hardly earned, and here alone is relief urgently required. 



It is often argued that the reduction of local rates 

 exonerates property at the cost of labour, and quarters 

 landlords upon the State. Though the reduction of local 

 rates is primarily a landlord's question, because upon him 



' Another financial measure which would indirectly confer substan- 

 tial benefits upon agricultural land would be the reduction of 3 per cent, 

 consols to 2^ per cent. By such a change capital would be necessarily 

 attracted from consols to land, since both would then be placed upon 

 much the same footing as remunerative investments. 



