RATES AND TAXES. 125 



ment of certain subventious formerly granted by 

 the Treasury, but then and now withdrawn, leav- 

 ing a balance of some £2,000,000 in favour of the 

 local people. It was also intended by the Excise 

 Duties (Local Purposes) Bill to provide further 

 relief to ratepayers in town and country by a new 

 duty on horses, heavy carts, and vans. The 

 amount originally estimated to be derived from 

 this source was £830,000; but the Chancellor of 

 the Exchequer, through popular outcr}^ had to 

 make certain concessions in favour of the oppon- 

 ents of the wheel tax, this concession reducing 

 the estimated relief to somewhat over £700,000. 

 This £700,000 would have been practically equal 

 to three-fourths of the cost of the maintenance 

 of main roads, or say equivalent to the loss sus- 

 tained by local ratepayers from the abolition of 

 turnpike roads. So much resistance, however, 

 was oifi'ered by those v.ho, it was declared, would 

 have been affected by the proposed new duty 

 under the Bill, that the Bill had to be withdrawn. 

 In 1890 the liability of the general taxpayer 

 (and thereby of all kinds of property) for objects 

 of national importance was again distinctly 

 admitted by contributions from the National 

 Exchequer for police superannuation and for the 

 extinction of pleuro-pneumonia. In the Budget 

 of this year, moreover, by the imposition of tlie 

 surtax for local purposes of Gd. per gallon on 

 spirits, and by the transfer of a part of the beer 

 duty, amounting to 3d. per gallon, a sum estim- 

 ated to produce £1,043,000 in England and Wales 

 was raised and apportioned to local authorities. 



