74 RATES AND TAXES 



afforded to the local ratepayers was really for additional 

 charges, and was in any case not sufficient. The Agricul- 

 tural Rates Act did indeed benefit the landed interests, but it 

 is purely illusory to say that the relief is given by personal 

 property. It may be nominally assigned from that part of 

 the estates duties levied on personal property, but if the 

 rate is the same as on realty, it might just as well be paid 

 out of the estate duties on realty itself. 



Another point is the graduation of these duties, which 

 falls very heavily on large estates, the estates which naturally 

 or normally manage their agricultural land in the best way, 

 and spend a large part of the rent on the estate. 



The whole subject is complicated by legal, or in this 

 case, accounting fictions, but the sum total of the legislation 

 is that so far as imperial taxation is concerned, the owners of 

 land are worse off than they were before ; the addition has 

 been real to their burdens, the relief given to local expenses 

 has not been given at the special expense of personal 

 property, or rather of its owners, but at that of the general 

 tax-payer. 



Up to this time (1894) land had been favoured in the 

 matter of the death duties. It is curious that the additional 

 burdens should have been imposed in the depth of 

 agricultural depression. 



See Final Report Local Taxation (1901) [Cd. 638] (pp. 

 112-114). 



