1880-81

2,956,189 1,089,405

4,960,519

4,937,825 545,707 346,524 1885-86 5,524,390 3,375,637 1,128,653 679,577 340,523 1889-90 6,093,255 3,565,129 1,275,488 797,863 454,775

6,000, 571 6,139,930

Prior to 1890, the management of the county finances of Scotland was mainly in the hands of non-elective bodies called commissioners of supply, who acted by virtue of property qualifications and were chiefly representative of the landed proprietors. Although originally appointed in the seventeenth century for the raising of national revenues, as their name indicates, they gradually became the chief administrators of the non-judicial county business. Amongst the duties transferred to or imposed on them were the levying of "rogue money," the control of the county police, the erection and care of court-houses, the preparation of the valuation roll (except in burghs), and a preponderating share of the management of prisons, roads and lunatic asylums.1 Rogue money was first imposed in 1771

for defraying the charges of apprehending criminals and of subsisting them in prison until prosecution, and of prosecuting such criminals for their several offences by due course of law.3

Down to 1832 the tax was levied by an ancient court of freeholders, but was then transferred to the commissioners of supply. It was abolished in 1868, and a general county assessment substituted. The tax has always been levied upon the owners, in both its old and its new forms. For the pur

1 Goudy and Smith, Local Government in Scotland, 1880, pp. 15 and 21. 2 Ibid., pp. 21 and 67.

311 Geo. I, chap. 26, quoted by McNeel-Caird, p. 117.

The contrary appears to have been stated by Mr. Cochran in his evidence before Mr. Goschen's committee (see Q. 357), but this statement referred primarily

poses of road management a system grew up towards the middle of the present century, chiefly under local acts, of joining elected representatives of the occupiers with the commissioners of supply, in bodies known as road trustees; and for the management of prisons and lunatic asylums, a limited representation of the burgh magistrates was associated with the commissioners of supply.

Very considerable changes were made in the Scottish system of local finance by the Local Government Act of 1889, which took effect in May, 1890. The chief of these changes were the creation of county councils similar to those provided for England by the act of 1888, and the transfer to them of the fiscal powers of the commissioners of supply, of the county road trustees, of the parochial boards under the Public Health. Acts and of the authorities of burghs having less than 7000 inhabitants in respect of police, contagious diseases and destructive insects. An instalment of a most necessary work of unification and simplification was effected at the same time by the repeal of a large number of local road acts and the general enforcement of the Roads and Bridges (Scotland) Act of 1878. Provision is also made in the act of 1889 for the consolidation of county rates. The main purposes not mentioned above to which the revenues of the county councils were made applicable include county police, valuation, registration of voters, court-houses and county buildings, militia depots and storehouses, lunacy (expenses of asylum buildings chiefly), weights and measures and adulteration acts.1

As in England, the growth of urban local taxation has been very rapid in recent years. Mr. McNeel-Caird put down the total revenues of the burghs in 1873-74 at £653,164; the total for 1890-91, inclusive of those raised under the Roads

to the burgh of Aberdeen. In the extra-municipal portion of the county of Aberdeen, the tax appears from his evidence to have fallen on the owners. Q. 270, 275 and 289.

1 The local taxation returns relating to counties for 1890-91 have not yet appeared. As that was the first year of the existence of the county councils, the delay is especially unfortunate, the earlier statistics of county finance being of no present value.

and Bridges Act of 1878, was £2,234,582. It must, moreover, be borne in mind that this total does not include poor rates and school rates, which are not under municipal management and are not separately tabulated for town and country. The main heads of burghal revenue for 1890 were as follows:

From property, investments and common good. £231,245
Police rates.
Public health rates

718,603

131,052

Other receipts

Loans to the amount of £1,154,089 were also raised during the year.

The chief items of burghal expenditure for the same year

Loans to the amount of £998,328 were repaid during the year. The total indebtedness of the burghal authorities at the close of the year 1890-91 was £12,077,510; but as a set-off they possessed investments of sinking funds amounting to £1,051,148. The gross rental of the burghs, as shown in the valuation roll, was £12,518,192.

In urban districts the rates levied for sanitary and general municipal purposes are charged only on one-fourth of the annual value in the cases of agricultural land, railways, canals,

mines and quarries.1 There are various statutory limits of rating for these purposes which somewhat restrict the powers of urban authorities to undertake costly improvements.2

The administration of the Poor Law Acts throughout Scotland, and of the Registration of Births, etc., Acts and Burial Grounds Act in rural parishes, is entrusted to parochial boards, who levy the rates required for these purposes. Prior to 1890 they also administered the Public Health Acts in rural districts and levied the necessary rate; but this department has now been transferred to the county councils.3 Elementary education is in the charge of parish and burgh school boards created in 1872, but the school rate is raised by the parochial boards. For poor-law purposes the limits of the old civil parishes, 885 in number, are still adhered to; but there have been subdivisions for church and educational purposes. There is nothing in Scotland corresponding to the English poor-law unions and boards of guardians, the administration of the poor laws being wholly parochial.

The poor-relief system of Scotland appears to have remained upon a voluntary basis down to 1845, and, till then, to have resembled that abandoned in England in 1601. It dated from the latter part of the sixteenth century, and was probably called into existence by the dissolution of the monasteries, as was the case in England. The system of general parish assessments, introduced by the act of 1845, was followed by a rapid increase of expenditure, as the following figures will show :5

8 In burghs, the acts relating to registration of births, etc., burial grounds and public health are administered by town councils.

4 Goudy and Smith, pp. 5 and 45; Local Government and Taxation in Scotland, by W. Macdonald, Cobden Club Essays, 1882, pp. 407-409.

5 Report of Board of Supervision, 1891-92.

But this system is not universally in operation, there being still forty-six parishes in which the old voluntary system, modified and reformed, is permitted to continue by the board of supervision. There are thirteen other parishes in which poor relief assessments are levied upon an old plan which was in partial use before 1845, known as assessment by established usage.

An interesting experiment in taxation was worked out in connection with the Scottish Poor Law of 1845. The poor rate was laid in equal shares on the owners and occupiers of the ratable property in each parish; but the parochial boards were authorized to levy the occupiers' moiety in either of three ways, one of which was by an assessment of "means and substance." No precise definitions of this term were laid down, and it fell out that an English judge was assessed upon his full salary in aid of the poor rate of a parish in Scotland in which he happened to have a residence. This was simply a glaring instance of the general inconvenience and injustice of the method, which was found to be rapidly depopulating some of the parishes to which it was at first applied, and was before long wholly abandoned.1

Another experiment, having a similar end in view, has met with greater acceptance. This consisted of the classification of occupiers for their share of the poor rate according to the nature of the occupancy. Three categories were usually adopted (1) private residences, (2) shops and business

1 McNeel-Caird, Cobden Club Essays, 1875, p. 156. See, also, evidence given before the Local Taxation Committee of 1870 by Mr. Cochran, Q. 322; Sir J. Lambert, Q. 2339 and 2352; and Sir J. Caird, Q. 4357-4359. Also Burdens on Land Report, 1846, pp. 598 and 603.