124 AGRICULTURE AND TARIFF REFORM. 



iu respect of local charges imposed on them 

 for national services." This motion was carried 

 against the Government, and Mr. Gladstone 

 immediately resigned. lie thus left office in 

 1885, as he had done in 1874, without having 

 made any serious attempt to redeem the promises 

 repeatedly made to reform the incidence of local 

 taxation. 



Efforts at Relief. 



In 1887 the Unionist Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer, in his Budget speech, recognised 

 the peculiar pressure of certain local taxes 

 in the country districts for objects of 

 common interest, and announced that the 

 Government would double the subvention 

 previously granted for main roads. Accord- 

 ingly, a further transfer in aid of roads out of 

 the general taxation of the countrj^, of the sum 

 of £280,000 for England, Wales, and Scotland 

 Avas made. In 1888, by financial arrangements 

 then effected, the exceptional pressure of local 

 rates on owners and occupiers of land and houses 

 in England and Wales was lightened by a sum 

 of over £2,000,000. The relief was procured— 

 (A) by the allocation to local purposes of a direct 

 tax on personalty, being one-half of so much of 

 the probate duty as is levied in England ; (B) by 

 the transfer of certain locally-collected licences 

 formerly paid to the Treasury. The amounts 

 under " A " and '' B " for the year came to 

 £4,876,000, but out of this sum the county coun- 

 cils then established were to provide for the pay- 



