THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 BETTERMENT 
 
 JV/TH SOME OBSERVATIONS ON ITS ADOPTION BY 
 THE LONDON COUNTY COUNCIl 
 
 ARTHUR A. BAUMANN, B.A. 
 
 OF THE INNER TEMPLE, BARRISTER-AT-LAW, AND FORMERLY MEMBER 
 OF PARLIAMENT FOR PECKHAM 
 
 Y PROTECT!'? ' 
 UontJon .^ 
 
 I. ; , . 1 r.c; I 
 
 EDWARD ARNOLD 
 
 37, BEDFORD STREET, W.C. 
 
 IPubltsbcr to tbe 5n2)ia ©fficc 
 1893
 
 Richard Clay and Sons, Limited, 
 london and bungay
 
 
 Z£> 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 The attitude of the average citizen towards 
 
 taxation is not that of Hampden, but of 
 
 Milton, who sneered at the man " who takes 
 
 J up arms for cote and conduct and his four 
 
 nobles of Danegelt. Although I dispraise not 
 
 ° the defence of just immunities, yet love my 
 
 CD 
 
 ^ peace better, if that were all." Some owners 
 ^ of property in London apparently love their 
 peace better than their property. Yet if the 
 public will not watch closely the characters 
 and ultimate aims of the men who dominate 
 the London County Council, London may 
 
 4104G7
 
 iv PREFACE, 
 
 come to play as sinister a part in the history 
 of England, as Paris has played in that of 
 France ; or its role may be merely scandalous, 
 like that of the Municipality of New York. 
 The danger from the size and wealth of 
 London is certainly greater than that of any 
 other city the world has ever seen. 
 
 For the American law on special assessment 
 for benefits I am indebted to the very full and 
 clear Treatise on the Law of Taxation, written 
 by Dr. Thomas W. Cooley, Professor of Con- 
 stitutional Law and Political Science in the 
 University of Michigan, to the second volume 
 of the Laws of New York, 1882, and to 
 Mr. F. J. Stimson's work on American Statute 
 Law. 
 
 I must also express my acknowledgment 
 to my friends Mr. Henry Kimber, M.P., and
 
 PREFACE. V 
 
 Mr. G. O. Bellewes, for their excellent sug- 
 gestions as to the original plan, and for 
 kind assistance in looking through the proof 
 
 sheets. 
 
 A. A. B. 
 
 I, Essex Court, Temple. 
 January, 1893.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 I'AGE 
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA I 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ADOPTION OF BETTERMENT BY THE LONDON COUNTY 
 
 COUNCIL 40 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN THE GENERAL SYSTEM 
 
 OF TAXATION 73
 
 BETTERMENT. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 
 
 Betterment is the special assessment of 
 individuals for benefits done to their property 
 by the local improvements which a public 
 authority may from time to time undertake. 
 It is true the idea is not new : but then what 
 idea in connection with the government of 
 men is not at least as old as the Greeks ? In 
 the field of physical science unquestionably 
 new facts are daily discovered which suggest 
 new ideas both in that and adjacent spheres 
 
 A
 
 2 BETTERMENT. 
 
 of thought. But in poHtics, whatever pretence 
 may be made to new lights, there is not an 
 idea on either side that was not started, dis- 
 cussed, and sometimes acted upon, in what 
 Mr. Lowe once contemptuously called " the 
 municipal squabbles of Athens and Sparta." 
 There is a locus classicus in the " Diary " of 
 Samuel Pepys on the subject of betterment. 
 In reference to the rebuilding of London after 
 the great fire. Sir Richard Ford told the 
 Secretary to the Admiralty, " speaking of 
 the new street" (King Street), "that is to 
 be made from Guild Hall down to Cheap- 
 side, that the ground is already, most of it, 
 bought. And tells me of one particular, of 
 a man that hath a piece of ground lying in 
 the very middle of the street that must be ; 
 which, when the street is cut out of it, there 
 will remain ground enough, of each side, to 
 build a house to front the street. He de- 
 manded ^700, for the ground, and to be
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 3 
 
 excused paying anything for the melioration 
 of the rest of his ground that he was to 
 keep. The Court consented to give him 
 ^700, only not to abate him the considera- 
 tion: which the man denied; but told them, 
 and so they agreed, that he would excuse 
 the City the ^700, that he might have the 
 benefit of the melioration without paying any- 
 thing for it. So much some will get by having 
 the City burned ! Ground, by this means, that 
 was not 4.d. a foot before, will now, when 
 houses are built, be worth i^s. a foot." I do 
 not quite know why we sober Victorians should 
 revert for our principles of taxation to the 
 reign when 
 
 " Jilts ruled the state, and statesmen farces writ." 
 
 But if the 19 Car. II., c. 3, is to be taken 
 as a precedent, there are other clauses in 
 the Act, which the London County Council 
 may not like as much as the one enabling 
 
 A 2
 
 4 BETTERMENT. 
 
 the Lord Mayor to levy a betterment rate. 
 There is a clause imposing a duty of a shilling 
 on every chaldron of coal imported into 
 London, in addition to existing dues, to assist 
 in defraying the cost of rebuilding. There 
 is also a clause enabling the sheriffs to 
 impanel a jury to fix the price of bricks 
 and mortar : and there is a clause to fix 
 wages. "And to the intent no brickmaker, 
 carpenter, bricklayer, mason, plumber, work- 
 man, or labourer, may make the common 
 calamity a pretence to extort excessive or 
 unreasonable wages, be it likewise enacted 
 that in case of combination or exaction of 
 unreasonable wages by the said artificers, &c., 
 the said Justices of the Court of King's 
 Bench .... shall and may from time to 
 time limit, rate and appoint the wages of the 
 said artificers, &c." I respectfully commend 
 these latter clauses to the pundits of Spring 
 Gardens. But of course the Act of 19 Car. IL,
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 5 
 
 c. 3, was an exceptional measure, passed to 
 prevent unconscionable individuals from en- 
 riching themselves unduly out of "the common 
 calamity," and was applied to labourers as 
 well as landlords. If London were burned 
 down to-morrow, the insurance companies 
 would be ruined, and a good many men 
 would become millionaires, unless the legis- 
 lature were to pass a measure, (as it certainly 
 would do), to prevent the common calamity 
 being made a pretence to extort excessive 
 or unreasonable profits. I gladly make the 
 friends of betterment a present of 19 Car. II., 
 c. 3, and I quit their most respectable pre- 
 cedent with Burke's remark, that it is dan^jer- 
 ous to make the extreme medicine of the 
 constitution its daily bread. 
 
 But as a modern practice, betterment un- 
 doubtedly comes to us from the United States, 
 though curiously enough Dr. Cooley, to whose 
 luminous, and voluminous, Treatise on the Law
 
 6 BETTERMENT. 
 
 of Taxation I shall often refer, asserts that it 
 comes to them from England. With all due 
 respect, I think that Dr. Cooley has, not un- 
 naturally, misunderstood the English cases, 
 which he quotes in his footnotes to pp. 662, 
 663, 676, and 677, on the making of new 
 sewers and the paving of new streets. The 
 rates imposed by the Commissioners of Sewers 
 in the cases to which he alludes were a tax on 
 user : jurisdiction was given to create an area 
 for special assessment, because a man could 
 not be rated for a sewer which did not serve 
 his property, and whether a man uses a sewer 
 or not is matter of fact, not of opinion ; nor do 
 the cases or the statutes, as Lord Den man 
 points out in the decision quoted by Dr. Cooley 
 (Soady v. Wilson 3. Ad. & El. 248), say any- 
 thing of the nature or amount of the benefit. 
 As Dr. Cooley himself puts it. very candidly, 
 " in England, rateability once established, no 
 question of the amount of benefit is permitted
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 7 
 
 to be raised " (p. 663 note). In the case 01 
 new streets, sections "]"] and 96 of the Metro- 
 polis Local Management Amendment Act 
 1862 give the vestry or district board power 
 to levy contributions to the cost of paving, 
 sewering, channelling, kerbing, &c., upon 
 adjacent houses and land. And by section 
 150 of the Public Health Act, 1875, which is the 
 law outside the Metropolis, the local authority 
 may, in the case of a street, not being a high- 
 way repairable by the inhabitants at large, call 
 upon adjacent owners to pave, sewer, light, 
 &c., to its satisfaction, and in the event of their 
 failing to do so, the local authority may do 
 the work, and may recover in a summary 
 manner the expenses from the owners in 
 default according to the frontage of their re- 
 spective premises, and in such proportion as is 
 settled by the surveyor of the urban authority 
 or by arbitration. But it is essential to observe 
 two thinofs in connection with what are known
 
 S BETTERMENT. 
 
