Page:Local taxation and poor law administration in great cities.djvu/8

4 the House has been regarded in some quarters as an attempt on the part of the ratepayers of large towns to escape from those burdens to which they are justly liable, but I think I shall be able to show that the opinion cannot be justified.

I contend in the first place with the hon. baronet the member for South Devon (Sir M. Lopes) that a large portion of the wealth of this country altogether escapes contributing to local taxation, and that this exemption is unjust towards the rest of the community. I maintain, further, that the change in the law of settlement, joined to the increasing facilities and cheapness of locomotion, together with an imperfect administration of the Poor Law throughout this country, has had the effect of throwing upon the large towns great masses of pauperism which, though created elsewhere, yet fall upon their local rates. I maintain in fact that the alteration in the law of settlement, combined with the other causes to which I have alluded, has greatly modified the purely local character of pauperism, while it has left this pauperism to be dealt with out of rates levied solely from local sources; and, further, I think I shall be able to prove from the arguments and facts which I purpose bringing under the notice of the House that these evils and this injustice are very inimical to the efficient administration of the Poor Law. And if I am able to establish these propositions I hope that the House will not refuse to consider the remedies which I shall venture to propose.

Now, Sir, some short time since the hon. Baronet the Member for South Devon (Sir M. Lopes), speaking as a landed proprietor, pointed out how the hardship of levying local taxation exclusively upon the occupation of real property pressed upon the agricultural districts of the country. I think I shall be able to show that it presses with far greater injustice upon the small householders in our large towns. The House has always evinced a disposition to consider the interests of that class, although it has not until recently been sufficiently powerful to enforce its claims, and I venture to think that a grievance which presses alike upon the always powerful landowners of this country, and upon the now powerful body of householders, is a grievance that cannot long remain unredressed.

The principal wealth of our large towns is the commercial, manufacturing, and trading capital, and yet it is exactly this capital which does not contribute, except incidentally, to local taxation. I maintain that the classes who possess this property do not contribute their fair share towards the rates levied to support, in