The Assessment of Agricultural Land. 
791 
Summary. 
s. d. 
Rent, paid and estimated per acre . . .711 
Assessment per acre 12 3J££§ 
Excess of assessment overrent paid and estimated 
per acre 4 4 
Excess of assessment overrent paid and estimated 
per cent. — 547 
Tithe per acre, present value . . . .4 0^ 
Proportion of tithe to rent paid and estimated 
per cent. ....... — 50'5 
Rates per acre. (Note. — On some of these 
farms there is no school board rate) . .2 1^ 
Rates in the £ of rent paid and estimated . . 6 4| 
Rates in the £ of assessment . . . . 3 5| 
Take farm No. 1, for instance : the actual rent paid is 15/. 7s. 2d., 
whereas the farm is assessed at 67 1. 18s., or 521. 10s. 1 07. more 
than the actual rent paid. And so farm No. 12 : the rent offered was 
551., while the assessment was 1417., or 86/. more than the rent 
offered. 
The fifteen farms mentioned in the table are not special or excep- 
tional cases, but comprise every farm of which the firm of estate 
agents, a partner in which prepared the table, has the manage- 
ment in the three unions named, except one which is let on an old 
lease, and so not applicable to the present situation. Every farm 
was taken, whether it hindered or helped the view that the present 
method is seriously injuring the occupiers and owners of the land. 
The total rents of the fifteen farms amount to 1,882/., and the total 
assessment to 2,913/., which, as noted above, makes the assessment 
over 50 per cent, beyond the rent. 
The first of the letters which recently appeared in The Times on 
the subject was from the Rt. Hon. G. Shaw-Lefevre, M.P., to 
the Hon. E. G. Strutt, and as the writer now occupies the highly 
influential position of President of the Local Government Board the 
readers of the Journal will probably like to have it before them in 
full. It runs thus : — 
Local Government Board, Whitehall, S.W. 
October 22, 1894. 
Dear Mr. Strutt, — During my recent visit to Essex my attention was 
frequently directed by owners and occupiers of land to the very serious 
burthen of rates, tithe, and land tax, which are all greatly in excess of what 
they are in most other parts of the country. 
With respect to rates it was the general subject of complaint that 
occupiers of farms are assessed at much higher values than the actual 
rents or the real annual value of the land, and that the assessment 
committees have refused to lower the assessments in proportion to the fall 
of rent. 
On one farm which I visited, held under a lease for seven years, at a rent of 
70/., the assessment was maintained at 150/. 
On another, where the rent was 150/. for 320 acres, the tithe being paid 