 as private improvement rates. Firstly, they 
 are levied only for the initial cost, for as soon 
 as the street is made the local authority may 
 declare it a highway repairable by the inhabit- 
 ants at large ; they represent the cost of laying 
 out a building estate, of bringing it within the 
 urban area, which naturally ought to be borne 
 by the owners. Secondly, both the sewer 
 rates and private improvement rates are appor- 
 tioned by the Local Authority upon the basis 
 of value, i.e. rental or frontage, and not upon 
 the basis of the amount of benefit. It is most 
 important not to confuse rating zones, such as 
 have been drawn around Wimbledon Common, 
 for instance, with betterment. All the indivi- 
 duals within a rating zone pay the same pro- 
 portion, irrespective of the quantum of benefit 
 which each individual may receive, But the 
 quantum of benefit received by the individual 
 is the essence of betterment. If, for example, 
 the authority should decide that a property a
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 9 
 
 quarter of a mile from the improvement re- 
 ceived a greater amount of benefit than a 
 property a hundred yards away, the former 
 would pay more than the latter ; and No. 2, a 
 public house, might be assessed for twice as much 
 as No. 3, a lodging house. There is therefore 
 no middle term by which to connect sewer and 
 private improvement rates with betterment.^ 
 
 Nothing impresses the student of American 
 institutions so much as the profound distrust 
 of democracy visible in almost every line of 
 their legislation. In his essays on Popular 
 Government, (the last and greatest work of 
 one of the greatest political writers England 
 ever produced). Sir Henry Maine has em- 
 phasised the manifold and elaborate securities 
 by which the Americans have guarded against 
 
 ^ The Housing of the Working Classes Act, 1890, applies 
 to unhealthy areas, and insanitary or obstructive buildings. 
 The improvements for which contributions are levied on 
 adjacent owners are private improvements.
 
 lo BETTERMENT. 
 
 any change in their constitution. Two thirds 
 of the Senate, two thirds of the House of 
 Representatives, and fifty-eight legislative 
 chambers in the States, must concur before 
 a constitutional measure of the gravity of the 
 County Franchise Bill of 1884 could become 
 law. They are equally afraid of democratic 
 finance ; and the precautions taken to protect 
 the citizens against the expenditure of popularly 
 elected municipalities are very instructive. 
 In considering the practice of betterment in 
 the United States, it is necessary to remember 
 that in most cases the municipality acts 
 within a strict limit as to general expenditure ; 
 and when we come to the city of New York 
 we shall find that the most minute regulations 
 are devised for the protection of the individual, 
 and that the Town Council is checked and super- 
 vised by the Supreme Court. In ten states 
 of the Union the rates of county taxation are 
 limited to a certain percentage of the valuation,
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA, ii 
 
 which is on capital value. In Arkansas and 
 
 Alabama no town or city may levy a tax of 
 
 more than ^ per cent, on the valuation in 
 
 any one year ; in Texas the limit is ^ per cent.; 
 
 and in Missouri the rate in cities and towns 
 
 having over 30,000 inhabitants may not 
 
 exceed in the aggregate i per cent ; for cities 
 
 between 10,000 and 30,000 the limit is Troths 
 
 per cent.; between 1000 and 10,000 it is J 
 
 per cent. ; and under 1000, ^ per cent.^ 
 
 With regard to municipal debts, in the state 
 
 of New York no municipality of cities of over 
 
 100,000 population, or counties containing 
 
 such cities, can in the aggregate be indebted, or 
 
 contract debts, to an amount exceeding 10 per 
 
 cent, of the valuation : and Maine, Illinois, 
 
 Wisconsin, Iowa, W. Virginia, Missouri, 
 
 ■^ In school districts the rate for school purposes must 
 not exceed y^ths per cent., but it may be increased by a 
 majority vote of t/ie tax-paying voters at a special election. 
 The school rate is also limited in Wisconsin, North 
 Caiolina, \rkansas, Georgia, Texas, and S. Carolina.
 
 I.- Bt71TKRMEN'l\ 
 
 Pennsylvania, Georgia, Colorado, Indiana, 
 Oregon, S. Carolina, have imposed a limit, 
 varying in its ijro[Jortion to the valuation, 
 upon the indebtedness of their municipal 
 councils. In Missouri, California, and Georgia, 
 no municipalit)' can contract any debt, except 
 a temporary debt incurred in anticipation of 
 income, without the assent of two thirds of 
 its voters at a special election ; in W. Virginia 
 without the assent of three-fifths of its voters 
 at any election ; and in Colorado without the 
 assent of the majority of the taxpayers} 
 If we are to borrow our principles of municipal 
 taxation from the United States, let us re- 
 member that the very first thing the Americans 
 would do with the London County Council, 
 would be to measure the length of chain which 
 they thought safe, and with it to tie that august 
 body firmly to its kennel. 
 
 ^ Siimson's American Statute Law, vol. I. pp. 88 to 
 93-
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 13 
 
 Just as in London the cost of a local im- 
 provement was sometimes divided in varying 
 proportions between the vestry and the Metro- 
 politan Board of Works, sometimes borne 
 wholly by the vestry, and sometimes defrayed 
 entirely by the Metropolitan Board ; so in 
 America the major part of the cost of a local 
 work is sometimes collected by a general tax, 
 sometimes assessed on estates benefited, some- 
 times the whole cost is levied on lands in the 
 immediate vicinity of the work, and sometimes 
 the whole cost is made a general charge. 
 There must be special authority of law for 
 the imposition of assessments for benefit. 
 The ordinary grant to a municipal corporation 
 of power to levy taxes for municipal purposes 
 will not justify any other than the ordinary 
 taxes. This special authority has been granted 
 for the following public purposes : court-house 
 and other public buildings ; cost of land re- 
 quired to be taken in opening streets, cost of
 
 14 BETTERMENT. 
 
 grading, paving, planking, altering, widening, 
 extending, or otherwise improving streets ; 
 sidewalks ; parks ; drains, sewers, etc. ; water- 
 pipes in streets ; lighting streets with gas ; 
 fencing townships, and other special cases. 
 After it has been determined how the cost shall 
 be borne, as between the public and the estates 
 benefited, a choice is commonly made of two 
 methods of apportionment as between in- 
 dividuals : — (i) An assessment made by 
 assessors or commissioners, appointed for 
 the purpose under legislative authority, 
 who are to view the estates, and levy the 
 expense in proportion to the benefits which, 
 in their opinion, the estates respectively will 
 receive from the work proposed. (2) An 
 assessment by some definite standard fixed 
 upon by the legislature itself, which is 
 applied to estates by a measurement of 
 length, quantity, or value. 
 
 I. When benefits are assessed by assessors
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 15 
 
 or commissioners, the district within which 
 the tax shall be laid, may be determined in 
 one of two ways : — {a) The legislative 
 authority, either of the state, or, when properly 
 authorised, of the municipality, may determine 
 over what territory the benefits are so far 
 diffused as to render it proper to make all lands 
 contribute to the cost ; or, (/;) the assessors 
 or commissioners who, under the law, are to 
 make the assessment, may have the whole 
 matter submitted to their judgment, to assess 
 such lands as in their opinion are specially 
 benefited, and as ought therefore to contribute 
 to the cost of the work. This, be it observed, 
 has nothing to do with the aniotmt assessed on 
 each property as equivalent to the benefit ; 
 it has only to do with what properties shall be 
 included in the assessment district ; and, as we 
 should put it, the betterment area may either 
 be put in the bill, or left to the discretion of 
 the officers appointed.
 
 1 6 BETTERMENT. 
 
 2. In many cases of street improvements, 
 American legislatures have deemed it right to 
 take the line of frontage as the most practicable 
 and reasonable measure of probable benefits ; 
 and making that the standard, to apportion 
 the benefits accordingly. For this reason 
 in many cities both of North and South 
 America you find the houses built back to a 
 surprising depth from the side-walk, on which 
 only a narrow frontage abuts. This method 
 of apportionment has naturally excited many 
 complaints. In Terry v. Hartford 39 Conn. 
 286, the opening of the street, for which a 
 special assessment was made, left a narrow 
 strip of land on each side belonging to Terry ; 
 so narrow as to be incapable of use, except 
 in connection with the adjacent lands. It was 
 nevertheless assessed heavily for benefits ! 
 The Victoria Hotel, in Northumberland 
 Avenue, would be assessed at twenty times 
 as much as the premises on either side ;
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 17 
 
 though, if I understand this method rightly, 
 it would be competent to the commissioners 
 or assessors to assess one property at one 
 dollar, and another property at two dollars 
 the frontage foot. 
 
 3. There is a third system of betterment for 
 which Dr. Cooley reserves all his displeasure. 
 Instead of establishing a taxing district, and ap- 
 portioning the cost throughout it by some 
 standard of benefit, actual or presumptive, the 
 case of each individual lot fronting on the im- 
 provement has been taken by itself, and that lot 
 has been assessed with the cost of the improve- 
 ment along its front ; or perhaps with one half 
 the cost, leaving the opposite lot to be assessed 
 for the other half.^ Of this method Dr. Cooley 
 says : — " It is not legitimate taxation, because it 
 is lacking in one of its indispensable elements. It 
 considers each lot by itself, compelling each to 
 
 ^ A lot means in American a block of houses. 
 
