02 



KEPORT — 1869. 



mere ratios are much less open to doubt, from the diversity of practice be- 

 tween Cro^yn valuers and local valuers, than the absolute amounts. 



Amount and Satio of Gross Assessment in 1864-65, of Lands and of other 

 Heal Propertji under Schedide A, in England and Wales. 



As against 1851-52, we may say that 10-3 per cent, has passed from the 

 land and gone upon other assessable property. Land would appear now 

 liable to bear rather more than one-third of any burden laid upon real 

 property generally, and real property, other than land, rather less than 

 two-tltirds, 



II. The Growtu of the Peopeety under Peessuee. 



It has thus been shown, I may submit, that the imposts upon real property 

 are in appearance exceptionally severe, taxed as it is both by the imperial 

 and the local assessor. Have these burdens in auj- wise injured or retarded 

 the growth of this species of wealth ? is the next question. During the past 

 fifty years England has increased largely in numbers, and more largely in 

 material prosperity. Under such conditions, it is inconceivable of any com- 

 munity that a great iraputus should not have been given to tbe development 

 of Avhat English lawyers mean by the term " realty " or real estate. 

 Authentic records afford the means of instituting a comparison between the 

 years 1815 and 1868 ; or, roughly speaking, after the lapse of half a century. 

 In the first-named year the population of England and Wales was 11,004,000 ; 

 in 1865 it was 21,5G0,000, the increase being 96-2 per cent. In 1814-15, 

 the real property assessed under Schedule A was £53,495,000, and in 1867-68 

 it was c£145,3'J9,000, or 171-8 per cent., and thus surpassing the rate of 

 development in the population by 75-6 per cent. 



This increase of real property is the more remarkable when the circum- 

 stances of what was formerly its most eminent constituent (laud) are 

 considered. This natural agent, in a country like England of the present 

 century, is within very narrow limits restricted in quantity. Houses, mills, 

 factories, railroads, &c. may and do increase indefinitely ; arable land cannot. 

 It is impossible to say what was the area under cultivation in 1815 ; and it 

 is, I believe, a matter of conjecture which way the balance would incline if 

 the loss by the expansion of our towns and by the introduction of railways 

 was measured against the acquisitions by enclosui'cs, which, reckoning only 

 from 1845 to 1867, amounted to 506,502 acres, a surface much larger than 

 the area now under cultivation in Dorset or in Cornwall. The estimated 

 quantity of land occupied by a lineal mile of railway, according to a Parlia- 

 mentary Paper of last Session, was 12-97 acres ; the total extent 133,430 

 acres, or rather more than one-fourth of the quantity brought under culture 

 by the Enclosure Commissioners in twentj^-two years. 



The Government has published no return of the gross valuation in eacli 

 county, under Schedule A, for a period later than the financial j-ear 1864-65 ; 

 but since a comparison of the value of land and of the other descriptions of 

 real property in tbat year, in the different parts of the kingdom, with the 

 official account in 1814-15, may be of some interest to the Section, the 

 details have been worked out and placed in an Appendix *. 

 * See ' Statistical Journal ' for September 1869. 



