RISKS TO THE STATE 241 



increased rating that immediately follows any enter- 

 prise which results in improved production.^ He 

 hardly speaks too strongly when he says that both 

 local and imperial authorities " worry the land as 

 though its very presence was a nuisance." But this 

 is the natural outcome of the present system of land 

 tenure. A large party in the House of Commons do 

 not reflect on the connection which agriculture has 

 with the general welfare of the country. With them 

 the land interest is synonymous with what they call 

 "landlordism," and their policy is fashioned accord- 

 ingly. They oppose the Agricultural Ratings Act, 

 not from any intention of injuring the farmer, but 

 because they regard the measure as one for " landlord 

 relief." Further, for this opposition many of them 



^ The general public do not realize how badly the farmer is treated in 

 this respect. The commercial classes would resist a proposal that they 

 should pay local rates on the capital invested in their undertakings. But 

 this is practically the principle on which the farmer, to a large extent, is 

 rated. If a manufacturer by skill and enterprise should increase the value 

 of his business without enlarging his premises, his local rates remain the 

 same. Should the farmer by the same qualities increase the value of his 

 land, he is liable, as the Duke of Bedford points out, to an increase of 

 rates. By the Agricultural Rates Act he is relieved from a part of the 

 imposition, but the Act is only a recognition — not an aboHtion — of the 

 injustice to which he is subject. The farmer, in common fairness, should 

 be rated on precisely the same principle as that on which the manufac- 

 turer, shopkeeper, and merchant are rated. As an example, roughly 

 stated, but which the general reader will understand, a tradesman carry- 

 ing on business in premises rated at ;i^5o per year pays rates on those 

 premises only, though his stock may be worth ;^iooo, and he enjoys all 

 the benefits accruing from the expenditure of the rates. A farmer in the 

 same parish whose premises may have a rental value of ^5°) '^"d whose 

 land apart from the premises is valued at £300 a year, pays in rates about 

 four times as much as the tradesman. The injustice is keenly felt, now 

 that the county rates have increased so much and are increasing so fast. 

 The burdens on our agrarian industry — rates, taxes, tithes, land and 

 income tax, duties, etc.— form a considerable percentage on the output 

 of the land. They are far heavier, in most cases twice as heavy, as those 

 on the same industry in any other country m Europe. 