 B
 
 ,8 UETTERMENT. 
 
 bear the burden of the improvement in front of 
 it. without reference to any contribution to be 
 made to the improvement by any other property, 
 and it is consequently without any apportion- 
 ment. ... the fatal vice in the system is that 
 it provides no taxing districts whatever. It is 
 as arbritary in principle, and would sometimes 
 be as unequal in operation, as a regulation that 
 the town from which a state officer chanced to be 
 chosen should pay his salary, or that that locality 
 in which the standing army, or any portion of it, 
 should be stationed for the time being should be 
 charged with its support. As has been well said, 
 to compel individuals to contribute money or 
 property to the use of the public, without refer- 
 ence to any common ratio, and without requiring 
 the sum paid by one piece or kind of property, 
 or by one person, to bear any relation whatever 
 to that paid by another, is to lay a forced contri- 
 bution, not a tax, within the sense of those terms 
 as applied to the exercise of powers by any en-
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 19 
 
 lightened or responsible government."^ These 
 are wise, and, coming from a champion of better- 
 ment, weighty words, and we shall see by and 
 by that the legislative proposals of the London 
 County Council are obnoxious to most of the 
 above criticism, and that they are lacking in the 
 indispensable elements of legitimate taxation. 
 
 Perhaps the clearest idea of the principles and 
 the practice of betterment in the United States 
 will be gained by setting out such portions of 
 the New York City Consolidation Act of 1882 
 as relate to assessments for improvements. 
 
 Municipal improvements in New York are 
 broadly divided into two classes : — (i) Sewers 
 and paving work? ; and (2) the opening of 
 streets, avenues and public places. 
 
 I. A board of four assessors are appointed 
 from time to time by the City Commissioners 
 of Taxes, to make the estimates and assess- 
 
 ^ Cooky on Taxation^ p. 647. 
 
 B
 
 20 BETTERMENT. 
 
 ments required by law for building sewers, 
 paving, and repairing streets, &c., and all im- 
 provements other than street openings and 
 public spaces. The City Comptroller, counsel 
 to the Corporation, and Recorder, constitute a 
 board of revision and correction, to which the 
 assessment lists of the Board of Assessors must 
 be submitted, and by which they must be con- 
 firmed. 
 
 "§868. All assessments hereafter imposed 
 for local improvements in said city shall be 
 made by the Board of Assessors on the follow- 
 ing certificates, to wit : — 
 
 "(i) The head of the department charged 
 with the execution of the work in question shall 
 certify to the said Board of Assessors a total 
 amount of all the expenses which shall have 
 been actually incurred by the Mayor, Aldermen, 
 and Commonalty on account thereof. 
 
 " (2) The Comptroller shall certify to the 
 said Board of Assessors the amount of the
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 21 
 
 interest, at the legal rate, upon the several in- 
 stalments advanced or payments made on 
 account of such work, from the time of such 
 payment or advance by the city to a day sixty 
 days after the date of such certificate. There- 
 after the said Board of Assessors shall assess 
 upon the property benefited in the manner 
 authorised by law, the aggregate amount of 
 such certificate, or such proportion thereof as 
 is authorised by law. 
 
 " § 870. The assessors shall in no case assess 
 any house, lot, improved or unimproved lands 
 more than one-half the value of such house, lot, 
 improved or unimproved land as valued by the 
 assessors of the ward in which the same shall 
 be situate. 
 
 "§871. It shall be the duty of the Board of 
 Assessors when they have completed any 
 assessment, to give notice to the owner or 
 owners, and to the occupant or occupants of all 
 houses and lots, and improved or unimproved
 
 22 IJETTERMENT. 
 
 lands affected thereby, that they have com- 
 pleted the estimate and assessment; such 
 notice shall be published daily in the City 
 Record, and when authorised pursuant to 
 the provisions of section 66 of this Act, in 
 at least two of the daily nezuspapers for ten 
 days successively. The notice shall describe 
 the limits embraced by such assessment, and 
 shall contain a request for all persons whose 
 interests may be affected thereby and who may 
 be opposed to the same, to present their objec- 
 tions in writinof to the chairman of the assessors 
 within thirty days from the date of such notice ; 
 and if, after re-examining such objections, the 
 assessors shall not deem it proper to alter their 
 assessment, or having altered it, there shall still 
 be objections to the same, it shall be their duty 
 to present such objections, with the assessment, 
 to the Board of Revision and Correction. 
 
 "§878. It shall be lawful for the Mayor, 
 Aldermen, and Commonalty, to cause common
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 23 
 
 sewers, drains, and vaults, to be made in any 
 part of the City, and to order and direct the 
 pitching and paving the streets thereof, and the 
 cutting into any drain or sewer, and the alter- 
 ing and amending of any street, vault, sink, or 
 common sewer, within the said city ; and the 
 raising, reducing, leveling, or fencing In any 
 vacant or adjoining lots In the said city ; and to 
 cause estimates of the expense of conforming to 
 such regulations to be made, and a just and 
 equitable assessment thereof among the owners 
 or occupants of all the houses and lots Intended 
 to be benefited thereby, in proportion, as nearly 
 as may be, to the advantage which each shall 
 be deemed to acquire ; and the assessors, after 
 having made' such estimate and assessment, 
 shall certify the same in writing, and being 
 confirmed, it shall be binding and conclusive 
 upon the owners and occupants of such lots so 
 to be assessed, respectively, and shall be a lien 
 of charge on such lots as aforesaid ; and such
 
 24 BETTERMENT. 
 
 owners or occupants shall also, respectively, be 
 liable, upon demand, to pay the sum at which 
 such houses or lots, respectively, shall be so 
 assessed, to such person as shall be appointed 
 to receive the same ; and the money when paid 
 shall be applied towards making, altering, 
 amending, pitching, and paving such street, 
 and making and repairing such vaults, drains, 
 and sewers, as aforesaid, and raising, reducing, 
 leveling, or fencing in such lots as aforesaid ; 
 provided, however, that nothing herein contained 
 shall affect any agreement between any landlord 
 and tenant respecting the pay^nent of any such 
 charges, but they shall be answerable to each 
 other in the same manner as if this title had 
 never been made." 
 
 Two things should be observed in connec- 
 tion with the above sections ; firstly, that the 
 assessments of the Board of Assessors, if ob- 
 jected to, are subject to revision and correction 
 by the Comptroller, the counsel, and the Re-
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 25 
 
 corder of the City ; secondly, that no special 
 assessment is allowed to interfere with any 
 agreement that landlord and tenant may make 
 as to the payment of such charges. 
 
 2. But the opening new streets, avenues, 
 and public places are the more important class 
 of improvements — they constitute what we 
 call permanent improvements — and conse- 
 quently the machinery of assessment is more 
 elaborate. Whenever the municipal council 
 desires to open any street, avenue, square, or 
 public place, for which it is necessary to take 
 land or houses, application is made on behalf 
 of the mayor to the Supreme Court to appoint 
 "three discreet and disinterested persons" to 
 act as commissioners of estimate and assess 
 ment. For twenty days previous to the 
 appointment the municipal council advertises 
 in the City Record, or in four newspapers, 
 notice of the nature and extent of the improve- 
 ment, and of the intention to apply for the
 
 26 BETTERMENT. 
 
 appointment of commissioners. When the 
 application is heard, the mayor is entitled 
 to nominate one commissioner, any persons 
 interested in the property affected may no- 
 minate another, and the court appoints the 
 third. 
 
 The commissioners (§ 970) " shall then pro- 
 ceed to and make a just and equitable estimate 
 and assessment of the loss and damage, if any, 
 over and above the benefit and advantage, or 
 of the benefit and advantage, if any, over and 
 above the loss and damage, as the case may 
 be, to the respective owners, lessees, parties, 
 and persons respectively, entitled unto or inter- 
 ested in the lands, tenements, hereditaments, 
 and premises so required for the purpose, by 
 and in consequence of opening such public 
 square or place, street, avenue, or part or 
 section of a street or avenue so to be opened, 
 or by and in consequence of laying out and 
 forming such public street or place, so to be
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 27 
 
 laid out and formed, or by and in consequence 
 of extending, enlarging, or otherwise improving 
 the street or public place so to be extended, 
 enlarged, or otherwise improved, as the case 
 may be, and a just and equitable estimate and 
 assessment also of the value of the benefit and 
 advantage of such said public square or place, 
 street, avenue, etc., to the respective owners, 
 lessees, parties and persons, respectively en- 
 titled unto or interested in the said respective 
 lands, tenements, hereditaments, and premises 
 not required for the purpose of opening, laying 
 out, and forming, or extending, enlarging, or 
 ^otherwise improving the same. Whenever the 
 commissioners are appointed for the purpose of 
 opening any street or avenue, or any part or 
 section of any street or avenue, laid out by the 
 Commissioners of Streets and Roads in the city 
 of New York, or for the purpose of opening 
 extending, enlarging, straightening, altering, 
 or otherwise improving any street, or part of a
 
