THE RURAL PROBLEM 10.3 



§3. Tax on Game-preservi 



Several methods have been suggested. A tax on land 

 devoted to game is not so simple as it appears at the first 

 blush. We do not want to destroy the coppices of the Home 

 Counties ; we must not penalise the devotion of waste land 

 to the production of timber, with game as an accessory. 

 Grouse moors may as well be used for grouse, since they 

 must be generally useless for anything else, and finally the 

 head of game reared and the damage done to agriculture 

 bear no direct and often an inverse ratio to the acreage 

 occupied therewith. 



A tax might be levied on land exceeding a certain acreage 

 in one parish devoted to sport, with the object of preventing 

 land being kept uncultivated. Exceptions would have to 

 be made either for certain counties or for land covered with 

 heather or for land used as grouse moors — on these the 

 charge should be very much lower. In any case it would be 

 difficult to impose such a tax with complete fairness. 



A progressive tax might be imposed on gamekeepers and 

 other persons (if any) engaged wholly or mainly for, or in 

 connection with, rearing and preserving game. The present 

 tax is 15s. for a male servant and £2 for licence to shoot. A 

 super-tax scale would be, say, £3 for the first gamekeeper, 

 £4 10s. for the second, £6 15s. for the third, £10 2s. 6d. for 

 the fourth, and so on. The chief objection to this proposal 

 is that a tax on employment would not be popular in rural 

 districts. 



Probably the most effective form of tax would be that 

 suggested by Mr. R. A. Bray, L.C.C., viz., a tax on the 

 annual bag, to be paid in aid of rates in every parish. Ever}' 

 person who shoots keeps a game-book, or other humbler 

 record of his success, and the size of the bag is a matter of 

 local and occasionally of national emulation. The bag of all 

 large game-preservers is known in the parish to a nicety, 

 and if steps are taken to publish the returns locally evasion 

 would be difficult. It is usually estimated that every 

 pheasant killed costs £l. A tax of 2s. a head, or 10 per cent., 

 could easily be levied on each game-bird killed. To avoid 

 collecting small sums, and also to avoid taxing small people, 



