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 LOCAL TAXATION, 
 
 ESPECIALLY IN 
 
 ENGLISH CITIES AND TOWNS, 
 
 a Speecb 
 
 Delivered in the House of Commons^ o?i March 2 2,rd^ i886» 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES E. THOROLD ROGERS, M.P. 
 
 (SOUTHWARK, BERMONDSEV DIVISION.) 
 
 ^ CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited 
 
 LONDON, PARIS, NEn YORK 6^ MELBOURNE.
 
 V ->-, 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 \^ The following speech was made in the House of Commons 
 on March 23rd, 1886. For fifteen years the country party 
 had succeeded, at the instance of several Conservative 
 country gentlemen who have been members of the House, 
 and have been assisted by gentlemen on the Liberal side, 
 in putting Liberal Governments in a minority on the sub- 
 ject of local taxation, and thereby of transferring taxation, 
 levied from the beginning on landowners or their tenants, 
 to the Consolidated Fund, and, consequently, of burdening 
 the general public and increasing the annual expenditure 
 of Government. 
 
 As the burden of local taxation in towns is growing 
 heavier and heavier on occupiers, and as in Scotland 
 and Ireland half the local taxation is paid by owners, 1 deter- 
 mined as early as possible to bring the subject before 
 the new Parliament, and I did so with success, carrying 
 my motion by a majority oi fo7-ty. This, the first defeat 
 which the couptry party has sustained on the subject of 
 local taxation for years, is of great interest to townspeople, 
 especially to shopkeepers, and with the view of attracting 
 their attention, the speech has been published. 
 
 JAMES E. THOROLD ROGERS. 
 
 House of Coiinnous, 
 
 June ist, 1SS6.
 
 * uiuc
 
 Local Taxation, 
 
 ESPECIALLY IN ENGLISH CITIES AND TOWNS. 
 
 Sir, — Since the year 1831, down to the last session of the Attention 
 late Parliament, scarcely a single year has passed in which "^'^'en in 
 some Act bearing upon Local Taxation has not been added Jo'^'the^sub- 
 to the Statute Book ; while during the last fifty years there ject. 
 have been constant debates in this House on the same 
 subject, generally indeed from one aspect of the question, 
 the relief of the landed interest at the expense of the Con- 
 solidated Fund, i.e. of the general body of taxpayers. As 
 a consequence of these debates, and the votes taken on 
 them, very considerable changes in the liability to local 
 taxation have been made during the last fifteen years, and 
 very considerable charges have been transferred from the 
 local taxpayer to the general public. I do not, indeed, in 
 introducing this motion to the House, intend to discuss the 
 merits of these proposals, or the policy which has effected 
 the transference ; but I trust that, with the indulgence of the 
 House, I may be able to substantiate the four propositions 
 which are contained in my motion. I am aware, indeed, 
 that to deal exhaustively with the subject would require a 
 speech of ten or twenty hours, and, though I shall not 
 trespass long on the patience of the House, I trust that it 
 will not believe that the subject is concluded in the brief 
 remarks to which I venture on inviting its attention. 
 
 Practically, local taxation, as we now understand it, i.e. Origin of 
 a charge levied on defined localities for local purposes, com- Local 
 menced with the poor la^v of Queen Elizabeth (43 Eliz., '^'^'^^^'^"-
 
 Transfer- 
 ence from 
 owners to 
 occupiers . 
 
 cap. 2), and since that time, with only a short interruption, 
 on which I shall comment hereafter, it has been the in- 
 variable practice to levy the whole of local taxation on what 
 is commonly called real estate only : in England and Wales 
 on the occupier only of real estate ; while in Scotland and 
 Ireland, under Acts of a much more recent date, such local 
 taxation has been shared by the owner and occupier, i.e. 
 has been divided into nearly equal moieties between the 
 parties interested. Originally, the whole of the local taxa- 
 tion in Scotland was levied on the owner, and it was only 
 when a more extensive system of Poor Law relief was ren- 
 dered necessary in Scotland, owing mainly to the disruption 
 of the Scottish Church, that the division of liability was 
 made between the two principal ];arties, the landowner and 
 the occupier. 
 
 Now, sir, in the latter part of Elizabeth's reign such an 
 imposition of local taxation on occupancy was not only 
 obvious but was generally equitable. At that time, and indeed 
 for a long time afterwards, the number of occupying owners 
 was very large, and the tenant farmer was comparatively 
 rare. Besides, there is good reason to believe that the 
 owner paid his tenant's rates, though I cannot venture on 
 troubling the House with the somewhat antiquarian evidence 
 by which I am convinced that I could prove my statement. 
 The property of these occupying owners was therefore 
 obviously the natural object for local levies, the division 
 between owner and occupier being naturally disregarded in 
 view of the comparative rarity of occupying tenants at will. 
 In course of time the ranks of these occupying freeholders 
 were sadly thinned, especially during the latter half of the 
 seventeenth century. Lawyers, or at least legal antiquaries, 
 are aware of the fact that at this time the strict settlement 
 was invented, under which nothing which had been purchased 
 by any landowner under a settlement could be reft from the 
 estate ; but few are aware of what was the process by which 
 thousands of these freeholds were violently extinguished. 
 For several sessions the House of Lords passed an Act, the 
 object of which was to confiscate certain freeholds, and at 
 last the Commons accepted the Act. Any one can see how,
 
