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CHAPTER III. 



LOCAL TAXATION. 



1836-1870. 



THIS subject in its various phases has occupied more of 

 the attention of the Chambers of Agriculture than all other 

 questions put together, and their efforts have met with greater 

 success in this than in any other direction, save one, namely, 

 bringing about the creation of the Board of Agriculture. But 

 that matter demands a chapter to itself. 



It is no matter for surprise that the question of Local 

 Taxation has agitated agriculturists more than other sections 

 of the community, for the simple reason that the former have 

 been most unjustly victimised by the incidence of local rates 

 ever since the passing of the Parochial Assessments Act in 

 1836. Nor is it unnatural that it has occupied the time of 

 the Chambers often to the exclusion of other important 

 matters, for it is unceasingly being brought to the notice of 

 their members by the continual and increasing demands made 

 upon their pockets by the rate collector. Every fresh burden 

 added to local rates is immediately and directly felt by the 

 ratepayer, and every alleviation of that burden is similarly 

 directly appreciated. Small wonder, therefore, that the 

 Chambers have continuously striven to remedy some of the 

 injustices thereby inflicted upon agriculture. 



When the Chambers were first founded there was in existence 

 no association of any importance, if indeed any at all, which 

 attempted to defend the interests of ratepayers ; but the 

 example set by the Chambers brought other bodies into being t 

 arid in their third Annual Report the Local Taxation Com- 

 mittee make mention of the Metropolitan Poor Rate League, 



