THE BERRY INFLUENCE, 1875-1882 193 



knight that he would receive the Government nomination for the 

 Speakership when Parliament met. Failing in his efforts to secure 

 fresh blood, Mr. Berry had to fall back on his old team in its 

 entirety, with one exception. He even reappointed Mr. Le Poer 

 Trench as his Attorney-General, though that gentleman was still 

 without a seat in Parliament. 



The new Assembly met for business on the 26th of June. Sir 

 Charles Gavan Duffy was duly inducted into the Speaker's chair, and 

 the Governor's speech, while promising a revision of the tariff, and 

 measures dealing with a land tax and mining on private property, 

 intimated that the important subject of constitutional reform would 

 have to be postponed until the next session. On the 16th of August 

 Mr. Berry submitted his estimates for the year ending on 30th June, 

 1878, which promised a surplus of 44,000, subject to the sanction 

 of certain new taxation. The income from the new land tax was 

 reckoned at 200,000, and a further 50,000 was anticipated from 

 increased duties on sheep, cattle and other live stock. As Mr. Berry 

 started with a credit balance of 200,000, accumulated without a 

 land tax, the prospective surplus after such a heavy impost was very 

 discouraging to those who demanded a real reduction in the inflated 

 expenditure. Nor were they much encouraged by Mr. Berry's ex- 

 pressed indifference as to whether the estimated amount from this 

 tax was realised or not, the underlying object, as declared by him, 

 being "not to produce revenue, but to burst up the large estates, 

 and so to make them accessible to the poorer classes ". As a matter 

 of fact, it did not bring in the revenue estimated, the total only reach- 

 ing 130,000 ; nor did it effect the socialistic alternative, so boldly 

 declared. 



The land tax of 1877 provided that all estates over 640 acres 

 in extent, valued at upwards of 2,500, whether consisting of one 

 block or several, should pay a tax of 1J per cent, on their capital 

 value. For purposes of valuation estates were to be divided into 

 four classes, appraised according to the number of sheep they were 

 able to carry. Thus land that would feed two or more sheep to the 

 acre was valued at 4 ; three sheep to two acres 3 ; one sheep to 

 the acre 2 ; below that 1. The total area brought under the im- 

 post was about 7,000,000 acres, and the payment of the tax fell on 



VOL. II. 13 



