436 Present Incidence of the Land-tax in Agricultural Counties. 
was an immutable charge on all purchased or inherited property, it 
might be taken from the shoulders of the poorer classes, and there- 
fore placed on those of the richer ; but he did not seem to realise that 
in favourably considering this suggestion he was ignoring his state- 
ment that the tax was immutable, and that if he favoured the 
relief of the poorer individual, to be logical he must also favour 
the relief of the poorer community, which he certainly did not appear 
to do. 
Admitting that the tax falls unduly on the agricultural districts, 
what remedies can we propose 1 Although “ there is no tax that 
ever was laid upon the people of this nation that is more unjust or 
unequal than the land-tax,” we cannot expect its repeal, for it 
cannot be said to be unjust to the individual who inherited or bought 
his property subject to this rent-charge upon it. 
But when we deal with the relative liability of the different coun- 
ties and parishes, this argument does not hold good, because to them, 
as communities, the payment is not a rent-chai’ge, but an income-tax 
for Imperial purposes, and each should contribute to the State in ac- 
cordance with its means. 
It seems, therefore, a reasonable suggestion that the whole of the 
land-tax should be returned to the counties (or, in strict justice, to 
the parishes) where it is raised, as a subsidy towards the relief of 
local taxation, and the county of Norfolk has already petitioned 
Parliament to this effect. 
By this means the greater amounts would be returnable to the 
poorest agricultural districts — the larger towns receiving but little — 
and depressed agriculture would be sensibly relieved. 
Whether this money should go towards paying for the carrying- 
out of the Parish Councils Bill and other expenses preparing for us, 
or for the subsidy of indoor poor-relief, it is not necessary to dis- 
cuss. Undoubtedly, any discouragement that can be given to the 
increasing outdoor relief will be to the permanent advantage of the 
labouring classes. 
But the broad fact remains that the profits on agricultural enter- 
prise are now so reduced by foreign competition that the industry 
cannot thrive, and we have the right to ask that the burden that we 
bear for the benefit of the State should not, at any rate, be greater 
than that borne by commerce and manufactures. 
E. R. Pratt. 
[Note. — With regard to the origin of the land-tax, the following 
is an extract from Lord Macaulay’s account of the financial events 
of the year 1692, “ when the land-tax was first imposed ” 1 : — 
In the Committee of Ways and Means it was determined that a great 
part of the charge of the year should he defrayed by means of an impost 
which, though old in substance, was new in form. 
From a very early period to the middle of the seventeenth century our 
1 Quoted in the Twenty-eighth Report of the Commissioners of Her Majesty’s 
Inland Revenue , 1885, p. 87. 