 undtT the first clause of the Statute of Frauds (29 Par. ii., 
 cap. 3), the great landowners contrived to effect this pur- 
 pose ; for this famous clause provides, without any reference 
 to the antiquity of the tenancy, that persons who were not 
 possessed of documentary evidence of title in the lands which 
 they occupied should, unless the rent reserved were two- 
 thirds the rack rent, be treated as tenants at will. This, 
 and not, as some persons fancy, a honest purchase of the 
 small freeholder's tenement, is the true explanation of that 
 sudden disappearance of freeholders which so many his- 
 torians have noticed. 
 
 A generation or two later another system began, which Inclosures 
 still more hmited the number of occupying owners, because 
 it narrowed the opportunities of their agricultural industry. 
 I am alluding to the appropriation and enclosure of com- 
 mon lands under numerous and incessant Private Acts of 
 Parliament. The first of these Inclosure Acts was in 1709, 
 and between that date and 1852 it is well known that at least 
 nine millions of statute acres have been appropriated by 
 private owners under those Acts, to say nothing of what has 
 been confiscated since. Now, any one who has studied the 
 history of the poor, especially of the agricultural poor, knows 
 how severely these inclosures pressed on them, how frequent 
 was the complaint of the consequences, and how, the con- 
 dition of the peasantry having become more hopeless and 
 more miserable, all sorts of expedients w^re adopted to 
 remedy the mischief which was created. The House knows 
 how pauperism increased, how it threatened to absorb rent, 
 and to swallow up all the gains of the landowners, not only 
 the profits on their ancient estates, but on the additions which 
 the enclosures had made to their estates, and how at last 
 the experiment of Mr. Lowe, of Bingham, the father of a 
 distinguished statesman, once a member of this House, and 
 now of the other, with Mr., afterwards Sir G., Nicholls, 
 became the type on which the New Poor Law was 
 enacted. By this time, however, the occupying owner 
 has become a rarity, and the occupying tenant, now gene- 
 rally a tenant at will, is now made liable to all that local 
 taxation which was levied on the basis of the Poor
 
 8 
 
 New kinds 
 of Local 
 I'ajcation. 
 
 The com- 
 mittee of 
 1870. 
 
 Law assessment, and is frequently paid by precept on the 
 guardians. 
 
 For a long time, local taxation for the relief of destitu- 
 tion was nearly the only charge which was imposed on the 
 occupier. In course of time other charges were imposed on 
 the same persons, and on the same assessment, for different 
 purposes. The House is aware that the repair of roads, the 
 maintenance of bridges, the custody of criminals, and the 
 police of district was a local landowners' liability. But many 
 of these liabilities were discharged by personal service. The 
 repair of roads was a local obligation discharged by Statute 
 labour even after the great Turnpike Act of 1773. Gaols 
 were frequently franchises, and valuable franchises too. It 
 was only by 12 Geo. II., cap. 29 (1739) that the county rate 
 was leviable on occupiers, and made the means for repair- 
 ing bridges and building prisons. Still more lately has the 
 parish constable been superseded by the police, in the 
 towns first and in country places much later. I don't think, 
 indeed, that the tolls taken on the roads could have been 
 employed for their repair, for the Novels of the eighteenth 
 century complain that travellers had to pay heavy tolls for 
 the use of roads which were no better than quagmires. 
 Of course, however, these local taxes are nothing to what 
 the exigencies of modern society have demanded, and the 
 custom of Parliament has imposed on occupancy. So large 
 have they become that in many places the poor rate, origin- 
 ally almost the only local tax levied, has become only the 
 third or fourth part of that which is exacted from the occu- 
 pier, and about which the occupier bitterly complains, as I 
 shall hope to show, with reason. 
 
 No doubt in consequence of those complaints, a Com- 
 mittee was appointed in 1870, at the instance of the then 
 President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Goschen), in 
 order to inquire into the whole subject of local taxation. My 
 right hon. friend was Chairman of that Committee, and, 
 apart from the labours which he gave with his colleagues, 
 in the valuable report and evidence which he collected ; he 
 published on his own personal authority an excellent 
 summary of the situation. The members of the Committee
 