 28 BETTERMENT. 
 
 street, or public place, in that part of the said 
 city not laid out into streets, avenues, squares, 
 and public places by the commissioners afore- 
 said, the said Commissioners of Estimate and 
 Assessment shall not, in making- their estimate 
 and assessment of the value of the benefit and 
 advantage of the said operation, be confined to 
 any definite limits, but shall be and h&reby are 
 authorised to extend such estimate and assess- 
 ment to any and all such lands, tenements, 
 hereditaments, and premises as they may 
 deem to be benefited by the said operation 
 and which they may judge expedient to include 
 in the report in the premises." In the part of 
 the city which lies to the north of Fifty-ninth 
 Street, and in those cases where no buildings 
 for which compensation can lawfully be made 
 shall be taken, the betterment area is limited, 
 in the first instance to half the distance of the 
 next street or avenue thereto, and in the 
 second instance to the ends of the street or
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 29 
 
 avenue sought to be opened : from which I 
 Infer that this Hmitation appHes to new and 
 outlying districts. So much for street improve- 
 ments. With regard to the opening of pubHc 
 squares or places, by section 973, "the said 
 commissioners of estimate and assessment 
 shall not in makino- their estimate and assess- 
 ment of the value of the benefit and advantage of 
 such public square or place, be confined to the 
 lands, tenements, hereditaments, and premises 
 fronting thereon and lying within half the 
 distance of the next street or avenue thereto 
 from the same on each side thereof, but on 
 the contrary thereof, after having made their 
 estimate and assessment of the loss and damage 
 over and above the benefit and advantage, and 
 of the benefit and advantage over and above 
 the loss and damage and of the equality of the 
 benefit and advantage to the loss and damage 
 as the case may be, to the respective owners, 
 lessees, parties and persons, respectively.
 
 30 BETTERMENT. 
 
 entitled unto or interested in the lands, tene- 
 ments, hereditaments, and premises so required 
 for the purpose by and in consequence of 
 opening such pubhc square or place, the said 
 commissioners shall proceed to make a just and 
 equitable estimate and assessment of the value 
 of the benefit and advantage of such public 
 square or place so to be opened to the 
 respective owners, lessees, parties and persons 
 respectively entitled unto or interested in the 
 lands, tenements, hereditaments, and premises 
 lying out of the limits of such public square or 
 place, and which the said commissioners may 
 deem to be benefited by such public square 
 or place in respect of the respective estates and 
 interests of such owners, lessees, parties, and 
 persons, respectively so entitled to or interested 
 in such said lands, tenements, hereditaments, 
 and premises so deemed benefited thereby, and 
 the said commissioners shall and may extend 
 their said assessments to any such lands,
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 31 
 
 tenements, hereditaments and premises as they 
 may deem to be benefited by the opening of 
 the said pubHc square or place, notwithstanding 
 such said lands, tenements, hereditaments, and 
 premises may be situated without and beyond 
 half the distance of the next street or avenue 
 thereto from such said public square or place 
 on any side thereof. 
 
 " § 974. The commissioners appointed in pur- 
 suance of the title shall complete said 
 proceeding on their part within four months 
 from the time of their appointment, unless 
 further time shall be allowed by the Supreme 
 Court." 
 
 With regard to buildings or improvements 
 placed on the land before the filing of the 
 plans, and buildings to be removed, the 
 commissioners may at their discretion, assess 
 a third of the cost on the municipality. If 
 the regulation, elevation, or depression of any 
 street, shall, in the judgment of the com-
 
 32 BETTERMENT. 
 
 missioners, injure any building or buildings not 
 required to be taken for the improvement, 
 they shall estimate and assess the loss and 
 damage which will accrue " to the respective 
 owners, lessees, parties, and persons, respect- 
 ively," and include the sums of recompense in 
 their report to the court (§ 978). In no case 
 shall the assessment for benefit exceed half the 
 value of the house or property, as valued by 
 the Tax Commissioners (§ 981). Having regard 
 to the machinery proposed by the London 
 County Council for the making a provisional 
 award and its confirmation by an arbitrator, 
 it is important to contrast the elaborate pre- 
 cautions which are taken by the Americans 
 to protect individual rights of property, when 
 the report of the Commissioners of Estimate 
 and Assessment has to be presented to the 
 Supreme Court for confirmation. 
 
 " § 984. The said commissioners shall de- 
 posit with the Commissioner of Public Works
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 33 
 
 an abstract of their estimate and assessment 
 at least forty days before their report shall 
 be presented to said court for confirmation. 
 They shall also publish a notice for thirty days 
 in the City Record, and when authorised 
 pursuant to section sixty-six of this Act, in 
 two of the daily newspapers published in said 
 city, stating their intention to present their 
 report for confirmation to the said court, at 
 a time and place to be specified in said notice, 
 and that all persons interested in such pro- 
 ceeding, or in any of the lands affected 
 thereby, having objections thereto, shall file 
 the same in writing with the said com- 
 missioners within thirty days after the first 
 publication of said notice, and that the said 
 commissioners will hear such objections within 
 the ten week-days next after the expiration of 
 said thirty days. Similar notice, for at least 
 twenty days, shall be given of such supple- 
 mental or amended report."
 
 34 JJETTERMENT. 
 
 "^ 986. Any person or persons whose rights 
 may be affected by the said estimate and 
 assessment, and who shall object to the same 
 or any part thereof, may, within thirty days 
 after the first publication of the said notice, 
 state his, her, or their objections to the same 
 in writing to the said commissioners ; which 
 statements shall not be received by the said 
 commissioners unless verified by his, her, or 
 their affidavits, or the affidavits of other 
 persons, or both ; and it shall be the duty 
 of the said commissioners in all cases to 
 transmit to the said court, together with 
 their said report, all the written state- 
 ments and affidavits which may have been 
 served upon them within the time aforesaid. 
 And at the expiration of the said thirty days, 
 it shall be the duty of the said commissioners 
 to give at least ten days' notice in manner 
 aforesaid, of a time and place when and where 
 any person or persons, who may consider
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 35 
 
 themselves aggrieved by such estimate or 
 assessment, shall be heard in opposition to 
 the same ; and the said commissioners shall 
 have power to adjourn from time to time, 
 within the space of ten judicial days, until 
 all such person or persons are fully heard." 
 
 " § 988. After considering the objections, it 
 any, and making any correction or alteration 
 of their estimate or assessment, which said 
 commissioners, or any two of them, shall find 
 to be just and proper, the said commissioners, 
 or any two of them, shall present their report 
 to the court at the time and place specified in 
 said notice." 
 
 ** § 990- The application for the confirmation 
 ot the report shall be made to the Supreme 
 Court at a term thereof held in the city of New 
 York. Upon the coming in of the said report 
 signed by the said commissioners, or any two 
 of them, and upon the hearing of the appli- 
 cation for the confirmation thereof, if persons 
 
 c 2
 
 36 BETTERMENT. 
 
 who appear by the said report to be interested, 
 either by assessment for benefit or reward for 
 damages, to the amount of a majority in 
 amount of the whole of the assessments and 
 awards, shall appear and object to further 
 proceedings upon the said report, the court 
 shall order the same to be discontinued, and 
 the same shall thenceforth be discontinued ; 
 otherwise the said courts shall, by rule or 
 order, after hearing any matter which may be 
 alleged against the same, either confirm the 
 said report or refer the same to the same 
 commissioners for revisal and correction, or to 
 new commissioners, to be appointed by the 
 said court to reconsider the subject-matter 
 thereof, and the said commissioners to whom 
 the said report shall be referred shall return the 
 same report corrected and revised, or a new 
 report to be made by them in the premises, to 
 the said court without unnecessary delay ; and 
 the same, on being so returned, shall be
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 37 
 
 confirmed or again referred by the said court 
 in manner aforesaid, as right and justice shall 
 require, and so from time to time until a report 
 shall be made or returned in the premises, 
 which the said court shall confirm ; and such 
 report, when so confirmed by the said court, 
 shall be final and conclusive." ^ 
 
 It is impossible not to be struck with the 
 tenderness for the rights of property, and the 
 multiplication of safeguards against municipal 
 oppression, enforced by the law of the most 
 democratic country in the world. It is equally 
 impossible not to compare this caution and 
 scrupulosity with the summary and despotic 
 manner in which the London County Council 
 proposes to deal with the property of those, 
 who, or whose predecessors, have been guilty 
 of the crime of investing their money in land 
 or houses. Let me recapitulate the steps 
 which are necessary in New York before any 
 
 ^ Laws of New York, 1882, chap. 410.
 
