QUESTIONS OF TAXATION. 177 



It should be met with the counter-cry of " Tax 

 the land justly ! " not with a denial of the justice 

 of land taxation. If a soundly patriotic party 

 were to commit itself definitely to a policy of 

 just land taxation, if it were to undertake to 

 make one of its first acts of government the 

 appointment of a judicial commission to investi- 

 gate by comparative research the land taxation 

 of this and of other countries, and to found its 

 scheme of land taxation on the report of that 

 commission, it would at once clear away a serious 

 misconception, and take one of the necessary 

 steps for a restoration of the landed industries. 



As I can imagine it, the report of such a 

 commission — supposing that it were not too 

 slavish in its worship of established institutions 

 — would make a beginning in the task of sim- 

 plification by suggesting that the money re- 

 quired for the Church, for education, for the 

 police, for the poor, and the insane should come 

 from the national exchequer, and not from 

 local rates. That there must be kept up exist- 

 ing distinctions between " rates " and " taxes ' 

 has become almost a political principle in the 

 English mind. It has no real logical basis. 



