79G 
The Assessment of Agricultural Land. 
any contract made after the passing of the Act for the payment 
of the tithe rent-charge by the occupier. But this Act has made 
no legal difference in the position as regards the deduction, for the 
tithe rent-charge was ordered to be deducted by the Assessment 
Acts which I have before cited, not because it was a tenant’s 
payment, as rates are, but because the tithe itself was a ratable 
property under the Act of Elizabeth, and being rated separately, 
it should not, of course, pay a. second time, which it does if it is 
not deducted. This is not always considered, but the gross estimated 
rental is arrived at without deducting the tithe' first, as ought to 
be the case ; whereby an especial hardship is inflicted on farms where 
the tithe is higher than the actual rent. Thus a farm is worth 50 1 . 
per annum without tithe, and the tithe on it is 60£. per annum (the 
proportions are often higher), and the owner, therefore, inasmuch as 
he himself pays the tithe, charges the tenant 110Z. per annum for 
the farm, and the tenant pays that sum to the owner as rent. But 
it is not fair that that sum should be taken as the gross estimated 
rental of that farm. The 60 1 . payable for tithe, which is separately 
assessed, and therefore pays its due proportion of rates, ought to be 
deducted first, and the farm should be charged on the balance, after 
allowing for the other legal deductions. 
Courts of Quarter Sessions do not appear to be the most fitting 
tribunals to which appeals from assessment committees should be 
brought, because to a great extent they are made up of persons of 
the same turn of mind as the persons who constitute the assessment 
committees. There should be an appeal in so serious a matter as 
this is to some other Court, more judicial, and not local in its 
character. Or, as it has been suggested, the appeal might be to the 
Local Government Board, which should have power to appoint a 
professional valuer to fix the value, whose finding should be final. 
This wouid, no doubt, be satisfactory, except in those cases in which 
a point of law might arise, and in them it would be necessary to 
have recoui’se to some legal tribunal. In any case, the expenses of 
appeals should be lightened, for at present they are so heavy as to 
prevent a private individual from undertaking them. 
In conclusion let me repeat a few words which I wrote some 
thirteen years ago. “ It seems to me that ratepayers would feel 
more satisfied if the assessments for all rates were the same, and 
if there was one general rating authority for the whole country.” 
To these I would add that the same authority that assesses real 
estate for rating purposes should assess it for taxation purposes, 
and that the overseers of the poor should co-operate with the 
surveyor of taxes in country districts, as they do now in the metro- 
polis under the Valuation (Metropolis) Act 1869. The result would 
be that the property tax assessments and the valuation lists would 
practically, if not actually, coincide, and we should have one local 
authority the less. 
S. B. L. Druce. 
9 Old Square, Lincoln’s Inn, W.C. 
