Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/155

Rh and there are certainly instructive differences between his case and that of the urban ratepayer.

In the first place, the real incidence of the burden is determined in the long run only. The tenant of agricultural land may indeed enter into a lease like the tenant of urban land; and, like him, he may be unable to modify the terms of his lease so as to throw on the landlord the weight of any fresh burden, which may, contrary to his reasonable expectations, be levied. But leases of agricultural land are generally drawn for shorter terms. They are indeed, in England as a usual rule, of no longer duration than a year; and, in any case, nineteen or twenty-one years are an outside limit. The opportunities for readjustment are thus of frequent recurrence; and it is easy to anticipate the nature and amount of taxation which will be imposed on the land during the continuance of the contract. In the case of tithe, indeed, the commuted apportionment has now for some time been fixed; but the question of urban rates seems to be widely different. The leases run for longer periods, in some cases for seventy or ninety-nine years, in others in perpetuity, as in the 'chief rents' of Manchester. The burden of local rates has, it is contended, been mainly imposed, or largely increased, since the conclusion of many of the contracts. It could not have been anticipated by the tenants when they entered upon their leases; and, while some of the expenditure for which the taxation is levied is devoted to objects of present, and temporary, or general convenience, some of it is incurred for works of permanent improvement, the cost of which will be defrayed before the leases expire, while the benefit will remain to enhance the reversionary value of the interests of the ground landlords. Many, if not all, of these points are controverted; but, taken together, they constitute a wide difference between the position of urban and agricultural land, and, taken singly, they indicate a greater difficulty in determining the real incidence of the rates. There are also, in many cases of urban tenancies, several intermediaries between the actual occupier and the ground landlord; and the effort needed to shift the incidence of the rates may be successfully attempted in some of these successive stages, and may fail, or not be attempted at all, in others.

But not only has the discussion raised by the question of taxing ground-rents served in this way to induce the careful scrutiny of the assumption of competition which is implied in the theory of rent, but it has also brought into notice some nice points