60 REPORT— 1869. 



ou wills &c. iu England and Wales in 1867-G8 was i'l, 493,000. Probate Court fee 

 stamps, which in 18ti8 amounted to ,£124,000, are also excluded. 



The succession-duty experiences considerable variations ; according to 

 l^articulars furnished by Mr. Gripper, the sums collected in England and 

 Wales for the financial years 1867, 1868, 1869 were respectively £507,081, 

 £608,297, and £571,831. For the purposes of this paper the average of the 

 three years has been taken. Fire-iusiu-ance duty has ceased ; it is noted 

 above as a reminder ; verj' recently it was a tax that largely bore on certain 

 descriptions of real property. After trial it is found impossible to unravel 

 the stamp-duties so as to exhibit that iwrtion of the impost with which 

 alone this paper is concerned. 



Allowing for possible defects in the imperial tax table, the aggregate 

 burden is this : — 



£ 



Taken by local taxation 16,733,000 



„ imperial taxation 0,382,000 



Grand total 23,115,000 



upon the gross value assessed under Schedule A— £145,399,000. This is 

 equivalent to 3s. 2^d. in the pound ; on the net value (the amount '•' charged," 

 £136,135,000) it equals 35. 4^<L in the pound. Here, however, it should 

 be remembered that the standards of comjjarison are themselves averages of 

 a comprehensive sort; it is not every poimd of gross or of "charged" value 

 that is taxable. For example, on many estates the land-tax is redeemed*; 

 the inhabited-house tax is not paid by more than one-sixth of all the house- 

 holders of the kingdom ; though measured on value alone, more than half the 

 house-rental pays. The assessment of houses &c. (other than farm-houses) 

 to the property-tax in 1864-65 was, as already stated, £59,286,000 ; but for 

 the purposes of the house-tax, the levy was made upon £30,405,000. Again, 

 many small proprietors, being outside the statutable limit of the income-tax, 

 altogether escape it. In a word, as a taxable corpus, the valuations here 

 cited must not be invested with an homogeneity they do not possess. 



Though the Crown valuations under Schedule A be a much truer exponent 

 of the country's wealth iu real property than any assessment yet made for 

 the purpose of local ratings, it is nevertheless advisable to give, in a theme 

 of this kind, some attention to the latter. 



There is no information in existence as to the " rateable value " of England 

 and Wales previous to the year 1840-41. This "rateable," or, as it is 

 sometimes termed, " annual value," when discovered from returns obtained 

 by the Poor Law Commissioners from the overseers of that time, was found 

 to be £62,540,000. The parish officers' valuations were notoriously defective. 

 The annual value of real property was ascertained by the Commissioners of 

 the Income- and Property-Tax Acts to be £85,803,000 iu the subsequent 

 year 1841-42. The whole excess of £23,000,000 or so must not, however, 

 be ascribed to under valuation in the poor-rate assessment. Some few things 

 are in Schedule A that are exempt from poor's rate. The Parochial Assess- 

 ment Act of 1837 does not appear to have mended matters muchf. The 

 increase of assessable property, and, latterly, the application of sounder prin- 

 ciples, introduced by the assessment committees in the practice of valuation, 

 though yet very short of attainable completeness, make themselves visible 

 in the next statement : — 



* The annual tax redeemed up to 1856 was £770,000.— Statistical Journal, vol. xs. 

 t See ' Statistical Journal,' vol. xxiii. p. 292 et seq. 



