property are
felt as the more oppressive, when it is recollected that movable
property to the greatest amount, as in the public funds, or the like,
may be alienated, or burdened in the most valid and effectual manner for
the cost of a power of attorney, which is a guinea and half-a-crown per
cent. to the broker who executes the transaction. Materials do not exist
for separating exactly the deed-stamps falling as a burden on land
transmissions and mortgages, from those affecting personal estates; but
it is certainly within the mark to say, that they are three-fourths of
the whole stamp-duties on deeds and instruments, or L1,200,000 a-year.

[27] Ibid. 1847, p. 8.

Thus, it appears that, setting aside the tithe, as not the land-owner's
property, and, therefore, a separate estate, and not, properly speaking,
a burden on land; and saying nothing of the malt-tax, which produces
annually L4,500,000 a-year, on the supposition that, at present at
least, that falls as a burden on the consumer; and saying nothing of the
income-tax, which, as will immediately appear, falls as a much severer
burden on land-rents than commercial incomes,--these distinct, clear,
and indisputable burdens laid on land, from which property of other
sorts in England are exempt, stand thus:--

I. Poor's Rate in 1845, a very prosperous year, L6,847,205
II. Land-tax, 1,164,042
III. Highway Rates, 1,169,891
IV. Church Rates, 506,812
V. Police, Lunatic, and Bridge-rates, estimated, 500,000
VI. Excess of assessed taxes falling on land above
personal estates, estimated, 1,500,000
VII. Stamp-duties peculiar to land, 1,200,000
----------
L12,887,950

The rental of real property in England, rated to the Poor's Rates, is
L62,540,030;[28] but the real rental, as ascertained by the more rigid
and accurate returns for the Income-tax, is L85,802,735. On the first of
these sums, the taxes exclusively falling on land amount to a tax of
_twenty-five_, on the last of EIGHTEEN per cent. annually. This is in
_addition_ to the Income-tax, and all the indirect taxes which the
owners of land and houses pay in common with all the rest of the
community, and which by it are complained of as so oppressive.