532 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



assessing personal property, and the annual value of immovable 

 property, such as lands and houses, within the parish has come to be 

 selected as the simplest and most practicable basis for assessments. 

 The history is of high importance, because the basis of the poor rate 

 was adopted as the basis for all other rates levied in local taxation. 

 Whatever confusion has been introduced has arisen from other 

 causes, such as the constituting poor-law unions containing more 

 than one parish, the levying of county rates, a county having a 

 boundary other than a parish or a union, and the assessing for rates 

 by parish officers who acted independently of each other. Many 

 efforts have been made to introduce a uniform system of assessment, 

 but without success. One of the clearest thinkers on this subject 

 was Sir George Cornewall Lewis. In appearing before a committee 

 on taxation, in 1850, he said: " We have never recognized the prin- 

 ciple of having one valuation for all the different rates. If that 

 principle were once admitted, the inducement to have an accurate 

 and complete valuation would be at its maximum, because then you 

 would know that whatever charge might be imposed it would be im- 

 posed upon that valuation, whereas if there is one assessment for 

 one rate and another assessment for another rate, and an amended 

 assessment for a third rate, no one cares much about making any 

 assessment perfect. This is one defect of the present system of 

 valuation." 



The defect has persisted and become more aggravated each year. 

 In 1870 a special commission came to the resolution that " the great 

 variety of rates levied by different authorities, even in the same 

 area, on different assessments, with different deductions and by dif- 

 ferent collectors, has produced great confusion and expense; and 

 that in any change of the law as regards local taxation, uniformity 

 and simplicity of assessment and collection, as well as of economy of 

 management, ought to be secured as far as possible." When it is 

 considered that for the five independent valuations for raising rates 

 on property there are in England and Wales more than one thousand 

 valuation authorities, the hopelessness of obtaining uniformity is 

 apparent. With such a multiplicity of agents it is useless to look 

 for good results. There is no fixed or necessary time for making 

 the valuation lists; no uniform system of or scale for making deduc- 

 tions for arriving at the ratable values of certain classes of property; 

 exemptions and allowances are said to be given unduly, through 

 undue pressure on the assessing authorities; and the assessment com- 

 mittees have no statutory power to ascertain from owners or occu- 

 piers the rentals and other particulars needed to determine values. 

 The reforms needed are a geographical redistribution of taxing lim- 

 its and uniform rules of assessments. 