 were of proved capacity, and were peculiarly familiar with 
 the subject referred to them. They published a Report 
 which, as is the case with many other valuable reports, has 
 not been followed by remedial legislation. In it they recom- 
 mended that division of rates between owner and occupier 
 which I commend to the House in my motion. It is true 
 that the recommendation was only carried by a bare ma- 
 jority, but this need surprise no one who remembers that our 
 Committees are not, as they should be, a microcosm of the 
 House, but a mere balance of the two great parties. But most 
 of the witnesses, and certainly the best informed, who were 
 examined before the Committee, recommended the division, 
 not because they thought, as I do, that the change would 
 materially and justly modify the incidence of local taxation, 
 but because they thought that it was likely to result in a 
 more careful and economical administration of the rates, 
 since in the event of the change all who paid rates w^ould 
 be represented on the board. But I am disposed to think 
 that the witnesses exaggerated this result of the change. I 
 am sure indeed that it would be often an advantage and an 
 economy, to say nothing of the obstacle to scandals, if ex 
 ^V/^ guardians did not frequent their board, and I well know 
 that an admixture of such gentlemen as are entirely free 
 from personal bias has often purged a board of guardians ; 
 but I am bound to say that the administration of public 
 funds by county magistrates has been characterised by un- 
 questionable integrity and economy. They are not an 
 elected body, but I very much doubt whether, when in time 
 to come we have elected boards, the new men will exceed 
 the old hands in public spirit, integrity and thrift. Sometimes 
 indeed they go too far in this praiseworthy direction. I well 
 remember that an old friend of mine, the late Mr. Joseph 
 Henby, carried his economies to excess ; for he took upon 
 himself in constructing some new cells in Oxford County goal 
 to disregard the requirements of the Home Office, and he found 
 out that the money he washed to save had to be spent, and 
 that which he had been niggard in spending had been wasted. 
 
 Now, Sir, I have thought it necessary to give this brief 0^^^^^^^^^°" 
 and very imperfect sketch of a subject, the full history of House.
 
 lO 
 
 which would be beyond my physical powers and the patience 
 of the House. I now come to the more controversial part 
 of my motion. And here I cannot help regretting that most 
 of those gentlemen who, in past years and in other parlia- 
 ments, have brought forward diverse motions, are absent 
 from the present House. Sir Massey Lopes, Mr. Pell, Mr. 
 Clare Read and Sir Baldwyn Leighton have often spoken, 
 and at length, on this topic, and have made the subject of 
 local taxation their peculiar study. I regret it the more 
 because I am constrained to differ greatly from their conclu- 
 sions, though I should gladly have had the benefit of their 
 criticisms. They have certainly been successful with the 
 last three Parliaments, for during the last fifteen years the 
 efforts of the landowning interests have been incessant in the 
 direction of the transference of local burdens from the occu- 
 pier to the Consohdated Fund, and with marked success, 
 especially in the Parhament of 1874, when they pushed 
 their opportunities vigorously. Sir Massey Lopes, in one 
 remarkable speech, put forward the doctrine that all local 
 taxation was an iniperial concern, and even alleged that the 
 maintenance of the poor should justly be derived from the 
 national exchequer. The result of these efforts has been 
 that local rates have been relieved, without, I am afraid, 
 much resultant economy, from the charges of prisons and 
 criminals, of lunatics, to a large extent from the maintenance 
 of public roads ; while* increasingly larger subventions, as we 
 see from the swollen Civil Service Estimates, have been 
 granted for similar local purposes. Now, I gather from the 
 last Report of the Local Government Board that nearly two 
 and a-half millions were paid from the Consolidated Fund in 
 aid of local taxation. 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain (President Local Government Board) : 
 I can assure my hon. friend that two and a-half millions are 
 far below the amount which is paid for the objects to which 
 he refers. He will find that the total of the contribution 
 amounted to a far larger sum. 
 
 Mr. Thorold Rogers : I named the sum of two and 
 a-half millions, which was all that I could find in the 
 Report of the Local Government Board, and I have been
 
 II 
 
 consulting with Mr. Howard, the librarian, who referred 
 me to the figures which I have quoted. I fear that my 
 opportunities and intelligence have been limited. 
 
 Mr. Chamberlain (handing the summary of the Civil 
 Service Estimates) : My hon. friend will find the particulars 
 in this page, and may see that in the United Kingdom the 
 amount paid under the head he describes amounts to near 
 six millions. 
 
 Mr. Thorold Rogers : I beg to thank my Right Hon. 
 friend for the information. It is a little unfortunate that 
 Parliamentary papers are not drawn up in a manner which 
 enables one to make immediate and conclusive use of them. 
 I have been looking through these papers, as I said, the 
 whole afternoon, in hope of getting the information which 
 would enable me to state what has been the course of events 
 for the last fifteen years, and nothing can be conceived more 
 hopelessly puzzling and confusing than the Estimates are. 
 I am quite convinced that the criticism of Supply would 
 be infinitely easier, if the process under which the Estimates 
 are presented was revised and amended. I hope, how- 
 ever, that I may be excused for having understated the 
 charge transferred from the occupiers to the Consolidated 
 Fund. The House will see that my Right Hon. friend has 
 strengthened my position. Now, as the money has to be 
 paid, for local expenditure increases in spite of these sub- 
 ventions, where does the money come from ? Who pays 
 it ? It is quite certain that it comes out of the Income- 
 tax. 
 
