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was equally made. By the late act, a rate to be good must be made on the full annual value of all rateable property; therefore hereafter, under the Joddrell decision, farms must be rated upon their productiveness." Nothing but an imperfect acquaintance with the old cases on rating, and a hasty perusal of the new act, could have led Mr. Austen into this error. Under the old system, a rate to be good must be made on the whole productive profits, or on some certain proportion thereof, bearing equally upon every species of rateable property; but under the new parochial assessment act, the productiveness of farms is not to be regarded. The net annual value for rating is fixed by the statute at the "rent at which the same might reasonably be expected to let from year to year," free from certain deductions therein named. I now proceed to shew that Mr. Austen's idea, of the injustice and unfairness of rating the occupier of a farm for the tenant's profits of occupancy, cannot be supported. That the profits of the capital employed by the shopkeeper, the brewer, the baker, the butcher, the merchant, the manufacturer, the shipowner, &c., are legally rateable at this moment cannot be questioned by any one who is acquainted with the numerous adjudged cases on the subject still unreversed. No doubt that, generally, the owners of such property, as a writer in the "Law Quarterly" for August observes, have now escaped the whole burden of the rate, by the difficulty of rating such property; but nevertheless, the law for rating them, and the equity for rating them, still remains unaltered by the Parochial Assessment Act. Upon what principle of justice, then, is the capital employed in the occupation of land to be exempted from rating? What is a rate upon the landlord's rent, but a rate upon the profits of his capital? Mr. Austen says, he is convinced that the interest upon the occupier's farming capital ought not to be assessed. May I ask him, what is the "rent, but the interest paid by the tenant to the landlord for the use of the soil?" Now it is notorious, that a very considerable portion of the tithes in England is saleable as other property; surely, then, the tithe commutation rent-charge can only be viewed as the interest of the purchase money. Why, then, is the interest of the farmer's capital only to be exempted from the burden borne by the rent and rent-charge? And why, when the profits of other occupations are rateable, are the profits of farming to be exonerated? profits amounting, according to Mr. M'Culloch, to twenty millions annually? As, however, Mr. Austen is convinced that rating the profits of the occupiers of land is unfair, he would probably admit the justice of relieving the various trades from the rateability of their profits, by an express legislative enactment, repealing the old law, and overturning the judicial decisions now standing against their exemption. But by thus putting the profits on stock in trade and farming upon an equality, by exempting both from rateability, would Mr. Austen then dare to contend that justice was done to the land-owners, the house-owners, and the tithe-owners; that, throwing upon their property only the whole of the poor, the highway, and the county rates-a burden little short of ten millions per annum-they were equitably and fairly treated? If the rev. VOL. XV.-Feb. 1839.

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gentleman would calmly reflect upon the purposes to which the two last-named rates are applied, he would surely be convinced of the unfairness of the rating system for which he contends. The sum required for the county and highway rates falls little short of two millions and a half yearly. Now, is this vast fund to be expended solely or chiefly for their benefit whose property alone is to be burdened in raising the supply? No; they who are the objects of Mr. Austen's advocacy for exemption are the chief gainers by the outlay. Good roads and secure bridges are made and kept in repair for the easy removal of their corn, cattle, and merchandise. Prisons are erected and maintained for the safe custody and punishment of those who feloniously steal or damage their property; and a full indemnity for their expenses, and even loss of time, in prosecuting such offenders, form the main items of the expenditure. To these many others might be added, such as the expenses of the militia, the Reform Bill, the lunatic asylums, the inspectors of weights and measures, special constables, &c., and probably, ere long, the trifling addition of another half million for a rural police. In the Lords' "Report on the County Rates," 1834, I find a very different view from that which Mr. Austen maintains taken by the committee :— "Their serious attention," they say, "has been directed to another branch of charge, which has greatly increased of late years, and which presses with peculiar severity upon those county resources upon which county rates are levied; they allude to the large expense incurred for the administration of criminal justice throughout the country. The crimes for the repression of which the expense is borne by the landed interest exclusively, mainly affect personal property......and the committee cannot but consider that such a mode of providing for such an expense is no less partial than onerous."

Any person who calmly reflects on the subject, will, I imagine, readily perceive against whom the unfair rating is chargeable. Now, let us turn to the maintenance of the poor:—

"That a system of general relief ought to be founded on principles of general contribution; and, if otherwise founded, ought to be amended, is what few will venture to deny."-Letter to Curwen.

