The House of Commons must debate rates, but it would
be well if Members remembered the weight attached to their speeches. They have decided nothing about the rating of ground-rents, but we are informed on good authority that they have made that immense mass of property temporarily unsale- able. If it is to be rated, the rent will be reduced by an eighth to a fifth throughout London ; or, speaking broadly, the 4 per cent. now yielded to owners, and hitherto considered as safe as Consols, will be reduced to 31 or even 3 per cent. On Tuesday, Mr. T. Rogers moved a broad resolution declaring that ground-rents ought to be taxed, that country mansions were under-rated, and that the first incidence of rating should. fall on the owner, not the occupier, and carried it by 216 to 176. This is the more important because the speeches went farther than the resolution, and point to the rating of all property inside houses, such as plate, pictures, and even books. Mr. Rogers, in particular, specifically proposed to rate a Raphael or "a splendid library," a proposal which would soon take the value out of those possessions. We have discussed the subject enough elsewhere, but may say here that the rating of all fruitful property is just, though difficult, but the rating of pictures and books is pure barbarism. It is fining a man for educating himself.