 The Chancellor of the Exchequer : It comes out The per- 
 of all the taxes. ^°"s ^^^°^^ 
 
 Mr. Thoroid Rogers : No doubt it nominally comes UfJidTo ^ 
 out of all the taxes, because the proceeds of all taxes go to Local 
 the Consolidated Fund. But I do not modify my state- taxation, 
 ment. It is perfectly well known that the proceeds of these 
 taxes are not progressive, but the reverse, as I am afraid the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer is already aware. The only 
 tax which is progressive is the Income-tax, and this only, 
 unluckily, because those who pay it are visited with an 
 increased percentage. As a matter of fact, it is not the
 
 12 
 
 custom, at any rate, it is not the wisdom or experience of 
 gentlemen on the Treasury Bench to put on new taxes, and 
 it has not been for the last fifteen years. The gentlemen of 
 the Treasury Bench had a pretty rough experience last 
 June of such attempts. They find it dangerous to them and 
 to their stability on their seats, but they always have the 
 remedy of screwing up Income-tax by a penny or two, in 
 order to meet the deficiencies, whether they are due to a de- 
 clining revenue, to an increased expenditure, or to the relief 
 of opulent landowners. Now, I have no doubt that the 
 greater part of the subventions of which I complain have 
 been taken from those who pay Income-tax. I w^onder 
 whether Hon. members reflect on the singular severity with 
 which the Income-tax presses on such persons as work for 
 their living, and out of that work earn incomes between 
 ^^150 and ;2^i,ooo, and who cannot in any way escape from 
 the tax-gatherer. I believe there is no class of persons in the 
 United Kingdom who contribute more to the Exchequer, in 
 proportion to their resources, and wuth such serious sacrifices 
 to themselves and their families. Can my Right Hon. 
 friend point out to me any source, during the last fifteen 
 years, from which any additional revenue has been derived 
 except from the Income-tax ? I think I have shown w^ho it 
 is that has been forced to pay. 
 
 Who pays I now, Sir, pass to the question as to who really pays 
 
 }^°^^^. J those local taxes which are put upon occupancy, that is, 
 upon whom the ultimate incidence falls of that which the 
 occupier is forced to contribute. The whole force of my 
 argument depends on my proof of this part of my case. 
 Here I can claim the authority and support of my Right Hon. 
 friend the member for Edinburgh (Mr. Goschen), who said 
 very truly, as indeed every man of sense must say, that the 
 burden of a tax has a tendency to remain upon those on 
 w^hom the tax is first imposed. Of course there are callings 
 or industries in which the tax is mechanically and imme- 
 diately transferred, as in the case of those who deal in 
 excisable and duty-paying articles. Such traders could not 
 exist unless the transference were understood. But it is
 
 13 
 
 an economical law that in order to enable a person to 
 transfer a tax, he must effect a subsequent operation with 
 some other party, whom he is able to make ultimately the 
 contributor of the tax, and that, of course generally, with 
 a profit to himself on the tax which he has primarily paid. 
 This is the reason why certain shopkeepers and tradesmen 
 are able to impose on their customers, not only the taxes 
 they pay on the materials of their trade, but even the large 
 rents they pay, and the local taxation which is heaped on 
 them ; but even the Income-tax. This was curiously illus- 
 trated by the complaint of the traders against the Civil 
 Service Stores. They came to my noble friend Lord 
 Sherbrooke, then Mr. Lowe, and Chancellor of the Ex- 
 chequer, and told him that they could not compete against 
 the Stores because they had to pay Income-tax and the 
 Stores had not. He was talking to me about this, and 
 I said to him, '^ Of course, you see that this can only 
 mean, that the traders make their customers pay a double 
 Income-tax, their own and their tradesmen's ; in short, they 
 transfer their taxes to their customers by raising the price 
 of their goods." 
 
 Now, Sir, I do not blame these tradesmen. They are 
 simply carrying out a familiar economical law. Their 
 action has no taint in it, for every person who has the wit 
 to transfer a tax from himself to his neighbour must have 
 the sympathy of every right-minded citizen, for he is 
 educating himself in what we are told is the business of 
 life, i.e. the Survival of the fittest. But with such excep- 
 tions, and they could be multiplied in number and degree, 
 taxes have always a tendency to stay upon those upon 
 whom they are first imposed. This is a statement which 
 I believe no fair-minded economist would ever pretend to 
 dispute. And as this is the case, it is quite certain that 
 many of these taxes, even though levied locally, will remain 
 where they are imposed, and that even where they are trans- 
 ferred, it requires a very vigorous effort, and very exceptional 
 circumstances of freedom, to get rid of them. But as a 
 matter of fact, very few occupiers are free agents from the 
 moment they enter into their contract of occupancy. Some
 
