THE RATING QUESTION.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR.";
St,—The injustice of our present rating system does not press only, or chiefly, upon the occupier of land. A forcible example is given in your article in the Spectator of June 24th, where a small farmer's land and buildings ace rated at 2100 a year, and he consequently pays as much in rates as his neighbour who occupies a villa and grounds of the same value, although the income of the latter may be twenty times as much as that of the farmer. But the same injustice falls upon thousands of small shopkeepers in our towns who pay high rents for their business premises, but whose net income is not one-twentieth part of the retired gentleman who occupies a house of the same value. To continue to rate all "places of business," as proposed in your article, on the same basis as "inhabited houses," would only perpetuate this anomaly, especially if rates on land were still partially remitted. When it is remembered that the amount of rates in rural districts is less than half the amount in the pound that is paid by town ratepayers, it does not seem as if the much-to-be-desired rating reform would be successfully attained by simply con- tinuing and extending the plan by which half the rates upon land are already paid out of the general taxation of the country,—i.e., chiefly by the traders and residents in the towns.—I am, Sir, eze.,
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