THE PRESSURE OF TAXATION ON REAL PROPERTY. 



65 



advance in quantity and in market value, and an apparent advance by 

 better assessment *. 



There is, I fear, no possibility of assigning the true value to each factor. 

 The Union Assessment Committees' valuation of 408 unions, embracing 

 about half the rateable property of the kingdom, in 18G3 amounted to 

 .£43,298,000 ; in the following year, when it may be supposed these bodies 

 had obtained greater knowledge of their work, the assessment of the same 

 unions was raised <£5,384,000, or 12-4 per cent. 



III. Conclusion. 



Though in the preceding pages the taxes incident upon real property have 

 been tenned a burden, this language requires some qualification when we 

 examine the objects to which a large portion of oiir local rates are devoted. 

 The charges entailed on the ratepayers by crime and pauperism might be 

 dispensed with, to the great advantage of the jiroperty now defraying the 

 cost, though Enghsh poor-rates largely supplement wages, and consumers 

 thereby gain some temporary, but in its consequences more than doubtful, 

 benefit. Expenditure upon the maintenance and repair of roads and bridges, 

 upon the drainage and embankment of marsh lauds, upon the sewerage, 

 paving and hghting of towns, and upon many other services performed by 

 improvement commissioners, as well as the sanitary measures undertaken by 

 boards of health, are operations signally beneficial to rateable propertj'. 



So far, therefore, as the property is judiciously assessed, and the proceeds 

 honestly and iuteUigently administered for these purposes, the local rate is a 

 good investment, for which no enlightened owner will manifest an ignorant 

 impatience of taxation. The imperial taxes and the other part of the local 

 rates stand in a very different category. 



{Note. — An Appendix, consisting of detailed Tables, will be found in the 

 ' Journal of the Statistical Society ' for September 1869.] 



* Alluding, in 1864, to a new valuation of property then in progress, under the orders 

 of the Inland Eevenue Office, the Commissioners mention that in many districts the 

 amount of duty was greater at 6c?. than formerly at Id. They state that, " so far as 

 Schedules A and B are concerned, this result is attributable in no small degree to the care 

 and judgment with which the assessments were made upon this occasion by our surveyors, 

 acting under special instructions from this office. We have also been much assisted by 

 the valuations under the Union Assessment Act, esj^ecially in the case of land in the occu- 

 pation of the owner, where the former unsatisfactory parochial rating to the relief of tlie 

 poor was the guide upon which our officers chiefly relied." — Ninth liejjort of Commis- 

 sioners, 1865. 



t Farmers' profits were estimated as equal to three-fourths of their rent;il in 1814—15, 

 and one-half rental under the Act of 1842. The full rental of both years is given above. 



1869. 



