The eternal problem of Agricultural Rates was on Tuesday discussed
at an important meeting of the Council of the Central and Associated Chambers of Agriculture, presided over by Lord Strachie. The report of the Local Taxation Committee recommended that occupiers of land should be assessed at a quarter of the annual value, instead of at a half as at present. In our opinion, though that may be all that Agriculture is likely to :get, what Agriculture has a right to ask for, and ought to ask for, is the abolition of . all rates upon agricultural land. They are merely the remnant of a general rate which was once levied upon personal as well as real property. Personal property, however, gradually slipped its neck out of the collar till by the middle of the last century there were only one or two parishes left in which the rates were collected on stock in trade as well as upon land and houses.
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