Mr. Austen, however, seems to be amongst the few. According to his conviction, the landlord's rent, and the tithe-owner's rent-charge, may be rated to their net amount to the poor-rate; but it would be unfair to assess the profits of capital employed in the cultivation of land, and trade, and manufactures. Fortunately, however, for the land-owner, the house-owner, and the tithe-owner, Mr. Austen is, on this point, singular in his opinion of the justice of the case. A host of the most able writers on the poor-laws is against him. If the labour of the poor were expended, during health and vigour, exclusively or chiefly for the benefit of the three classes, there would be some show of fairness in charging their properties only with the whole maintenance and support of the poor during their old age, sickness, or destitution. But will Mr. Austen contend that the advantages of labour are confined to the classes to whom he would limit the rating? I am confident that he will not. By far the largest portion of the

wealth created by the labouring classes goes to enrich the manufacturer, the tradesinan, and the farmer; the very persons whom the rev. gentleman's system would exonerate from contributing to their wants when their usefulness ceases. It was the complaint of Chief Justice Hale, A. D. 1676, that "they lay all the rates to the poor upon the rents of land and houses, which alone, without the help of the stocks, are not able to raise a stock for the poor; although it is very plain that stocks-in-trade are as well by law rateable as land, both to the relief and raising a stock for the poor."-Burn's History of Poor Laws, 146. Mr. Corry observes, in 1700,-"Poor-rates should be made with more equality; the poor, who are very serviceable to the rich in carrying on their trades, yet, when age and sickness, or a numerous family, make them desire relief, they are thrown upon others for support." Mr. Lowe, in his admirable work on 66 Agriculture, Trade, and Finance," says, "While we determine to keep up the distinction of parishes and townships, and to oblige each to provide for its poor, there appears to be strong reasons for a change that would be perfectly compatible with the maintenance of local distinction; we mean, new modelling the assessment of property. At present, the whole falls upon land and houses; but would not, we may ask, the income of the inhabitants of the parish generally, returned on a plan somewhat similar to the property-tax, form a much more equitable basis of repartition?......if levied upon the income of the parishioners generally, £4,500,000, would form a rate of less than one shilling in the pound."-p. 202.

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In Sir F. Eden's celebrated work, he says, "It is certainly equitable, that personal property as well as land should contribute towards the support of the poor.' He then adverts to the difficulty of rating stock in trade, and adds, "When we investigate the operation of the poor's rate, as a tax on landed property, it would seem to be no less inequitable and unequal.”—vol. i. p. 458. In Mr. Slaney's essay, he calls the levying the poor-rate chiefly on real property, "unjust, and as impolitic as unfair."-p. 82. In the article "Poor," (Rees' Cy.) Mr. Donaldson states, "while the merchant, the manufacturer, and the moneyed man, are either entirely exempted or but in a very small degree affected, according to the present establishment, poor rates are the most partial lax that ever was levied in this or any other country;" and a similar view is taken by the author of the "History of the Middle and Working Classes." The unequal pressure of the poor assessment, and the disproportionate weight with which it falls on real chattel property, forms a subject of just complaint. Professions, manufactures, and trade, are among the principal sources of revenue; yet the maintenance of the poor scarcely touches them, which is the less defensible when we consider that the two last are the most fruitful sources of pauperism.—p. 392. I might adduce a multitude of other authorities who admit that the "unfair" rating is committed against the land-owners, the house-owners, and the tithe-owners, but I will only add the words of one of them "It is truly wonderful that the land-owners have so long submitted to the unjust burden," which, if