 14 
 
 members of the House will recollect that this matter was 
 pretty fully argued in the last Parliament in relation to the 
 Sitting tenant. An occupier in agriculture can never sur- 
 render his holding without losing from lo to 15 per cent, 
 of his capital. This is equally true, sometimes still more 
 cogently true, in the case of professional men and trades- 
 men, and it is by the screw which this loss suggests to the 
 landlords that they are able not only to raise their rents 
 enormously, as I shall presently show, but impose the whole 
 burden of local taxation on the occupier. Those members 
 of the House who are familiar with these facts know that 
 my statement has been confirmed as regards agriculture 
 by such competent persons as Sir James Caird and Mr. 
 James Howard, and I could give from my experience as a 
 metropolitan member of some years' standing proofs of 
 how cogent is the machinery in the case of traders. I do 
 not find fault with those who take advantage of their oppor- 
 tunities. I never heard of any man who was so bad as the 
 creed he professed, and I never have found any man who 
 was better than the law he lives under. I find fault with 
 the law which gives them the opportunities ; and it is with 
 only one of these opportunities that I am dealing now. I 
 do not, for instance, dwell on the power which the settle- 
 ment of estates in great towns, and the existence of opulent 
 corporations, give to landowners to exact hard terms from 
 their tenants. These people have neither character or con- 
 science. 
 Local Now, Sir, I shall probably be treated to the time- 
 
 'Taxation honoured generality that local taxes are always paid ulti- 
 paid by ^ niately by the landlords. I hope I have shown already 
 landowners that this is not true, and I shall say a little more on this 
 in the end. subject. But assuming it for the moment to be the case, 
 if it be true that the landowner pays them all at the end, 
 what can be the hardship of putting them entirely on the 
 owners at the beginning. I have sometimes suggested this 
 change to the advocates of the theory I have quoted ; but I 
 have always found them intensely reluctant to make the 
 experiment. They are reluctant with reason, for the state- 
 ment is only plausible to a landowner or his agent, and
 
 15 
 
 unreal to the occupier or tenant. I have not the smallest 
 doubt that if a thousand occupiers were asked who it was 
 who paid local taxes, 999 would reply that the whole, or 
 the greater part, fell on their shoulders. Now, if the land- 
 lords are right, there could be no harm in their paying a 
 moiety as I suggest ; and it is quite certain that their 
 tenants, however wrong their theories might be, would 
 be very glad of the temporary, and as I believe, of the per- 
 manent relief. And I venture upon urging that it would 
 be very expedient to do so at the present time. Very 
 awkward opinions are gaining ground, opinions which 
 I deprecate as unsound, unfair, and dangerous ; but if the 
 contention of the landlords is correct, that local taxation 
 presses upon them, they cannot possibly lose by my pro- 
 posal, because they simply have to put into operation the 
 process of transferring that which they have paid to the 
 tenant immediately, after they have paid that which they 
 have to pay in the end, according to their own assertion. 
 At any rate, I am pretty certain that the adoption of the 
 provision which I have proposed will be a great concession 
 to popular sentiment, which is entirely on my side of the 
 argument now, and must be a very useful means for stifling 
 popular discontent. 
 
 The opinion. Sir, that a landlord pays the tax in the 
 end, is merely derived from the facts of a single transaction, 
 and that only at the instant of its completion. When a 
 farmer takes a farm he always calculates or discovers its 
 average outgoings in local taxation, and now, at least, what- 
 ever he did in past times, he deducts these outgoings from 
 the rent he offers. But as I have already said, the freedom 
 of his action ceases with the beginning of his occupancy. 
 In the case of other occupiers, who are constrained by the 
 exigencies of business to reside within defined localities, 
 the freedom of choice hardly exists at the beginning of 
 the contract, as every trader or merchant who occupies 
 premises would tell you. In the case of the poor in great 
 towns there is even less freedom still. Everybody knows 
 how enormous is the proportion of their rent to their 
 income. I have housed, in connection with the company
 
 i6 
 
 The taxa- 
 
 iocai pur 
 poses. 
 
 of which I am a director, many thousands of London 
 artizans and their famiHes in model dweUings, and I am 
 glad that I have been able to give my time and attention 
 to this work. I could have housed them at thirty per cent, 
 less if the local taxation which enhances their rent, and 
 which I think they pay, had been put on the persons whose 
 land has profited by their presence. 
 
 Now, Sir, I do not mean to say that our system of local 
 sonal^pro-'^' taxation is fair. As an occupier, I should have no objec- 
 perty for tion to adopt the American system and to have my chattels 
 taxed. You must not, indeed, tax stock-in-trade, as was 
 attempted between 1790 and 1800. Lord Mansfield, a 
 wise judge, always refused to accept the contention of those 
 who alleged that personal property, that is, manufacturing 
 stock, was taxable under the statute of Elizabeth. Lord 
 Kenyon, a foolish judge, permitted the taxation of this 
 property, with the result, as you may see in the report of 
 1834, of ruining the ^\^est of England cloth trade, of giving 
 a bounty to the better placed Yorkshire industry, and of 
 impoverishing the midland and southern counties. I am 
 sorry to say that I am old enough to remember tlie comments 
 on this process, and the ruin that followed it in my own 
 district of England. But if you are going to tax chattels, 
 my books and chairs, etc., you cannot allow great houses, 
 splendid pictures, and vast libraries, to altogether escape 
 this taxation. You must levy these taxes on Chatsworth, 
 Blenheim, Althorpe, and a thousand other ostentatious and 
 splendid personalities. I do not know what price the 
 founder of the House of Churchill gave for the Raphael for 
 which we paid ^75,000, probably not more than ^750, 
 even if he paid that. Now, why should these, and a million 
 other pictures escape taxation, if you are to charge personal 
 property with local taxation, as the landowners always claim 
 we should ? I doubt very much whether they would be glad 
 to acquiesce in that which they demand. 
 Much Local Now, Sir, what are the great local burdens, as they are 
 benefidal^ Called, in country places? The principal charges are those 
 outlay on ^OT the maintenance of the poor and the repair of highways, 
 land. Now, I contend that these are both beneficial outlays, The
 
