premises, and (3) farms. The rent or annual value was taken as a basis in each case; but the rates in the pound varied in the proportions of three, two and one, or four, two and one, respectively.1 This plan is still in operation in 174 parishes. It is, of course, inapplicable to parishes consisting chiefly of holdings of one class; but for parishes of mixed character there appears to be much to be said for it, both from the point of view of abstract justice and from that of conformity with the laws of ultimate incidence. "Classification" does not apply to the owners' half-share.

The total revenue of the parochial boards in 1890-91 (exclusive of loans) was £1,498,368; and from loans, £9,520. The chief items were:

The expenditure may be summarized thus:

Under the Poor Law Acts.

Under Registration Acts.

Under Burial Grounds Act

Under Valuation Act

Paid over to school boards
Repayment of loans.

The loans outstanding at the end of the year amounted to £364,175. The gross rental of assessed parishes was £23,630,277; of unassessed parishes, £294,605; and of the whole of Scotland, £23,924,882.

The history of highway and main-road legislation in Scotland closely resembles that of England, the same expedients of repair by the inhabitants, statute labor, turnpike tolls, rates and government subventions having been in turn resorted to in each case.2 Turnpike tolls were abolished in 1883, and the cost is now wholly borne by the rates, except so far as these are relieved by the allocated taxes, as in England.

1 Goudy and Smith, p. 46; Macdonald, Cobden Club Essays, 1882, pp. 412-413; Cochran's evidence, 1870, Q. 325, et seq.

2 Goudy and Smith, p. 75 et seq.

An old and peculiar feature of Scottish local finance is the taxation of real property for ecclesiastical purposes. The assessments are made and the moneys expended by the "heritors of parishes." Their rates for 1890-91 produced £39,494, of which £11,510 were spent on churches and £17,080 on manses (parsonages). The rates fall wholly on the owners.

The sum paid to the Scottish local taxation account in the year 1891-92, from the produce of the allocated taxes, was £795,712, as shown in Part I, Chapter V. In 1890-91 the amount was £730,988, and the disposition of this sum is set forth in detail in Table XIV of the Appendix. In addition to the relief of local taxation thus afforded, further assistance is given by way of grants out of the consolidated fund and charges borne by Parliamentary votes. It is difficult to determine which of these grants and charges are wholly or partly local in character, no official list or statement being obtainable. Some figures are, however, appended in Table XVI, in which the lines adopted in the English return (see Table IX, Part I) have been followed as far as possible.

Two matters in respect of which the Scottish system differs from that of England are the existence of a well-made valuation roll for all local purposes, and the very large extent to which the rates are charged directly upon the owners. Prior to 1854, the county assessments were based upon valuations two hundred years old,3 but in that year an act was passed requiring the county and burgh authorities, respectively, to make up a valuation roll annually, and to base their future assessments upon it. A uniform basis of assessment is thus provided for the whole country, which, in practice, has given very general satisfaction. In a large number of counties and burghs the

1 Goudy and Smith, pp. 5 and 61.

2 Similar official returns for England and Ireland would be both interesting and useful, but none have yet been issued.

8 McNeel-Caird, 1875, p. 119.

* Goudy and Smith, p. 89. The values entered in these rolls are similar to those known in England as "gross estimated rental." For poor rate and school rate purposes, deductions are made which furnish a net valuation, similar to the English "ratable value." These deductions vary according to local usage.

services of the surveyors of taxes have been utilized in the preparation of the rolls, under an arrangement with the board of inland revenue; and the valuations made by them are accepted by the crown for the assessment of imperial taxes, as in London under the Metropolis Valuation Act. The general rules for estimating the value of property correspond closely to those theoretically in operation in England; but an exception exists in a provision that lands let on lease for periods not exceeding twenty-one years, at a yearly rent and without any other consideration, are to be assessed on the rent, regardless of any improvements effected during the currency of the lease. The act of 1854 further provides that in the case of leases for more than twenty-one years, the lessee is deemed to be the owner, but is empowered to deduct from the rent or ground rent so much of the rates as corresponds to the proportion which the rent or ground rent bears to the total valuation.1 The duty of preparing the valuation roll in royal and Parliamentary burghs is cast on the magistrates of such burghs; elsewhere, on the county councils. The cost is borne in equal proportions by occupiers and owners.

