ON COMMON MEASURE OF VALUE IN DIRECT TAXATION. 229 



nothing, and human labour in itself, and in its works, in its houses, its 

 mills, its manufactories, are the special victims of this ignorance. 



XV. To contemplate modes of valuation such as these now employed, 

 as not the mere dicta of individual opinion, but as the accepted conclu- 

 sions of the State and the expression of its established law, would be to 

 despair of truth and justice in direct taxation. If, however, instead of 

 confining our attention to the present position of the valuation question, 

 we regard it in its successive changes and in relation to the progress in 

 the branch of science of which it is a part, reason for hope will appear. 

 Measures of value, like other measures, have their movement. The 

 history of measurement in general is in a high degree the history of 

 exact science, and whether the subject matter be lines or angles, forces or 

 values, this history presents an early state of " grossness " and disorder 

 that only by the slow march of intelligence developes into definiteness 

 and uniformity. And the history of the measurement of values in par- 

 ticular, low down in the scale of accuracy as it now is, yet presents an 

 undoubted ascent from a still lower condition. Sceptics indeed, both 

 without, and also, we regret to add, within the limits of this " Association 

 for the Advancement of Science," have doubted the possibility of a science 

 of values — of the science, that is to say, which forms the peculiar charge 

 of this Section — but the ebb of doubt has ever attended the wave^of pro- 

 gress, and the best antidote to such doubt, as well as the best stimulus to 

 further progress, is the consideration of the onward course of statistical 

 facts themselves. In the particular subject under discussion, the two 

 great parliamentary commissions of 1851-52 and of 1860, in which 

 many of the leading members of this Economic Section took a leading 

 part, evidenced the awakening of the public mind to the necessity of a 

 change. The Union Assessment Act of 1862 ; the Metropolis Valuation 

 Act of 1869 ; the Local Valuation Bills grounded on these Acts annually 

 introduced into Parliament ; the recent decision of the Court of Exchequer 

 in the appeal case of Knowles v. McAdam ; the deduction allowed in 

 this year's Inland Revenue Bill for depreciation of machinery, are all 

 incidents of a progress towards a better measurement of values ; and in 

 these incidents collectively considered, your Committee recognise a system 

 of lines of reform converging to the principle which they have attempted 

 in their Reports to define and illustrate. It need scarcely be added, that 

 the indirect results of true valuation, for example, its effect on the truth 

 of returns, are not less important than those which are direct. A false 

 system of valuation must of necessity encourage false returns. To 

 deceive or to be plundered are its only alternatives, nor is it wonderful 

 that popular casuistry often prefers the former. A true method of valua- 

 tion on the other hand encourages true returns ; it may not absolutely 

 secure them, but it secures the removal of all that can obstruct them, and 

 cancels the invitation to fraud, afforded by the present law. A true 

 valuation alone can justify the exact and vigorous administration which 

 must be the characteristic of an equitable tax on income. 