 17 
 
 poor rate in the country, as every economist will allow, is 
 an insurance against the inevitable certainty of destitution — 
 a certainty which has been heightened by the eviction of 
 the peasant from the soil, a certainty which will become a 
 remote risk when he is restored to it, as I hope this Parlia- 
 ment will restore him. If this insurance fund were not 
 paid his wages would inevitably rise. I know that I con- 
 tribute, and have for many years, not only to the pauperism 
 which I do not create, but aid the miserable wages which 
 farmers pay by the wages of my domestic servants, for their 
 relations, mainly peasants, know pretty clearly when quarter 
 day comes to them, and have generally paid them a visit 
 shortly after that event. My experience is that of thou- 
 sands. 
 
 And, with regard to roads, the beneficial outlay is even 
 more obvious. Without roads, land is only of prairie 
 value. The cost of creating and maintaining these roads is 
 absolutely necessary to the landlord for the enjoyment of 
 his property or his rent. I live in a town, and I pay for the 
 roads which give value to the ground landlord's property. 
 I ought not to do it, but I do not grudge it. I do, how- 
 ever, grudge paying out of my income-tax to the roads 
 which are necessary for my opulent and meritorious neigh- 
 bours, the country gentlemen. I hope my Right Hon. friend 
 the Secretary for the Treasury (Mr. Henry Fowler) will not 
 consider me inconsistent. I voted the other day for pay 
 ing the charges of the Chester and Holyhead Road out of 
 the Consolidated Fund. The road was made for strictly 
 Imperial purposes, for the maintenance of law and order in 
 Ireland, or, as hon. gentlemen opposite might say, for its 
 coercion. That road^ therefore, like the highway to the 
 North, was a matter of national importance, ought to be 
 maintained by the nation, and ought not to be paid by the 
 inhabitants of those poor and barren counties through which 
 it passes. I admit a public duty ; I deprecate the affecta- 
 tion of public spirit in a direction which would be unjust 
 economy. I hope. Sir, that I have now made out a good 
 case for the division of local taxation between the owner 
 and the occupier, and have supported the contention of the
 
 i8 
 
 The argu- 
 ment 
 
 against dis- 
 turbing 
 existing 
 contracts. 
 
 The assess- 
 ment of 
 country 
 mansions. 
 
 Committee of 1870, that landowners ought in equity to 
 bear at lca.st a moiety of these charges. 
 
 Now, Sir, I shall be told that what I have proposed will 
 disturb existing arrangements — perhaps that freedom of con- 
 tract which some well-to-do people believe to be the centre 
 of the Constitution, but which those who struggle for their 
 living look upon with very different feelings. I shall be told 
 that it is an ancient custom for the occupier to pay the 
 rates, as it is a modern theory that the landlord pays them. 
 I shall be instructed that it is an indelible part of the Con- 
 stitution, or the latest phrase, "a fundamental law." Sir, 
 these phrases remind me of a story of my youth. An 
 early friend of mine, the late Dr. Buckland, geologist, and 
 Dean of Westminster, was being shown over an ancient 
 cathedral. The verger pointed out to him a spot which was 
 indelibly marked with the blood of a mediaeval saint and 
 martyr. The mark was washed out from time to time, but 
 the sanguine stain always reappeared. Now, Dr. Buckland 
 was a naturalist of an inquiring, not to say sceptical, mind. 
 He determined to inquire. He wetted his finger, stooped 
 down, rubbed the mark, applied his finger to his tongue, 
 and replied conchisively, " ISat's dung ! " (Loud laughter.) 
 Now, Sir, there is a deal of "bat's dung" in the British 
 Constitution, and for my part, having discovered by some 
 study the cause of many of these indelible stains, I am 
 quite prepared, with the assistance of my friends here, to get 
 up to the roof and dislodge the bats. 
 
