THE PRESSURE OF TAXATION ON REAL PROPERTY. 57 



amount absorbable by distilled water. To show this there is introduced 

 into the foregoing Table numbers taken from Bunsen's ' Gasometry,' indi- 

 cating the quantities of nitrogen absorbable by 100 volumes of distilled 

 water at the temperatures which are nearest to those at which the waters 

 were collected. The reasons of this apparent anomaly will be investigated 

 during the com-se of the ensuing year, and it is hoped that, by the next 

 Meeting of the Association, a much larger amoiint of information will have 

 been obtained. The prosecution of the experiments has been much hindered 

 by the necessity of pei'fccting the apparatus for the removal of the gases, 

 and the means of collection, so that it was not nntU after the beginning of 

 July that any systematic work coitld be commenced. Although the investi- 

 gation wiU be continued, it is not intended to ask for any additional grant, 

 as the amount voted last year wiU probably be sufficient. 



The Pressure of Taxation on Real Property. By Frederick Purdy, 

 Principal of the Statistical Dejjartment, Poor Laiu Board, and one 

 of the Honorary Secretaries of the Statistical Society. 



[A Communication ordered to be j^rinted in cxtcnso among the Eeports.] 



I. The Peesstjei;. 



The question of the fiscal pressure caused by the incidence of imperial and 

 local taxation on real property is no new topic in this country. In 1846 the 

 House of Lords appointed a select committee to inquire into the " Burdens 

 affecting real property." This committee, of which Lord Beaumont was the 

 chairman, gathered from various sources a large body of information, and 

 made in the same session a rather brief report to the House upon the volu- 

 minous evidence which was subsequently pubhshed. A draft report which 

 Lord Monteagle, one of the members, had drawn up was not accepted; it 

 was, however, printed as a separate paper by the House of Commons in the 

 same j'ear. 



Both documents have rather an historical than practical interest for us in 

 the present day. Our imperial financial policy has materially changed since 

 1846, and the local burdens of that time are quite dwarfed in absolute 

 amount by recent growths in the same field. It therefore appeared a useful 

 task to ascertain the taxation laid on real property at this moment with the 

 greatest precision that authentic records render possible. I propose to do 

 this statistically ; an economic treatment of the subject would be, no doubt, 

 as touching the pockets of a large number of people, a more exciting theme. 

 But admitting that the aggregate of imperial and local expenses must be 

 provided for, throwing a tax off one description of pi'operty means, in the 

 sphere of financial policy, placing it on another. The correlation of the 

 parts would be disturbed ; the wide and intricate field of taxation must then 

 be entirely reviewed and readjusted, a task of no mean difficulty which 

 may be fittingly omitted on this occasion. 



The nearest approach, at present, to the annual value of real property in 

 England and Wales is expressed by some figures supplied to mo by the 

 courtesy of Mr. Erederick Gripper, Accountant and ComptroUer-Gcneral to 

 the Board of Inland Eevenue. 



They show the gross sum to be upwards of »C145,000,000 for the financial 

 year 1867-68, thus assessed : — 



