LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
LOCAL TAXATION OF RENTS IN LONDON.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] Six,—The case is very much as I supposed. You have con- fused different proposals, with the natural result of not understanding any. Your note in the Spectator of November 30th shows that you were looking at a proposal affecting a very limited area,—viz., one requiring a contribution to the expense of some local improvements at the hands of those who profit by them. That proposal says nothing about demanding the whole expense from owners. It speaks of a contribution, and means a contribution. The mode and extent of contribution are still matters of discussion. It says nothing about " ground- rents," or about persons whose interests are subject to long leases. It speaks of owners, and means owners ; and owners are persons who, not being occupiers, receive benefit for the property. If you had paid enough attention to this subject to justify you in rebuking Mr. Morley, you would know that the term " owners" has been constantly used in these dis- cussions as simply opposed to "occupiers."
You have apparently read into this proposal for a " frontage rate" within an improved area your recollections of a Bill introduced into Parliament last Session, in which there were provisions for throwing improvement rates over the whole of London entirely on the owners of freehold reversions. Bnt the Local Taxation Committee of the London County Council reported against that Bill on the very ground that it sought to charge not all owners, but only one class ; and the Council adopted the report. Curiously enough, that action of the Council seems to have escaped your notice.
You say that you are in favour of laying the burden of im- provements on " ground-landlords " in aid of occupiers, who now pay the whole. So far, so good ; though I confess that from what I have seen in the Spectator during the last few months, I had, like Mr. Morley, received an impression to the contrary. But will you pardon me for saying that the subject is complicated, and requires attention; and allow me to express hopes that further study will bring you to see that to tax owners and occupiers, as the Council proposes, is more just than to tax only " ground-landlords " and occupiers as you propose ; and further, that improvements are not the only objects of local taxation to which it is right that owners shall contribute ; and even that in the small affair of a frontage rate, it is eminently fair, if practicable, when all London occupiers are compelled by law to pay for a local improvement, to call upon those who specially benefit by that payment to contribute towards it. If you will really discuss these matters, you may do good. But by carping at the London County Council, by construing in malam partem all that it does, and by publishing your own mistakes of its pro- ceedings, you will do nothing but impair your well-earned reputation for writing thoughtfully on subjects requiring thought.—I am, Sir, &c., 15 Bruton Street, W., Dejember 5th. HOBHOII8E.
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