 I now proceed to what is practically the second clause 
 of my motion — I mean the low values for rating purposes at 
 which country mansions are assessed. The House must be 
 perfectly well aware of the soreness and discontent which 
 the present system excites. Men who live in towns, and 
 carry on business there, complain that their premises are 
 assessed at amounts which are in excess of the rate imposed 
 on huge country mansions and vast parks. Now, we know 
 well how these assessments are settled. The valuation is 
 fixed by the Justices in Quarter Sessions — that is, by the in- 
 habitants of these mansions — and in accordance with the 
 provisions of 5 and 6 Will. IV. Now, I am far from saying
 
 19 
 
 that these mansions ought to be rated at their full building 
 value, and I am far from finding fault with the Justices for 
 rating them, in accordance with the terms of the Act, on 
 a hypothetical letting value. In point of fact, if the Quarter 
 Sessions interpreted the clause strictly, it would justify the 
 Justices in putting a still lower nominal assessment. I do not 
 think that they would break the law if in many cases they put 
 no value on them whatever, for many of them could hardly 
 be let to any persons at all. But the practice of England is 
 not the practice of other countries. In the United States 
 local taxation visits all house property with an assessment 
 on its building value. They do not give owners such 
 advantages as they get in England, for they tax empty 
 houses on the ground that the State ought not to assist or 
 excuse a man when he keeps his goods out of the market. 
 Now, though I admit that these assessments are in accord- 
 ance with the existing law, I think it is high time that the 
 law should be materially modified. It is policy to do so, for 
 I venture on airain remindino; the House that there is an awk- 
 ward spirit in the air. There are thousands of persons who 
 argue thus : " I, with my wife and family, live in one room, 
 for which I have to pay 3s. 6d. or 4s. a-week. I pay it with 
 difficulty, all the more because the rates are so heavy, and 
 which I know come upon me in the rent, and which I am 
 forced to pay. And I knovv' that Lord So-and-so, and 
 others like him, have houses with 150 rooms, and large 
 grounds about the house, for which they are rated at next to 
 nothing." It is a bad thing that this sort of spirit should 
 get abroad, and that these comments should be justly made. 
 They who profit by the present system and escape liabilities 
 would do well not to accentuate the distinction between the 
 poor and the rich by any feeling that gross injustice exists. 
 I desire to raise no prejudice against the opulent. I 
 have always, to the best of my powers, attacked the 
 theories of Socialism ; but unless something is done, and 
 that speedily, in the direction of my motion, there will be a 
 growing and dangerous feeling of grudge and dissatisfaction 
 at the escape of wealthy men from local contributions. It 
 has always been held to be a sound principle of finance to
 
 20 
 
 tax luxuries when you can get at them. And if a person 
 thinks proper to have half-a-dozen fine houses, when he 
 lives only in one, he ought to be equitably assessed on the 
 whole. 
 The coniri- I'he last part of my motion refers to the estate of the 
 guimld"^ ground landlord. The House will remember that latterly 
 rents to there has been a debate upon ground-rents, and at first I 
 Local thought that as the matter had been already discussed I 
 
 just!^^'"" had better not press this clause ; but I determined to retain 
 it, because I shall treat it in a totally different way from that 
 in which it was handled in the late debate. I have no 
 special grudge against ground-rents. I see no more reason 
 for specially taxing the lucky purchaser of land than for 
 taxing exceptionally the gains of a successful lawyer or 
 physician. All these are various forms of fertility in the 
 economical sense, and all of them have an equal right to be 
 protected against rapine. I am no believer in the doctrine 
 that the State should appropriate the unearned increment, 
 and that for reasons which I will not trouble the House 
 with, though I have over and over again stated them in print. 
 What I do complain of is, that the property of the ground 
 landlord is constantly being swollen in value by the contri- 
 butions of the tenant under our system of local taxation. 
 Let me illustrate my position by my own experience. 1 
 live in a city seven-tenths of the building land of which at 
 least is the property of Corporations. The inhabitants of 
 the city were very properly restrained from polluting the 
 Thames with sewage, and works had to be undertaken at 
 the cost of some ;£i 50,000, with a view of putting a final 
 stop to the nuisance. But the whole cost of paying the 
 interest and extinguishing the principal is put upon the 
 occupiers, who are thus engaged in improving the estate of 
 the ground landlord at their own expense, and of course, in 
 time to come, to their own detriment, as they may have to 
 pay an enhanced rent on the improved estate. But when 
 you come to the metropoHs the burden is still more unfair 
 and crushing. London occupiers are engaged in improving 
 the estates of the ground landlords, and paying increased 
 rents upon their own unexhausted improvements at a rate
 
