at all_, 110,849,[23] facts
indicating how extremely partial is the operation of these taxes, and
how severely they fall on the class most heavily burdened in other
respects, and therefore least able to bear them.

[23] Porter's Parl. Tables, xii. 37, 42; and xi. 275.

The HIGHWAY RATES are another burden exclusively affecting land,
although the whole community derive benefit from their use. This burden,
exclusive of the sum levied at turnpike gates, in England amounted to
L1,169,891, a-year.[24] This charge, heavy as it is, is felt as the more
vexatious, that the rate-payers are not at liberty either to limit the
use of the road, for which they pay, to themselves, or to allow it to
fall into disrepair. An indictment of the road lies at common law, if it
becomes unfit for traffic, even at the instance of any party using the
road, though he does not pay any part of the rate. In other words, the
neighbouring landholders are compelled to keep up the roads for the
benefit of the public generally, who contribute nothing towards their
maintenance. This matter becomes the more serious that in consequence of
the general adoption and immense spread of railways, the traffic on the
principal lines of road in England, has either almost entirely
disappeared, or become inadequate to contributing any thing material to
the support even of the turnpikes hitherto entirely maintained by them.
It is not difficult to foresee, that the time is not far distant when
nearly the _whole roads of England will fall as a burden on the rate
payers_; for these roads cannot be abandoned, or the country off the
railway lines would have no communication at all. And the sums paid by
railway companies, how large soever, to landholders, afford no general
compensation; for they benefit a few in the close vicinity of the
railways only, while the highway rate affects all.

[24] Lords' Report on Burdens on Real Property, 1846, p. vi.

The CHURCH RATE is another burden exclusively affecting land, though all
classes obtain the benefit of it in the comfort and convenience of
churches. It amounted, in 1839, the last year for which a return was
made, to L506,512.[25] Nothing can be clearer than that this is a burden
truly affecting real estates. It is entirely different from tithes,
which are not, correctly speaking, a burden on land, but a separate
estate apart from that of the landlord, which never was his, for which
he has given no valuable considerati