The division of certain of the rates between occupiers and owners extends, in some cases, to the making of separate assessments on the respective persons of each class, and the separate collection of the respective quotas from those persons or their agents.2 In other cases the rates are first paid by the occupiers, and the owners' proportion is deducted from the rent.3 The apportionment of rates between these classes and the amounts borne by each are set out in detail in Table XV of the Appendix.1

Under the act of 1889, county rates for new purposes and increases in the old ones beyond the average of the previous

1 McNeel-Caird, p. 120.

2 See evidence given before the Local Taxation Committee, 1870, Q. 320, 4132-3 and 4335-6.

8 Goudy and Smith, pp. 22 and 30.

4 Sir J. Caird stated in evidence before Mr. Goschen's committee of 1870 that prior to 1845 the Scottish rates were borne wholly by the owners. The occupiers however, liable to provide labor for the repair of the roads, and were also expected to relieve the poor who subsisted by begging. Q. 4131 and 4134.

were,

ten years fall equally on the owners and occupiers. The older plan, of charging the owner only, conformed to the facts of the ultimate incidence so far as the rates were levied in respect of lands,1 mines and quarries; but it has evidently been considered desirable to work towards an equal division all round. The case for applying the latter method to burghal rates is, as has been shown in Part I, Chapters IV and VI, extremely strong and urgent.

It will be seen that, notwithstanding the inadequate contribution from property in towns, the Scottish system already concedes much of the relief demanded, but not yet secured, by the occupiers in England. It will presently be seen that Ireland is also considerably ahead of England in respect of both uniformity of valuation and the liability of owners for a share of the local burdens.

In burghs there is a twofold collection of rates by the burgh and parish authorities, as in England; and in rural districts by the corresponding levies of the county and parish authorities. But to the latter must be added the separate levy of church rates, which are not now existent in burghs.

PART III.

IRELAND.

A review of Irish local finance is greatly facilitated by the existence of an admirable report on local government and taxation in Ireland, drawn up by Mr. W. P. O'Brien, local government inspector, in 1878; and by the reports and returns of Dr. W. Neilson Hancock, of the Irish local government board. The latter also contributed an essay on these subjects to the series issued by the Cobden Club in 1875, in which much of the matter contained in his official reports was collected and lucidly presented.

Irish local finance falls naturally into four main divisions, relating respectively to counties, towns, unions, and harbors and other miscellaneous matters. The county rate in known.

1 McNeel-Caird, Cobden Club Essays, 1875, p. 153.

as the "grand jury cess," and is the oldest form of Irish direct local taxation. It dates back to 1635, in which year an act was passed by the Irish parliament authorizing the justices of assize and of the peace, with the assent of the grand jury, to tax the inhabitants for the repair of bridges.1 In the latter half of the last century, this tax was made applicable to the repair of roads, and before the end of that century Ireland had become possessed of a network of unusually good highways. Turnpike tolls had come into use for the maintenance of main roads at an earlier date, but during the first half of the present century these were gradually superseded by rates, and in 1857 were finally abolished. Ireland thus took the lead in the British Islands in this important reform. The total amount of the grand jury cess was, in 1856, £1,018,515; in 1866, £1,055,482; in 1876, £1,130,723; and in 1892, £1,261,928. There would have been, however, a larger increase in the later years, but for the grants of aid from imperial funds in respect of lunatic asylums, prisons and roads; and the decrease of the rural population must also be taken into account. The withdrawal of a number of urban areas from the fiscal control of the grand juries (see next page) has also assisted in keeping down the total of the cess. Of the gross presentments of grand jury cess for 1892, £746,650, or rather more than one half, was for roads and bridges; the only other single department of county business which cost over £100,000 being lunatic asylums. The charge for police (exclusive of the Dublin Metropolitan Police) which fell upon the Irish rates in 1892 was only £38,284. The smallness of this sum is due to the fact that the Royal Irish Constabulary is a semi-military force, the very heavy normal cost of which is charged to the imperial revenues. It is only the cost of extra duties, arising out of local disturbances and special circumstances, which is charged to the county authorities and raised locally.

The grand jury is a non-elective body, chiefly drawn from the landlord class; and although the expenditure of the cess is first

1 Hancock, Cobden Club Essays, 1875, p. 190; Local Taxation (Ireland) Returns, 1871, p. 15; and Mr. O'Brien's Report, 1878, p. 29.

2 See Table XVIII, p. 302.