LAND-TAX. 361 



highly important advantage would be afforded to the purchaser of 

 a property : he could, by applying to the warden, form at once a 

 just idea of the value of the land offered for sale ; and I do not 

 think that, under such circumstances, proprietors would deem it 

 their interest to undervalue their lands. Such are the remarks I 

 have been induced to offer on the scope of the land-tax. I must 

 now show how, in its operation, it has been made but too 

 often an instrument of oppression. 



The tax is paid to the warden generally, or to his clerk or 

 constable. I have not heard of one single instance of a warden 

 having personally received the tax and demanding it a second 

 time ; but I have heard of clerks, constables, or even collectors, 

 specially appointed, having received the amount from poor ignorant 

 people, either without giving receipts, or without accounting for 

 the same to the warden. In the latter cases the tax-payer was com- 

 pelled to disburse a second amount ; or, in case of refusal, was 

 placed on the list of defaulters, and his property advertised for 

 sale. In all instances where the receipts could not be produced 

 the warden was clearly blameless, but I cannot admit his excuse 

 on a receipt being exhibited signed by his agent that as he 

 could not account for money he had not received, the tax- 

 payer was a second time liable. In fact, few are the exceptions in 

 which the wardens invariably received the rates themselves, or even 

 issued their receipts to their agents. Unfortunately, therefore, 

 such frauds were too common, whilst redress was of rare occur- 

 rence but in one case within my knowledge either because the 

 poor tax-payer felt reluctant to embroil himself in a law suit, or 

 that he did not know how to proceed, or even whether it were pos- 

 sible to proceed at all. I know of even a still harder case, viz., of 

 property having been sold before the doors of the Court of In- 

 tendant, though the proprietor had paid the tax and was in pos- 

 session of the voucher, arid of his being eventually obliged to 

 compromise with the purchaser. 



Now, I ask, was I not justified in asserting that the Territorial 

 Ordinance had been on many occasions made an instrument of 

 oppression ? And, where lies the responsibility in the eyes of the 

 people ? On the government ; and justly so, because in all sound 

 opinion the government is the natural protector of the people's 

 interest, and whenever the people are oppressed in the name, and 

 apparently for the advantage of the government, it becomes the 



