general service class. When numbers got out of work or out of health they often ceased to be members, and therefore the mortality in friendly societies did not very fairly represent that of the entire working classes. Mr. Hamilton seemed to be under the impression that it was the weakly ones who left the country and came to towns, but he thought the tendency rather was for the healthier members of a family to leave their rural homes and come to town. He wished distinctly to point out that he had attempted no comparison between Dublin and other towns, but merely between one class and another all resident in Dublin. Mr. Bourne thought that there was a possibility of persons dropping out of an occupation, and so affecting Dr. Grimshaw's tables; but if, for instance, barristers when they ceased to practise called themselves "gentlemen," the change would appear in the census schedules as well as in the death register, and therefore would not affect the calculations.

The ANNUAL TAXES on PROPERTY and INCOME.

By THOMAS HENRY ELLIOTT, Esq.

[Read before the Royal Statistical Society, 15th March, 1887. SIR RAWSON W. RAWSON, K.C.M.G., C.B., a Past President, in the Chair.]

If it is with hesitation that I venture to submit for your consideration this evening some observations as to the past history and present and future position of the annual taxes on property and income, it is rather that I mistrust my own ability to follow worthily in the path marked out by those eminent members of the Society who have given their attention to the subject, and many of whom are still working amongst us, than that I feel that any apology is necessary for the subject itself. Taxes which, during little more than a generation, have contributed over 300 million £ to the national exchequer, which at the present moment constitute one-fifth of the whole taxation of the country, and by the aid of which so many great national enterprises have been carried out, and so many beneficial reforms effected, cannot but deserve detailed and periodical examination, alike in their fiscal and their social aspects.

For the conduct of such an examination I know too well my deficiencies, and I can only plead as my excuse for attempting to take some part in it, that the subject seemed that which lay closest to my hand, and upon which, if at all, I could hope to add with advantage to the transactions of the Society.

Let me say at the outset, however, that I can supply but few new statistics in addition to those which, in some form or other, are available to the careful student of the literature of blue books. So far as I know, there are no materials of importance in the archives of Somerset House which have not been published either in the ordinary annual, or in the special periodical reports of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. I cannot therefore do much more than weave together the various threads which are already at the disposal of the public, and examine them by the light of that revenne law which all are supposed to know to the letter, but with which probably few fully comply.

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The taxes with which I propose to deal this evening, under the title of "The Annual Taxes on Property and Income," are those ordinarily known as the income tax and the land tax. "For 'nothing can be more certain, though but little known, than that "the so called land tax was in fact a property and income tax, and moreover, that personal estate was quite as much the object of "the charge as land." I have much hesitation as to whether to these two I ought not to have added the inhabited house duty, the incidence of which has been so much disputed. I am, however, disposed to think with Mr. Dudley Baxter, that that duty "is "almost entirely a tenant's tax, and does not fall on the land"lord; "" although I am of course aware that many high authorities take an opposite view, and that in the recent return "of Imperial Taxation borne by Real and by Realised Personal "Property," the inhabited house duty is described as "falling "solely upon real property."

Permit me, however, to restrict my remarks this evening to the two taxes I have named.

II.-The Fluctuations in the Rate of Income Tax.

The first table, A, which I desire to submit for your consideration, has been constructed in order to illustrate the wide fluctuations which have taken place in the proportion borne by the income tax to the total taxation of the country. I regret that I have been compelled to omit years prior to 1857, the date when our present system of national book-keeping may be said to have commenced, but the variations which have occurred since that time are quite wide enough to warrant the conclusion which I seek to draw.

Thirteenth Report of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue," p. 109.

2 "Taxation of the United Kingdom," p. 65.

3 House of Commons Paper No. 345 of 1885, p. 6.

TABLE A.-Statement showing the Amount of Taxes actually Received (less Stamps in lieu of Fees), the Net Produce of Income Tax, the Proportion of Income Tax to the Total Amount of Taxes, the Rate of Income Tax, and the principal Cause of the Increase or Decrease in the Rate for each Year from 1857-58 to 1885-86. United Kingdom.

* Taken from House of Commons Paper No. 240 of 1886.

It will be seen that the percentage of income tax to the net produce of taxation ranges from 20.3 per cent. in 1885, to 6.2 per cent. in 1875. During sixteen years out of the twenty-nine, including the last six, income tax payers have contributed more than their average share to the burdens of the nation, in thirteen years they have contributed less. Now I do not desire to assume

that the average share of the past should necessarily be that of the future, although I believe that no less an authority than Mr. Gladstone has in recent years referred to 5d. as being, under existing circumstances, the normal rate, which is very nearly the average of 5d. shown in the table; but I cannot resist the conclusion that these constantly recurring and wide fluctuations have either resulted in unduly relieving income tax payers as a class during such periods as 1872-78, or on the other hand that persons within the range of the income tax have borne more than their fair proportion of the expenses of the nation in the years from 1879 to the present time.

Moreover, any arrangement under which in times of low expenditure the income tax yield is much less in proportion to that of other taxes, whilst when expenditure is high the proportion is from two to three times as great, tends to destroy that sense of partnership in the conduct of the business of the nation which surely ought to be felt by all classes, whether above or below the income tax boundary, if that business is to be conducted with due regard to the advantage of the country as a whole.

When however the incidence of the land tax and the income tax on particular classes of property and income is examined, there are found in addition to these periodic fluctuations of burden, serious variations of pressure as between incomes derived from real and personal property, from real property in urban and real property in rural districts, and again as between personal incomes of one class and personal incomes of another.

III.-The Assessment of Lands and Buildings.

One of the most important of these variations is that arising from the assessment of "lands, tenements, hereditaments, and "heritages," according to the rack rent or full annual value at which they are worth to be let by the

year.

The rules of charge applicable to Schedule A (except in the case of some special properties) take no cognisance of the money profit or net income actually derived or derivable from the lands or buildings assessed, and they ignore the fact that repairs and maintenance, insurance, and possibly law expenses are outgoings absolutely necessary to the preservation and enjoyment of the value of the property charged.

The difference between the gross and net values-not necessarily identical with the gross annual and rateable values of the poor rate has usually been estimated at 16 per cent., the figure adopted by Mr. Gladstone in his budget speech of 1853. But this difference is obviously much less in the case of "lands" than in that of "messuages and tenements," with the consequence that exceptional