RENTS, PROFITS, AND WAGES. 81 



Scotland ; most of the English taxes are unknown there. 

 Scotland pays about 500,000, and Ireland 1,500,000 

 of direct taxes/"" 



In France the assessment on land, exclusive of house 

 property, amounts in principal and additional per-cen- 

 tages, and including payments in kind for roads, to a 

 total of two hundred and fifty millions, or 5 francs per 

 hectare ; this impost, therefore, is one-fifth in nominal 

 value, and in reduced value one-fourth, of what it is in 

 England. 



To these figures must be added the income-tax, which 

 resembles our personal and movable property contribu- 

 tion, and absorbs about three per cent more out of the 

 net income of the proprietors, and one and a half per cent 

 of that of the farmers. The tax upon house property, of 

 which the landed proprietors bear their share, is pro- 

 portionate to that chargeable upon the land properly so 

 called. Lastly, the indirect taxes : these, besides that they 

 materially reduce the proprietors' revenue by increasing 

 the price of all commodities, bear heavily upon certain 

 agricultural products, especially barley, used in the 

 manufacture of beer, which pays an excise of no less 

 than five millions sterling : the question of reducing this 

 (the malt) tax has been recently agitated, but nothing is 

 yet decided. Our impost upon beverages produces, as is 

 well known, four millions sterling. 



Landed property in England, to be sure, is partly free 

 from a charge which greatly affects the land in France ; 

 this is the tax upon successions, transferences, and mort- 

 gages. But this exemption, which applies only to land 

 that is freehold, and lands subject to manorial rights, or 



* This, however, seems exclusive of tithes or taxes for the support of the 

 Church in both countries. We are not aware that there are very many local 

 taxes exigible in England which are not well known in Scotland, though the rate 

 may not be so high. T. 



F 



