ocxliv 



would not only relieve the Imperial army estimates of a lieterdgeneous 

 charge, but by really associating localities with the work, would contri- 

 bute much to the strength and vitality of our home system of defence. 

 There is another way in which something more could be made cf the 

 present system. Under the hap-hazard methods and want of principle 

 which have hitherto prevailed, the local rates have gradually been 

 relieved of a large portion of the burden which properly falls upon 

 them. On one pretext or another the Imperial exchequer has been 

 drawn on for ' grants' amounting annually in England to a million and 

 a quarter, by which the growth of the local burden has been retarded 

 — or in other words, the individual landowner has been permitted to 

 retain a larger share than otherwise he would retain of the augmenting 

 value of land. Good reasons, I think, have been furnished for putting 

 a stop to this system, if rates continue to be the form of our special 

 tax. The proper course would now be to institute a mode of discon- 

 tinuing the grants by degrees, according to a defined scale, and so 

 reimpose on property a burden which it has escaped/' * 



(4) Statistics showing the amount of taxes on land in various countries 

 and its ratio to total agricultural production (extracted from 

 " MulhaU's Statistical Dictionary ") . 



In the United Kingdom the taxes on agriculture are distributed as 

 follows : — 



* Note. — It should be remembered that Mr. Giffen's remarks in the concluding portion 

 of the above extract were made in 1871, before the present agricultural depression and 

 the great fall in the reut-value of lands had set in, in England. 



