64 RATES AND TAXES 



that therefore agriculture, which earned the 

 greater part of this revenue, should be 

 fostered by the State. As the whole policy 

 of the Corn Laws has been treated by the 

 present writer in another work, 1 it must 

 suffice on this occasion simply to indicate 

 the place of these expedients in the system 

 of taxation as a whole. It was generally 

 recognised that down to 1846 agriculture, 

 and the land devoted to it, had received 

 special benefit from the protectionist system. 

 When this system was abandoned, Sir Robert 

 Peel thought that some compensation should 

 be given to the landed interest, and with 

 this view, certain local charges which had 

 formerly fallen on land were now met from 

 the national Exchequer. 2 



This policy was not only approved of at 

 the time and carried into effect, but it was 



l " History of the English Corn Laws." (Sonnenschein, 1904.) 

 1 Mem., p. 12. 