 38 BETTERMENT. 
 
 one can have a betterment charge imposed 
 upon him for a street or open space improve- 
 ment. After twenty days' notice by advertise- 
 ment, the Supreme Court appoints three com- 
 missioners, one to represent the city council, 
 one to represent the owners and occupiers, 
 and one to represent the court. The business 
 of estimate and assessment is not allowed to 
 hang over the property for five or six years, 
 but must be concluded within four months. 
 An abstract of the report must next be 
 deposited with the Commissioner of Public 
 Works forty days before its presentation to the 
 court ; and notice of the time and place for 
 presenting the report to the court, and inviting 
 all persons interested to deposit their objec- 
 tions to the report in writing with the com- 
 missioners, must be advertised for thirty days 
 in two daily newspapers and the City Record. 
 After thirty days' advertisement, another ten 
 days' notice must be given of the time and
 
 THE LAW OF BETTERMENT IN AMERICA. 39 
 
 place when and where the commissioners 
 will hear objectors. Then comes the hearing 
 before the three commissioners, which may be 
 adjourned from time to time until all parties 
 are fully heard, and then there is the final 
 application to the Supreme Court for confirma- 
 tion. At this point the whole scheme can be 
 quashed, if a majority in amount of the whole 
 of the assessments and awards appear and 
 object to further proceedings upon the report. 
 Otherwise, there is a full hearing by the 
 Supreme Court before the award, or report, is 
 confirmed and becomes binding. 
 
 The above Act may be taken as a very fair 
 specimen of the law of betterment in the 
 United States, for when a state has no statute 
 upon a question it follows the common law 
 or the statute law of that neighbouring or 
 older state, to which it is historically 
 related.^ 
 
 ^ Stimson's American Statute Lau>, vol. I.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 ADOPTION OF BETTERMENT BY THE LONDON 
 COUNTY COUNCIL. 
 
 Before proceeding to discuss the relation 
 of betterment to the general system of 
 taxation, it will be necessary to lay before 
 the reader the London County Council edition 
 of the American system ; which will be useful 
 in another way, as these private bills are not 
 easily procurable by the public, and there is 
 consequently a profound ignorance of what 
 the Council really proposes. It may not be 
 amiss to remind the public that the London 
 County Council, having persuaded the Govern- 
 ment to take away from it a revenue of half-a-
 
 ADOPTION OF BETTERMENT BY THE L C.C. 41 
 
 million a year drawn from the coal and wine 
 dues, has an oath, though not in heaven, 
 that until it is allowed to take that half-million 
 out of the pockets of a small and politically 
 obnoxious class, no metropolitan improvements 
 shall be carried out. Twice has the County 
 Council asked Parliament to confer upon it 
 this special taxing authority, in the Strand 
 Improvement Bill in 1890 and in the General 
 Powers Bill of 1892 with reference to Cromwell 
 Road Bridge : and twice has Parliament refused 
 its request. The change of Government has 
 naturally excited hopes, and for the third time 
 the London County Council approaches the 
 legislature, but with a very much enlarged 
 programme. The London Improvements Bill 
 and the London Owners' Improvement Rate 
 or Charge Bill are complementary of one 
 another, and must be taken together as con- 
 stituting the policy of the Council. By clause 
 48 of the London Improvements Act, 1893, the
 
 42 
 
 BETTERMENT. 
 
 Council asks Parliament for authority to spend 
 on capital account for the purposes of the 
 following improvements, including the purchase 
 of lands, the following sums : — 
 
 I'or the new central street and 
 
 improvements connected 
 
 therewith ... ... ... ^3,870,000 
 
 For the approach to Tower 
 
 Bridge ... ... ... 436,000 
 
 For the widening of Wood Lane, 
 
 Hammersmith ... ... 48,000 
 
 For the Vauxhall Bridge ... 484,000 
 
 For the Rotherhithe and Ratcliff 
 
 Ferry 443>ooo 
 
 For the widening approach 
 
 (south side) to Woolwich 
 
 Ferry 3,000 
 
 For the cost of sites for housing 
 
 displaced persons ... ... 45,000 
 
 ^5,329,000
 
 ADOPTION OF BETTERMENT BY THE L.C.C. 43 
 
 Betterment is provided for in clause 45, 
 which had better be set out in full. 
 
 "45. And whereas the Improvements (other 
 than the said widening of Wood Lane of which 
 one-half the net cost is to be defrayed by the 
 said Vestry) will be effected out of public 
 funds charged over the whole county and 
 will or may increase in value or benefit lands 
 in the neighbourhood of the Improvements 
 which will not be acquired for the purpose 
 thereof and it is reasonable that provision 
 should be made under which in respect or in 
 consideration of such increased value or benefit 
 a charge should be placed on such lands. 
 Therefore the following provisions shall have 
 effect, viz. : — 
 
 " (2) All lands within the limits marked on 
 the deposited Plans as " Limits of land to be 
 acquired" or "Limits of Deviation" (as the 
 case may be) in relation to the said Improve-
 
 44 BETTERMENT. 
 
 ments respectively but which shall not be 
 purchased and taken by the Council under 
 the powers of this Act shall be liable to have 
 an Improvement Charge placed on such lands 
 or some of them (in accordance with the 
 provisions hereinafter set forth) in respect or 
 in consideration of any increased value or 
 benefit which such lands may respectively 
 derive from the said improvements by this 
 Act authorised ; 
 
 "(3) The Council shall as soon as conveni- 
 ently may be (but not later than seven years 
 after the completion of each of the Improve- 
 ments) cause to be framed a Provisional 
 Award describing such of the lands situate 
 within the said limits as in the opinion of the 
 Council ought to bear and pay the said 
 Improvement Charge and the Council shall 
 in such Provisional Award state and specify : 
 
 " [a) The names of the owners lessees and 
 occupiers of the lands described in the said
 
 ADOPTION OF BETTERMENT BY THE L C.C 45 
 
 Provisional Award respectively so far as they 
 can be ascertained ; 
 
 " ib) The apportioned amounts in capital 
 sums and by way of annual charge which in the 
 opinion of the Council ought to be charged 
 upon such lands respectively ; 
 
 " The amount to be proposed in the Pro- 
 visional Award as the capital sum to be 
 charged on any lands under the provisions 
 of this Section shall be one- half of the amount 
 which in the opinion of the Council will be 
 the enhanced value or benefit derived or to 
 be derived by the said lands from the Improve- 
 ments and the amount to be proposed in the 
 Provisional Award as the annual charge upon 
 the lands charged shall be an annual sum equal 
 to three per centum per annum on the amount 
 of the capital charge in respect of the same 
 lands ; 
 
 "(4) The Provisional Award shall be sub- 
 mitted to and considered by the Council at a
 
 46 BETTERMENT. 
 
 meeting or meetings and the Council may by re- 
 solution approve the same either with or with- 
 out modification or addition as they think fit ; 
 
 " (5) The resolution approving a Provisional 
 Award shall be published once in each of two 
 successive weeks in two or more London 
 daily newspapers and copies of such resolution 
 shall be publicly posted on the site of the 
 new streets and within seven days of the date 
 of the first publication of the resolution copies 
 thereof shall also be served on the owners 
 lessees (if any) and occupiers of the lands 
 described in the Provisional Award. Provided 
 that in case the Council are unable to ascertain 
 the name or address of any owner or lessee 
 on whom a copy is to be served it shall be 
 sufficient to serve a copy of the resolution 
 either by delivering the same to the occupier 
 of the lands with a notice that the same is to 
 be given to each immediate or superior land- 
 lord or owner or by affixing a copy of the
 
 ADOPTION OF BETTERMENT BY THE L.C.C. 47 
 
 resolution to some conspicuous and convenient 
 place on or near the lands ; 
 
 " (6) From and after the date of the first 
 publication of the resolution and until the 
 expiration of one month from the date of the 
 last publication thereof the Provisional Award 
 or copies thereof certified by the Clerk or 
 some other officer of the Council shall be kept 
 deposited at the office of the Council and shall 
 be open to inspection at all reasonable times 
 by any person interested ; 
 
 " (7) During the said month any owner or 
 lessee of any lands described in the Provisional 
 Award or the occupier thereof for the time 
 being may by written notice served on the 
 Council object to the Provisional Award on 
 any of the grounds following ; — 
 
 " (i.) That any lands included in the Pro- 
 visional Award or that any owner lessee or 
 occupier ought to be excluded ; 
 
 " (ii.) That any lands omitted from the Pro-
 
 48 BETTERMENT. 
 
 visional Award or that any owner lessee or 
 occupier thereof ought to be inserted; 
 
 " (iii.) That the Provisional Award is incorrect 
 in respect of some matter of fact {to be speci- 
 fied in the objection) or in respect of the 
 amount of the Charge charged upon the lands ; 
 
 " (iv.) That the Charge in respect of any lands 
 ought to be payable for the time being either 
 wholly or in part by some person other than 
 the person named in that behalf in the Award 
 or by some person interested for the time being 
 in the same otherwise than as in the Award 
 mentioned ; 
 
 " (8) If at the expiration of the said period 
 of one month no notice of objection shall have 
 been served on the Council then the Council 
 may publish notice to that effect in the London 
 Gazette and as from the date of such notice 
 such Provisional Award shall become a Final 
 Award ; 
 
