(389 = 125) 
I 
TAXATION 
AS AFFECTING 
THE AGRICULTURAL INTEREST. 
CHAPTEE I. 
The Agkicultural Interest. 
[n any attempt to trace the bearing of the general fiscal system 
)f the United Kingdom on what is distinctively termed the 
igricultural interest, it is needful to define with some precision 
ivho are the persons and what is the taxable property which that 
interest may be held to embrace. 
For the purposes of such an inquiry as this, that section of Elements 
:he British people may fairly be reckoned agricultural who P°s'ng th 
either own or farm the soil, or furnish the labour indispensable interest 
io its cultivation, together with such members of their families 
iS may be considered wholly dependent on the profits of owner- 
ship, occupation, or tillage for their livelihood. A concern in 
all that affects agricultural prosperity extends, no doubt, also to 
a fringe of auxiliary callings like those of the land agent, the 
seedsman, and the maker or purveyor of agricultural requisites. 
Still, it would be hardly accurate or convenient to include 
these possessors of more remote and secondary interests in the 
roll of agriculturists, whose taxation it is sought to determine. 
It is not, however, so simple as it seems to reckon up the 
members of the agricultural community. The attempt to draw a 
sharp and rigid line of demarcation between classes, professions, 
and incomes is always liable to be deemed arbitrary, and is 
peculiarly difficult in a country such as this, with an increasingly 
dense population and a growing inter-dependence in its social 
relations. Plurality of calling is no infrequent occurrence. 
The joint household purse of many a family is fed by revenues 
drawn from the most diverse sources. Even within the agricul- 
tural community itself, two or more of the usually separate 
