174 



Rating of Woodlands. 



[JUNE, 



The attention of the Board has been drawn to the fact that 



the statutory provisions dealing with the rating to the Poor 



Rate and other local rates of woodlands in 



Rating" of England and Wales are not always under- 

 Woodlands. * , • . r 



stood by the owners and occupiers of such 



land. They think, therefore, that it may be useful to reproduce 

 a memorandum prepared by the Local Government Board in 

 July, 1902, for the information of the Departmental Committee 

 on Forestry. 



Poor Rate. — The authority for the levy of the Poor Rate is 

 derived from Section 1 of the Poor Relief Act, 1601 (43 Eliz., 

 c. 2). That statute authorised the taxation by the overseers ot 

 every inhabitant, parson, vicar, and other, and of every occupier 

 of lands, houses, tithes impropriate or propriations of tithes, coal 

 mines, or saleable underwoods, in the parish for which the rate 

 was made. 



The statute of Elizabeth authorised the rating of the under- 

 wood itself, and it appears to have been considered that land 

 upon which saleable underwood grew was not assessable to the 

 Poor Rate. The express mention of saleable underwoods in 

 the statute was also held to imply that wood not within this 

 term was exempt from the Poor Rate. Thus in " Rex v. Inhabi- 

 tants of Minchinhampton " (1762), 3 Burr, 1309-12, it was held 

 that beech being timber according to the custom of the place in 

 which the question arose was not rateable, and in " Rex v. 

 Inhabitants of Ferrybridge" (1823), 1 B. and C, 375 firs and 

 larches planted with oaks for the purpose of sheltering the 

 latter, and cut as the oaks grew larger, were considered to be 

 similarly exempt. 



But by Section 14 of the Rating Act, 1874 (37 and 38 Vict., 

 c. 54), so much of the statute of Elizabeth as related to the 

 taxation of an occupier of saleable underwoods was repealed, 

 and by Section 3 of the Act, the statute of Elizabeth, and the 

 Acts amending the same, were extended to land used for a 

 plantation or a wood or for the growth of saleable underwood, 

 and not subject to any right of common. 



Under this enactment it is the land, and not the timber, 

 underwood, or other produce of the land, which is made the 

 subject of assessment, and it would seem that if land used as a 