 " (9) If any such notice of objection be served
 
 ADOP riON OF BETTERMEMT BY THE L.C.C. 49 
 
 on the Council within the said period of one 
 month then the Council may and shall apply to 
 the Local Government Board to appoint an 
 Arbitrator for the purposes of this Section and 
 the Local Government Board shall appoint an 
 Arbitrator accordingly and as often as any such 
 Arbitrator may die or resign or become in- 
 capable of acting (previous to the making of a 
 Final Award as hereafter provided) the Council 
 may and shall in like manner apply to the said 
 Board and the said Board shall from time to 
 time appoint another Arbitrator in his stead 
 and every such Arbitrator shall be entitled to 
 such fees or remuneration as may be fixed by 
 the Local Government Board ; 
 
 " (10) (i.) The Council at any time after the 
 appointment of the Arbitrator may apply to the 
 Arbitrator to appoint a time for determining 
 the matter of all objections made as in this Act 
 mentioned and for making a Final Award and 
 shall publish a notice of the time and place
 
 50 BETTER MF,NT. 
 
 appointed and copies of such notice shall be 
 served upon the objectors and also upon the 
 owners and lessees of any lands inserted or 
 which it may be proposed to insert in the 
 Award and at the time and place so appointed 
 the Arbitrator may proceed to hear and de- 
 termine the matter of all such objections. The 
 Arbitrator may amend the resolution and Pro- 
 visional Award or either of them on the appli- 
 cation either of any objector or of the Council. 
 Provided that if he insert the name of any 
 person in the Award which was not included in 
 the original Award such notice as the Arbitra- 
 tor may think sufficient shall be given to such 
 person to enable him to object to such 
 insertion ; 
 
 " (ii.) The Arbitrator may also if he think fit 
 adjourn the hearing and direct any further 
 notices to be given ; 
 
 " (iii.) No objection to any Resolution or 
 Award which could be made under this Act
 
 ADOPTION OF BETTERMENT BY THE L.C.C 51 
 
 shall be otherwise made or allowed in any 
 Court proceeding or manner whatsoever ; 
 
 " (iv.) The costs charges and expenses of any 
 proceedings and of the Council and all other 
 parties to any proceedings before the Arbitrator 
 shall be in the discretion of the Arbitrator 
 who shall have power to award by whom and 
 in what proportions such costs charges and 
 expenses including any part of the fees or 
 remuneration of the Arbitrator shall be borne ; 
 
 " (v.) The Arbitrator may if he think fit direct 
 that the whole or any part of such costs charges 
 and expenses ordered to be paid by an objector 
 or objectors shall be paid in the first instance 
 by the Council and a sum in respect thereof 
 added to the Capital and Annual Charge appor- 
 tioned on the lands in respect of which the objec- 
 tion was made or on the lands of such objectors 
 in such proportions as may appear just ; 
 
 '•'(11) The Arbitrator may at any time 
 state a special case for the opinion of the 
 
 D 2
 
 52 BETTERMENT. 
 
 High Court or any Division thereof with 
 reference to any question of law arising in 
 the course of any proceedings relating to any 
 objections ; 
 
 "(12) The Council may from time to time if 
 they think just by resolution amend the Pro- 
 visional Award so as to include in the Provi- 
 sional Award as amended any lands not in- 
 cluded in the original Award and may fix and 
 apportion the sums to be charged upon any 
 such lands but any such Resolution shall be 
 published and copies thereof shall be served 
 and copies of the amended Provisional Award 
 deposited for public inspection in the manner 
 hereinbefore prescribed with respect to the 
 original Resolution and Provisional Award and 
 objections may be made to the Resolution and 
 amended Provisional Award in like manner 
 and if made shall be dealt with and determined 
 
 in like manner as objections to the original 
 Provisional Award :
 
 ADOPTION OF BETTERMENT BY THE L.C.C. 53 
 
 "(13) When and so soon as the Provisional 
 Award and any amendments thereof and all 
 objections thereto respectively shall have been 
 disposed of as by this Act directed the Arbitra- 
 tor shall issue a Final Award under his hand 
 which shall be conclusive for all purposes ; 
 
 " A copy of the Final Award shall be published 
 once in the London Gazette and notice of 
 such Final Award shall be served upon the 
 owners or reputed owners lessees or reputed 
 lessees and occupiers of the lands affected 
 thereby ; 
 
 "(14) If no objection as hereinbefore pro- 
 vided be made to the Provisional Award the 
 amount defined by the Provisional Award or 
 the amended Provisional Award (and ii a Final 
 Award be made as hereinbefore provided then 
 the amount defined by the Final Award) as the 
 Charge in respect of each property shall be a 
 charge and encumbrance thereon and the 
 Council shall cause the same to be registered
 
 54 BETTERMENT. 
 
 as a land charge under ' The Land Charges 
 Reiristration and Searches Act, 1888 ' ; 
 
 "(15) The Annual Charge in respect of any 
 lands as fixed by the Final Award shall (sub- 
 ject to the following provision) begin to be pay- 
 able on the first day of April or October as the 
 case may be next ensuing after the date of the 
 Final Award and shall be payable thereafter 
 half-yearly until redeemed and satisfied. 
 
 " Provided as follows : Where the lands 
 charged shall have been in the possession of the 
 freeholder at the passing of this Act or at any 
 time between the passing of this Act and the date 
 of the Final Award the charge shall be payable 
 by the freeholder and where the lands charged 
 shall not have been in the possession of the 
 freeholder at the passing of this Act or before 
 the date of the Final Award the Council in 
 framing the Provisional Award or the Arbitra- 
 tor in making the Final Award may take into 
 consideration all the circumstances of the case
 
 ADOPTION OF BET FERMENT BY THE LC.C. 55 
 
 and in particular may consider the several in- 
 terests in such lands and at the time at which 
 they severally expire and may make the com- 
 mencement of such Annual Charge dependent 
 on the expiration of any term of years or other 
 period or on the happening of any event as 
 they shall deem fair and equitable and may 
 apportion the incidence of such Annual Charge 
 as between the freehold and any other estate 
 or interest in the lands during the period of any 
 existing term of years for which the same is 
 held at the date of the Final Award. 
 
 "(16) The Charge due in respect of any 
 property shall be payable to the Council on 
 demand and may be collected on behalf of the 
 Council by such persons as they may appoint 
 for that purpose ; 
 
 " Where any lands in respect of which a 
 Charge is payable are occupied by any person 
 the Council may collect the annual payments 
 due in respect of the Charge from such person.
 
 56 BETTERMENT. 
 
 But if he be not the person for the time being 
 h'able to the payment of the Annual Charge 
 or any part thereof then he may deduct from 
 any rent payable by him the Annual Charge 
 or any part thereof payable by any other 
 person and any person receiving such rent 
 (if he be not the person liable to pay the 
 Charge or any part thereof) may in like manner 
 deduct from any rent payable by him the 
 Charge or such part thereof as is payable by 
 any other person so that the proper deduction 
 may be ultimately made from rent paid to the 
 person or persons by whom the Charge is 
 payable ; 
 
 " In case of default being made in any 
 payment due to the Council in respect of the 
 Annual Charge the amount thereof may be 
 recovered in any Court of summary jurisdiction 
 and in addition the Council may have and 
 exercise such remedies for recovering the same 
 as are conferred by the ' The Conveyancing
 
 ADOPTION OF BETTERMENT BY THE L.C.C. 57 
 
 and Law of Property Act 1881 ' with regard 
 to sums payable by way of Rent Charge ; 
 
 " (17) Any owner lessee or occupier of any 
 lands subject to the Charge or any other 
 person interested therein may from time to 
 time redeem the same by Agreement with 
 the Council and shall be entitled from time to 
 time to pay off the Charge upon any lands on 
 giving notice in writing to the Council and 
 when and so soon as the capital sum charged 
 on any lands is paid off with any arrears of 
 Annual Charge due in respect thereof then 
 the Charge shall be deemed to be satisfied and 
 shall be no longer payable in respect of the 
 said lands and the Council shall give a 
 certificate under their Common Seal that the 
 said Charge is redeemed and satisfied which 
 shall be sufficient evidence thereof; 
 
 "(18) 'The Arbitration Act 1889' shall 
 subject to the provisions of this Section apply 
 to the Arbitrator and procedure before him
 
 58 BETTERMENT. 
 
 except that the Final Award shall be con- 
 clusive and not subject to appeal or review." 
 
 This, it will be seen, is a proposal to take 
 away half of what the Council or an Arbitrator 
 chooses to say is the additional value imparted 
 to a man's property by a new street. But 
 this is only one side of the shield : the other 
 side is presented in the " London Owners' 
 Improvement Rate Act, 1893," by which it is 
 proposed to make the owners of houses and 
 land all over the metropolis pay half of the 
 sum of ^4,748,550 (the estimated cost of the 
 Holborn, Tower Bridsfe, and Rotherhithe 
 improvements), and any sum the Council may 
 require in future ''to pay the principal and 
 interest on their loans, both past and future^' 
 for any permanent improvements and works of 
 public utility. Half the cost of the works 
 given above is ^^2,374,275. Mr. Charles 
 Harrison, in his evidence before the Town
 
 ADOPTION OF BETTERMENT BY THE L.C.C. 59 
 
 Holdings Committee, stated that the annual 
 sum necessary to pay principal and interest 
 on the loans contracted for permanent im- 
 provements was ^1,670,000.^ So that the 
 London Owners' Improvement Rate Bill 
 proposes to lay upon the owners of houses 
 and land in London an annual charge of, in 
 round figures, ^i, 753-099. taking 31% on 
 ^2,374,275 and adding it to ^1,670,000. 
 This is pretty well for a beginning ; and 
 this Is how it is to be done. 
 
