Sir Massey Lopes. 
89 
It has been more particularly, however, in public life that his 
most notable services to the agricultural interest of his_country 
have been rendered. Entering Parliament as member for 
Westbury more than fifty years ago, he held his seat for that 
borough from 1857 to 1868, and sat thereafter for South Devon 
from 1868 to 1885, when he quitted Parliamentary life. A 
memorable speech on the incidence of local taxation which he 
delivered in 1868 recalled to the attention of the House of 
Commons the peculiar grievances suffered by ratepayers in the 
undue and disproportionate share real property was called upon 
to bear in the burden of the local rates. From that date u]j to 
1874, when a measure of relief was secured by grants of 
imperial subventions for purposes of national concern charged 
on real property. Sir Massey Lopes was the acknowledged 
leader and spokesman of the agriculturists in Parliament, 
forming the organisation known as the Local Taxation Com- 
mittee in 1869, of which he was the earliest chairman, playing 
a large part in the Parliamentary inquiries and debates on 
rating questions in 1870 and 1871, and presiding over the 
Central Chamber of Agriculture in the latter year. In 1872 
an occasion arose for exhibiting his peculiar power of com- 
bining men of vai-ious political opinions in a common sympathy 
for the grievances of the rural ratepayer in carrying by a 
majority of 100, against one of the strongest governments of 
modern times, a resolution insisting on the necessity of local 
taxation reform. Joining the Government of 1874, Sir Massey 
Lopes found opportunities for less well known but very 
important services to the State in another direction in the part 
he played in improving the management of the Greenwich 
Hospital estates of the Admiralty, and in the reorganisation of 
several of the Admiralty departments at home and abroad. In 
the eighties his services to agriculture were again in request ; 
and the subsequent success of the movement for a separate 
Department of ■ Agriculture, although not completed till after 
he had retired from Parliamentary life, in 1885, owed much to 
the earlier efforts he made in its support. His public services 
were recognised on his retirement by his being sworn of the 
Privy Council. 
As a landlord he enjoyed the confidence of his tenantry, 
while his unrivalled clearness of judgment in the discharge 
of public business, and his capacity for enlisting and main- 
taining the most cordial relations with those who had the good 
fortune to serve him were conspicuous features of a long and 
honorable career, the close of which must be a matter of deep 
regret to all his former colleagues who have enjoyed at one 
time or another the great benefit of his sage advice. 
