hings which
signalised the later stages of the Roman empire, and coincides with so
many other circumstances in marking the striking analogy between our
present condition and that which proved fatal to the ancient masters of
the world.

Well may the Lords' Committee on the burdens affecting landed property
have said, "Neither the law nor the spirit of the constitution
originally contemplated so partial a system of taxation."[31] In truth,
originally some of the heaviest present exclusive burdens on real
property were born equally by personal estates. "The poor law of
Elizabeth," says the report, "and the land tax of William and Mary,
_embraced every species of income_; but in consequence of the
comparative facility of rating visible property, and the small amount of
income derived from other sources in the early period of their
assessment, personalty seems to have escaped its legal share of
contribution to the public service. The liability of stock in trade,
however, was continued by law to a late period, and is, up to the
present day, only suspended by an annual act of exemption." The
Committee here point out, or rather hint at the real cause of the
extraordinary exemption from their due share of the public burdens which
has grown up insensibly in favour of movable property. Land has two
admirable qualities in the estimation of Chancellors of the Exchequer.
It can _neither be concealed nor removed_. Movable estates, stock in
trade, are susceptible of both. The landholder has no secret invisible
funds which he can bring forth when desired in the form of convenient
loans to government to meet the state necessities. He has only a visible
fixed estate, which can neither be concealed nor withdrawn from its
annual burdens. Hence the influence and exemptions of the one, and the
injustice experienced by and burdens of the other.

[31] Report, p. 9.

But in addition to this, there is another circumstance which has
powerfully contributed to establish this extraordinary and iniquitous
exemption of personal property from direct taxation. This is the
difficulty which in practice amounts to an impossibility of getting by
any means at the real amount of rateable personal property. The
Commissioners of the Income Tax through the country will have no
difficulty in understanding what is here meant. All the efforts of
government and their official organs to ascertain the real amount of
assessable movable property, have been insuff