 " 3. There shall be leviable in respect of 
 hereditaments throughout the County a rate 
 to be called ' The County Improvements Rate,' 
 or such other name as the Council may 
 determine the proceeds whereof shall be 
 applicable by the Council as follows : 
 
 ^ Tozcn Ifo/di/igs J?eJ>orf, p. XV. (Harrison, 3421). It is 
 true Mr. Harrison's arithmetic was found to be fanciful, and 
 his evidence was not accepted by the Committee. But he 
 was the witness of the L.C.C.
 
 6o BETTER MKNP. 
 
 "(i) In providing one-half of the sums 
 required in each year for redemption of 
 stock or repayment or replacement of money 
 borrowed and expended on capital account for 
 the purposes of the following Improvements if 
 the same be authorised by Parliament viz. : 
 
 " (a) The New Central Street from South- 
 ampton Row to the Strand with the Subsidiary 
 Streets and Works ; 
 
 " (r) The New Approach to the Tower 
 Bridge in the parishes of Bermondsey and 
 St. John Horsleydown ; and 
 
 "(c) The Ferry between Rotherhithe and 
 Ratcliff 
 
 described in and proposed to be authorised 
 by the London Improvements Bill now pending 
 in Parliament ; 
 
 " (2) In payment of the sum required in 
 each year for payment of interest and charges 
 in respect of one-half of the money so borrowed 
 and expended ; 
 
 "(3) In [)roviding the sums required in each
 
 ADOPTION OF BETTERMENT BY THE L.C.C. 6i 
 
 year for redemption of stock or repayment or 
 replacement of money borrowed for and ex- 
 pended on any permanent improvements and 
 works of public utility effected or to be effected 
 by the Council and charged to capital account 
 and in payment of the sum required in each 
 year for payment of interest and charges in 
 respect of money so borrowed and expended ; 
 
 " The expression * permanent improvements ' 
 in this section means any works of which 
 the Council have power to spread the cost 
 and of which they resolve to spread the cost 
 over a period of at least fifty years." 
 
 The Council cherishes the hope that, for 
 the sake of catching votes in London, Sir 
 William Harcourt may be induced to act 
 as its cat's-paw, which I much doubt, for 
 Sir William Harcourt, whatever he may be 
 in opposition, has always discovered in office 
 some of the truest and highest qualities of a
 
 62 BETTERMENT. 
 
 Statesman. However, this is what the Council 
 hopes : 
 
 "5. If and whenever any agreement is 
 arrived at between the Treasury and the Coun- 
 cil with respect to the collection of the County 
 Improvements Rate by this Act authorised 
 along with the Property Tax under Schedule 
 (A) of the Act 5 and 6 Victoria cap. 35 the 
 following provisions shall have effect : 
 
 "I. The Council may fix and determine in 
 respect of each financial year the amount of the 
 rate in the pound on the gross value of lands 
 tenements hereditaments and heritages in the 
 County which in their judgment will be neces- 
 sary to produce the amount required to be 
 levied in respect of that year under the powers 
 of this Act as the County Improvements Rate 
 and such rate shall be charged upon the value 
 at which such lands tenements hereditaments 
 or heritages within the County are assessed
 
 ADOPTION OF BETTERMENT BY THE L.C.C. 63 
 
 for the payment of Property Tax under 
 Schedule 'A' of the Act 5 and 6 Vic. cap. 
 35 but shall not exceed the rate of four- 
 pence in the pound upon such value. And such 
 rate shall be demanded and collected along 
 with the Property Tax payable under the said 
 Schedule 'A.'" 
 
 Should, however, Sir William Harcourt de- 
 cline the honour of pulling the chestnuts out of 
 the fire for Messrs. Harrison and Costelloe, the 
 improvement rate of 4^. in the pound is to be 
 collected along with the other parish rates, and 
 the occupier is to pay the rate in the first in- 
 stance, and then deduct it from the rent he pays 
 his superior landlord, who is to deduct propor- 
 tionately from his leasehold ground-rent, and 
 the leasehold annuitant is to deduct propor- 
 tionately from his freehold ground rent, just as 
 the property tax under schedule A is now de- 
 ducted. The effect of this will be to throw the
 
 64 BETTERMENT. 
 
 main burthen of the improvement rate upon 
 the receiver of the rack-rent, not upon the 
 reversionary interest, upon the owner of the 
 house, not upon the owner of the land. The 
 ordinary division of interests in the better class 
 of London houses is something like this. Rack- 
 rent, ^300 ; leasehold ground-rent, ^35 ; free- 
 hold ground-rent, ^10. The occupier will de- 
 duct 300 fourpences from his rack-rent ; the 
 owner of the house will deduct 35 fourpences 
 from his leasehold ground-rent ; and the owner 
 of the leasehold ground-rent will deduct 10 four- 
 pences from his freehold ground-rent. It is to be 
 hoped that the owners of houses, who are a much 
 larger and more powerful voting class than the 
 owners of land, will appreciate this point. In the 
 case of estates where the freeholder lets direct 
 to his tenants, as, for instance, on the Deptford 
 estate, and as is beginning to be done on the 
 Westminster and Portman estates, as the leases 
 fall in, the ground landlord will be heavily hit.
 
 AiDOPTION OF BETTERMENT BY THE L.C.C. 65 
 
 In defiance of the well-established legal prin- 
 ciple that the basis of rating is profitable occu- 
 pation, it is proposed in clause 7 to charge the 
 improvement rate upon empty houses and 
 vacant land. 
 
 " 7. The Improvement Rate shall be assessed 
 and payable in respect of unoccupied houses 
 and buildings and of vacant land including land 
 on which there are uncompleted buildings as 
 well as in respect of houses and buildings which 
 are occupied and of other land and shall so long 
 as the house building or land upon which the 
 rate is charged remains unoccupied or vacant 
 be payable by the owner thereof on demand. If 
 and so far as at the commencement of a new 
 tenancy or occupation of any house or building 
 or land any arrears of the Improvements Rate 
 remain due in respect thereof then such arrears 
 shall be payable on demand by the first tenant 
 or occupier or any succeeding tenant or occu- 
 
 £
 
 66 BETTERMENT. 
 
 pier thereof and any tenant or occupier who 
 shall have paid such sum may deduct the 
 amount paid by him in respect of such rate 
 from and out of any rent payable by him in re- 
 spect of the house building or land. A proper 
 receipt for the payment by such tenant or occu- 
 pier of any arrears of Improvements Rate 
 payable in respect of the house building or land 
 shall be and operate as a release and discharge 
 of the tenant or occupier from such part of any 
 rent payable by him as shall be equal to the 
 amount paid by him in respect of such rate. 
 
 "8. (i) The Overseers and Assessment 
 Committees acting under the Valuation (Metro- 
 polis) Act 1869 shall in making out the next 
 Valuation List or Supplemental Valuation List 
 after the passing of this Act include or add and 
 assess all unoccupied houses and buildings and 
 vacant land including land on which there are 
 uncompleted buildings so far as such houses 
 buildings and land would not but for the provi-
 
 ADOPTION OF BETTERMENT BY THE L.C.C. 67 
 
 sions of this Act be included in such lists and 
 shall cause the totals of the gross and rateable 
 values of such buildings and lands to be ascer- 
 tained and included in or added to the Valua- 
 tion Lists to be made under the said Act after 
 the passing of this Act ; 
 
 " (2) The totals of the gross values of such 
 buildings and land shall for the purposes of this 
 Act be added by the Council to the totals of the 
 Valuation Lists printed in accordance with sec- 
 tion 17 of the Valuation (Metropolis) Act 
 1869." 
 
 " 12. The County Improvements Rate shall 
 be a charge and incumbrance on the freehold 
 of the hereditaments in respect of which it is 
 made and shall not be a rate tax charge imposi- 
 tion assessment or outgoing payable by a tenant 
 or occupier within the meaning of any existing 
 contract to pay rates taxes charges impositions 
 assessments or outgoings in respect of the here- 
 ditaments the subject of such contract and any 
 deed agreement covenant or contract made 
 
 E 2
 
 68 BETTERMENT. 
 
 after the passing of this Act purporting to de- 
 prive or which would have the effect of depriv- 
 ing any tenant or other person of his right 
 under this Act to deduct any County Improve- 
 ments Rate paid by him from the amount ot 
 his rent or purporting to provide for the cancel- 
 lation or alteration of the terms of any tenancy 
 in the event of such a rate being imposed as 
 authorised by this Act or tending otherwise to 
 defeat the intention of this Act shall so far as it 
 purports to have or might have that effect be 
 void. 
 
