NATIONAL TAXS 65 



justified in the memorandum submitted to 

 the Commission on Local Taxation by the 

 greatest modern authority on the ethics of 

 politics, namely, the late Henry Sidgwick. 

 " I think," he says, " that the abandonment of 

 this policy in 1846 gave the owners of agri- 

 cultural land an equitable claim to be 

 relieved from such part of the special burden 

 of local taxation as it would have been 

 inequitable to impose on them if the system 

 of local taxation had been arranged de now ; 

 and that the interval of time that has elapsed 

 since 1846 is not sufficient to impair materi- 

 ally the force of this claim, especially since 

 the tendency of free trade to lower the value 

 of agricultural land has only been gradually 

 realised" (p. 112). The sentences I have 

 quoted form the conclusion of a long and 

 difficult argument on the question whether 

 long-continued burdens on land can be con- 

 sidered to have been converted in the course 