fairly borne by the nation at large, would save them two-thirds of their present payments towards the poor, the highway, and the county rates. All respectable writers on this subject, so far as I am aware, excepting Mr. Austen, give up the equity, and content themselves with urging the difficulty of the case-the impossibility of ascertaining accurately the amount of profits to be rated. But is this difficulty to be admitted as a sufficient justification for the commission of an act of acknowledged and positive injustice? Who ever heard in our criminal courts the difficulties in which a man was placed admitted as a valid plea for his taking the property of his neighbour? In the case of rating, however, the difficulties are not insurmountable. I might refer to parishes in England where they have been surmounted; but I will rather produce my exemplification from Scotland, where, confessedly, the poor laws have been far better managed than in this country. In the "Historical Dissertations on the Scotch and English Poor Laws," by the Rev. Robert Burns, of Paisley, 2nd ed., he says, "The act of Charles the Second, 1663, appoints, that one-half of the stent, or assessed tax for the poor, shall be paid by the heritors, according to their valuation, or in any other proportion that the majority shall fix; and the other half by the tenants and possessors, according to their means and substance.”—p. 57. "The act of 1663 is so broad as to comprehend, not heritable property merely, but also coal works, smill, manufacturing establishments, and other subjects which yield a revenue to the proprietor or undertaker.” "No precise mode is specified by the statute for ascertaining the substance of individuals. Various modes, therefore, have been adopted in the royal burghs in Edinburgh, the house rent has been adopted as the rule of assessment; in Glasgow and Paisley, the tax is levied according to what is supposed to be the fortune or wealth of individuals, exclusive of heritable property without the burgh; so that the magistrates assess them according to their heritable property within the burgh, and their personal funds wherever situated." In 1797, this last method was, in the case of Dreghorn, objected to as arbitrary and oppressive; and the court, though it did not find it illegal, suggested the mode of rating at Edinburgh, by the house rent, "as a datum sufficiently accurate, and in no case liable to partiality." Upon this suggestion Mr. Burns remarks, "It is very questionable whether the datum in this case is sufficiently accurate. It often happens that persons in business, having great personal property, and deriving large profits from trade within the burgh, satisfy themselves with a very small dwelling-house adjoining their place of business, and retire for the greater part of the year to a splendid residence in the vicinity, or in the country. It is not easy to fix one plan which will be free from all objections. But I may safely say, that although in Glasgow and Paisley the more indefinite mode has been acted on for a long period of years, very few instances of partiality or oppression have been complained of."-Note, p. 57. In his chapter on practical suggestion for England, Mr. Burns says, "It seems also very desirable that means should be used to rate personal property and stock in trade, as well as heritable

possessions. There are certainly great difficulties in the way of this; but it must appear to every man a hardship, that while such a heavy burden is laid on the occupiers of land and houses, individuals whose personal property is very great should be almost entirely exempted from paying to the support of the poor. Whatever may be the apparent inconvenience of it in theory, we find in fact that the practice adopted in Glasgow and Paisley is, on the whole, most equitable and productive."-p. 78. I will only add one other authority, that of Lieutenant General Craufurd:-"No persons profit more by the labours of those who become paupers than the commercial and manufacturing...... The only difficulty seems to be the method of levying the rate. But without proceeding to such lengths as were necessary in the property tax, you might get at sufficient, and much more than would be wanted in ordinary times....... But if this may be thought objectionable as a general measure, still the commercial and manufac turing property ought at all events to be made to contribute in a full proportion to the landed; that is strictly just."—p. 51. Had I not already trespassed so much upon your pages, I might contrast the gross amount of the rents derived from lands, house, and tithes, (on which alone Mr. Austen would throw all parochial taxation,) with the vast profits created by farming, commerce, trade, and manufactures. The amount, however, more or less, would not alter the equity of the case. Whatever the sum be, it ought in common justice to bear its fair proportion towards the general funds for the relief of the poor, the maintenance of the highways, and those objects on which county-rates are expended. It only remains for me now to express a hope that Mr. Austen, or at all events your readers, will be convinced that the principle of the Joddrell decision was just, and that the notion that it "cannot be maintained in the working, and will be found to be unfair," is utterly groundless and untenable. That an alteration in the law of rating is imperiously called for, no one can more willingly admit than myself; but it must not be by a "declaratory bill," repealing parts of statutes, and throwing over adjudged cases for partial and party purposes. There must be a broad, statesmanlike revision of the whole question of rating, conducted with a determination to do justice to all interests, and to construct a fair scheme of general contribution for the maintenance of the general objects under consideration. I remain, dear Sir, yours very faithfully. WILLIAM METCALFE.

Rectory House, Foulmire, Jan. 7th, 1839.

P. S.-In my last letter, I omitted to refer to the case of Rex. v. Woking, 3 Nev. and Man. M. C. 295, decided in Mich. Term, 1835, before Lord Denman, &c. The River Company, the appellants, were allowed a deduction of 10 per cent. for tenant's profits, because in that parish the occupiers of land were not rated for the profits of their occupation, but only on the landlord's rent. The chief justice said, "And this deduction must be made in order to equalize the rate."

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