86 LOCAL TAXATION 



Review, giving information on Local Taxation, which they 

 distributed gratuitously to the number of four or five thousand 

 copies. They reported, too, that by this time 20,000 copies 

 of the prize essay had been circulated. 



Up to this point the various steps taken have been detailed 

 at length, partly in order to show the different problems 

 which the Local Taxation Committee had to deal with in those 

 early days, as compared with ours. The main principle for 

 which Sir Massey Lopes and his supporters fought is still 

 waiting to be dealt with ; real property is still the basis, and 

 bears the larger proportion, of local rates ; but our predecessors 

 had many questions to grapple with then which we only faintly 

 realise now. They had to see Turnpike Trusts abolished, 

 School Boards and County Councils established, and other 

 new features introduced which we now accept as a matter 

 of course. Another reason for giving fuller credit to the 

 Committee for the work which they accomplished is that they 

 had not only to put pressure on the Government, but at the 

 same time to educate and carry public opinion along with 

 them, and this upon ridiculously inadequate means. 



The work of subsequent years may be somewhat more con 

 densed. 