 21 
 
 which, if it were exhibited in Ireland, would make the hair 
 of Irish members stand on end and very effectually loosen 
 their tongues. I find from the latest reports that the whole 
 amount of local debts for local improvements, and for the 
 most part on unproductive expenditure, is no less, in 
 England and Wales, than ^^J" 159,000,000. The whole of 
 this, interest and principal — for most of it has been raised in 
 a terminable stock — is liquidated by the occupier ; that is, he 
 is engaged in England to the extent of ;2^i 59,000,000 in 
 making valuable estates, the whole value of which, by the 
 way, his presence has created still more valuable. This is 
 particularly the case with the great settled estates, many of 
 which came into the hands of the ancestors of their present 
 owners by Heaven knows what means. I will take an 
 example : the Covent Garden estate was originally the home- 
 farm of Westminster Abbey. It was squeezed out of that 
 corporation by the founder of the house of Bedford, who 
 was a favourite of Henry VIII. Now, in the course of my 
 researches I have come across a lease of this estate granted 
 by the Earl of Bedford in the reign of Elizabeth. The 
 whole estate was, I believe, about 300 acres, and it was 
 let for a term of thirty years for about ^40 per annum. 
 I do not quite know what it is let for now, but I am pretty 
 sure that it is a multiple of six figures. Now, this estate has 
 been improved by the tenants without the Duke having 
 been called upon to lay out a single shilling upon it, and 
 everything which is necessary in order to make the estate 
 possess any market value whatever is constantly being paid 
 by the occupier. This is what people see is grossly unfair ; 
 it is what they resent. And it is what, at an early date, the 
 Legislature will, I trust, thoroughly remedy. What, I should 
 like to ask, is necessary towards making a locality habitable ? 
 Roads must be made and repaired ; water must be supplied ; 
 and sewage must be carried off. If justice were done I 
 contend that the highway rate, the water rate, and the 
 sewage rate should be paid by the ground landlord, and that 
 they should be deducted from the stipulated rent just in the 
 same way as income-tax is. They would then be paid by 
 the landlord, for I suppose that the landowner would hardly
 
 22 
 
 contend that he makes his tenant pay the income-tax, as he 
 is accustomed to say his tenant would have to pay an 
 enhanced rent if he, the landlord, paid any part of the local 
 taxation. 
 The neces- I cannot help thinking that this question ought not only 
 sity of to be debated but decided. The early solution of it appears 
 iFon. ^ ^^' ^^ t)e imperatively necessary. There is a great deal of dis- 
 content abroad. People come to me from poor districts, 
 and from rich ones too, complaining of the ever-increasing 
 rates which they have to pay on property which has been 
 enhanced in value by the previous outlay of occupiers. 
 And, as the House knows, this ever-growing assessment 
 affects every form of local taxation and service. The pre- 
 sent burden of rates is such, and its incidence is so ob- 
 viously unfair, that pubhc bodies do not dare to undertake 
 many useful and even necessary works because they dread 
 the indignation of the occupiers at the increased rate which 
 would be involved in the operation. I will illustrate what I 
 mean. The House is aware that the Royal Commission on 
 the state of the Thames condemned the sewage outfalls at 
 Barking Creek and Crossness, and called on the Metropoli- 
 tan Board of Works to purify the Thames. The Board of 
 AVorks prepared a scheme for carrying the sewage down 
 from these two points to Canvey Island, where there was 
 ample space for desiccating the sewage so completely as to 
 send out nothmg but pure water into the Thames. Why 
 has it not been done ? The scheme would have cost 
 ;^4, 000,000, and the Board of Works hardly dared to put 
 this charge on the ratepayers, who would be compelled, 
 under the existing law, to meet the whole expense, princi- 
 pal and interest. Now, I submit that a very considerable 
 part of the expense to be incurred in carrying out these 
 permanent works should be borne by the ground landlords, 
 in proportion to the extent and value of their estates — 
 seeing that they reap the benefit of these improvements. 
 
 This, Sir, is my contention. I have not stated the case 
 as fully as it might be stated. I hope I have dealt with it 
 temperately. Some alteration of the law, in respect of the 
 matters I have referred to, is, I am convinced, imperatively
 
 23 
 
 necessary. It is wise and politic to palliate or remove 
 that galling sense of injustice which the public feel so 
 keenly when they see and know that they are improving the 
 estates of their neighbours out of their own hard-earned 
 incomes. The struggle of life is hard enough now, and dis- 
 content at unmerited wrongs may grow into a danger. At 
 any rate, it is high time that this most important subject of 
 local taxation, and particularly of its incidence and distribu- 
 tion, should not only be considered by Parliament but dealt 
 with. I have trespassed long enough on the patience of the 
 House, and shall conclude by moving the resolution of 
 which I have given notice, and of which, I may add, I gave 
 notice in the late Parliament. 
 
 The following was the motion : — 
 
 *' That the present system under which, in England and 
 Wales, the first Incidence of Local Taxation (with some 
 slight exceptions) falls on the occupier and not on the 
 owner of lands and tenements, is unjust ; that such owners 
 ought in equity to bear at least a moiety of these charges ; 
 that the system under which country mansions are rated is 
 unfair; and that the owners of ground rents in towns are 
 liable to no part of those charges, the outlay of which is 
 essential in order that the property may possess any market- 
 able value whatever." 
 
 Sir Richard Paget moved the following amendment : — 
 
 " That, while the apportionment of the payment of Rates 
 between landlord and tenant may be desirable, as part of 
 a complete scheme for remedying the admitted inequalities 
 of the Incidence of Local Taxation, this House is of opinion 
 that the financial injustice complained of can only be 
 removed by a comprehensive measure, and that an equit- 
 able readjustment of taxation as between real and personal 
 property, is urgently required." 
 
 On a division. Sir R. Paget's amendment was negatived 
 by 207 — 188, including tellers. And on the main question 
 being put, it was affirmed by 218 — 178, including tellers. 
 
 The division was a strictly party one. It is noteworthy 
 that all the Metropolitan Tories who were present voted 
 against the resolution.