262 PARLIAMENTARY PUBLICATIONS. 
it exceeds five per cent. On the other hand, the fall is less 
than 1 per cent. in Cornwall, Durham, Hunts, Stafford, 
York North Riding, and York West Riding, and in nine 
Welsh counties. Six counties show a slight increase, 
viz., Cheshire, Northumberland, Surrey, Westmorland, 
Denbigh, and Merioneth. Attention is directed in the 
Return to a statement made in an earlier Return (C. 8,300) of 
Session 1896, presented to Parliament by the Royal Com- 
mission on Agriculture, that “in estimating the values the 
practice of the different assessment committees has not 
always been uniform, either throughout the country or even 
in the same districts at different times”; and that ‘‘the 
assessments of agricultural land in many instances, espe- 
cially in the most depressed districts, have not been reduced 
in proportion to, or concurrently with, the fall in the rent, 
and in some cases no account whatever is taken of temporary 
remissions.” 
The return showing the valuation of lands and heritages 
throughout Scotland according to the Valuation Rolls also 
contains, among other particulars, a statement of the valua- 
tion of agricultural lands and heritages as defined in the 
Agricultural Rates, etc. (Scotland) Act, 1896, in the years 
ending Whitsunday, 1896 and 1goo. For the earlier year the 
total valuation of such agricultural lands and heritages in 
Scotland is given as £5,827,462 and in 1900 as £5,634,559, 
the difference representing a decline of £192,903, or 3°3 per 
cents 

Report of the Progress of the Ordnance Survey to 31st March, 
LOOC. + 4| Cd.2327,.) | Paace 35500. 
Good progress is stated in this Report to have been made 
with the various services on which the Ordnance Survey is 
engaged, and the progress would have been better had it not 
been for the war in South Africa. This affected the Survey 
in two ways—first, by reducing the staff, as seven out of a total 
ot twenty-four were sent to South Africa, only one being 
replaced; and, secondly, by the large number of maps of 
South Africa required by the War Office. It is stated that 