 These two bills are the new method of taxa- 
 tion, a comparison of which with the American 
 system suggests to me the following observa- 
 tions : — 
 
 I. The owners' rate and the betterment 
 charge are clearly lacking in the indispensable 
 elements of legitimate taxation, a taxing dis- 
 trict and a common ratio. The owners' rate 
 bill provides no area of assessment : the whole
 
 ADOPTION OF BETTERMENT BY THE L.C.C 69 
 
 metropolis is to be laid under contribution ; 
 and the owner of the Gunter estate in West 
 Kensington will be taxed for the Rotherhithe 
 
 o 
 
 ferry. There is no standard for the measure- 
 ment of benefits, but the betterment charge 
 is to be as much or as little as the County 
 Council or the Arbitrator fancies. 
 
 2. Whereas in America landlord and tenant 
 are expressly left free to make any agreement 
 for the payment of the special assessment, they 
 are expressly forbidden by these bills to make 
 any contracts with regard to the payment of 
 the owners' rate or the betterment charge. 
 
 3. By a dangerous confusion of adminis- 
 trative and judicial powers, the County Council 
 makes itself judge in its own cause. In New 
 York the City Council applies to the court to 
 appoint commissioners to assess the benefits : 
 the commissioners hear the objections in the 
 first instance ; and finally the matter comes 
 before the Supreme Court. From first to last 
 the City Council is exactly on the same foot-
 
 70 BETTERMENT. 
 
 ing as the other interested parties ; it is treated 
 as a plaintiff in a suit ; and has nothing- to do 
 with any decision. But here it is the London 
 County Council that itself by its officers makes 
 the assessment, in which it is interested. The 
 next step is even more characteristic. Instead 
 of something in the nature of a judicial hear- 
 ing, the Council is to debate its own provisional 
 award in full meeting. If objections are lodged 
 in the course of the following month, the 
 Council is to apply for the appointment of an 
 arbitrator, from whom there is no appeal. 
 This is a very objectionable procedure. The 
 Local Government Board is to appoint the 
 arbitrator, but upon the application of the 
 County Council.^ The arbitrator will there- 
 fore be in a sense the nominee of the Council, 
 and he has not only the final decision of the 
 amount of betterment, but absolute discretion 
 
 ^ The three Commissioners of Estimate in New York re- 
 present : I. The Council ; 2. The parties assessed; 3. The 
 Supreme Court.
 
 ADOPTION OF BETTERMENT BY THE L.C.C. 7 i 
 
 as to costs. The office of arbitrator will be 
 a lucrative one, and an arbitrator will know 
 very well that if he takes any very marked 
 liberties with the provisional award, or gives 
 costs against the Council, he is not likely to 
 be nominated a second time for the business. 
 Why indeed should he be the friend of the 
 defendant landlord, on whom the charge is 
 to be im.posed ? The plaintiff Council has all 
 the rates of London in its pocket, and is the 
 dispenser of many good things to those who 
 will bow the knee. There is an utter ab- 
 sence of anything like judicial procedure in 
 dealing with property, which is perfectly re- 
 pugnant to what used to be the universal 
 practice in England. 
 
 4, In New York the Commissioners of 
 Estimate and Assessment must finish their 
 business and make their report within four 
 months. By subsection 3 of section 45 "' the 
 Council shall as soon as conveniently may be 
 (but not later than seven years after the com-
 
 72 BETTERMENT. 
 
 pletion of each of the improvements) cause 
 to be framed a provisional award," &c. As it 
 is provided in section 25 that some of the 
 improvements may take seven years and 
 others five years to complete, the provisional 
 award might be fourteen years before it ap- 
 peared. Let anyone with any experience of 
 house property reflect upon the meaning of 
 this. Suppose the works take four or five 
 years to complete, and that the award is not 
 made for one or two years after, a com- 
 putation well within the mark. For five or 
 six years the cloud of the award is to hang 
 over the property. Who will be able to deal 
 with it ? The owner will not be able to sell 
 or let the property, so long as the award is 
 suspended over it, for no one will buy or 
 hire until he knows what the betterment 
 charge is going to be. Anything more pre- 
 judicial to property, and consequently offering 
 a greater temptation to corruption and bribery 
 and favouritism, it is impossible to imagine.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN THE GENERAL 
 SYSTEM OF TAXATION. 
 
 What is the true place of betterment in refer- 
 ence to the general principles of taxation ? 
 This is a question which occasions Dr. Cooley 
 great searchings of heart ; and being a candid, 
 as well as a learned, author, and fully 
 appreciating the importance of answering it 
 satisfactorily, he is at great pains, in his chapter 
 on " Taxation by Special Assessment "^ to lay his 
 foundations deep in public equity. He admits 
 that special assessments are " a peculiar species 
 of taxation, standing apart from the general bur- 
 ^ Cooky 071 Taxatio7i^ ch. xx.
 
 74 BETTERMENT. 
 
 dens imposed for state and municipal purposes, 
 and governed by principles that do not apply 
 universally." The conundrum " When is a tax 
 not a tax ? " may best be answered by some 
 citations from American judgments on better- 
 ment. "A tax," said C.J. George (Macon v. 
 Patty 57 Miss. 378), " is levied on the whole 
 state or a known political subdivision, as a 
 county or town. A local assessment is levied on 
 property situated in a district created for the ex- 
 press purpose of the levy, and possessing no 
 other function, or even existence, than to be the 
 thing on which the levy is made. . . . It is like a 
 tax in that it must be levied for a public purpose, 
 and must be apportioned by some reasonable 
 rule among those upon whose property it is 
 levied. It is unlike a tax in that the proceeds 
 of the assessment must be expended in an im- 
 provement from which a benefit clearly exceptive 
 and plainly perceived must inure to the property 
 upon which it is imposed." In Bridgeport
 
 PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN TAXATION. 75 
 
 V. N. Y. and N. H. R. Co. 36 Conn. 255, Butler J. 
 said, " It is doubtless true that such an assess- 
 ment of benefits is an exercise of the taxing power, 
 and in a general sense a tax. . . But it is never 
 spoken of in the charters of cities and boroughs, 
 or in the general law, or in popular intercourse, 
 as a tax. And although this strictly in a general 
 sense is a tax, it is one of a peculiar nature. 
 It is a local assessment imposed occasionally as 
 required upon a limited class of persons in- 
 terested in a local improvement, and who are as- 
 sumed to be benefited by the improvement to 
 the extent of the assessment, and it is imposed 
 and collected as an equivalent for that benefit, 
 and to pay for the improvement. It has con- 
 sequently never been regarded as a tax, or 
 termed such in legislative proceedings, in our 
 public or private laws, or in popular intercourse." 
 That this view is not held by all Amercan 
 lawyers is proved by the fact that in the States 
 ofAlabama, Arkansas, Colorado, and Minnesota,
 
 76 BETTERMENT. 
 
 special assessments for benefit have been held to 
 be illegal as contravening constitutional pro- 
 visions that all taxation shall be equal, uniform, 
 and by value ; v^^hile in Illinois the constitution- 
 ality of the tax would seem to be still doubtful. 
 Nor must it be supposed that, where the tax 
 has been decided to be constitutional, legal 
 opinion is agreed as to its justice. Church C. 
 J. (in Guest v. Brooklyn 69 N. Y. 506) con- 
 demns the whole system as "a species of des- 
 potism that ought not to be perpetuated under 
 a government which claims to protect property 
 equally with life and liberty. Besides its mani- 
 fest injustice it deprives the citizen practically 
 of the principal protection — aside from constitu- 
 tional restraints — afforded in a free country 
 against unjust taxation : the responsibility of 
 the representative for his acts to his constitu- 
 enis."^ 
 
 1 These cases are all quoted in the text or footnotes of 
 ch. XX. of Cooley on Taxation.
 
 PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN TAXATION. 77 
 
 It is therefore clear that in special assess- 
 ment for benefit we have a fiscal anomaly of 
 a very peculiar kind. It is a tax, and it is not 
 a tax ; it is unconstitutional in one state, and 
 constitutional in another ; one judge speaks of 
 its intrinsic justice ; another refers to it as a 
 species of despotism. All agree in calling it 
 a levy, which requires special legislative 
 authority. One thing is indisputable ; that by 
 a special assessment for benefit, or an improve- 
 ment charge, as the London County Council 
 calls it, property, i.e. money, is taken and 
 appropriated to the public use. Now there 
 are only two methods by which property is 
 taken from individuals and appropriated to 
 the public use in civilised societies, by taxation, 
 and by what American lawyers call the right 
 of eminent domain, which is the right reserved 
 by every Government to acquire private 
 property for public purposes by paying the 
 owner full compensation, and which English
 
 78 BETTERMENT. 
 
 lawyers have embodied in a series of Acts 
 well enough known as the Lands Clauses 
 Consolidation Acts. The distinction between 
 taxation and the right of eminent domain is 
 so clearly put by J. Ruggles (in People :'. 
 Brooklyn 4 N. Y. 419) that I cannot resist yet 
 another citation. "Taxation exacts money or 
 services from individuals as and for their 
 respective shares of contribution to any 
 public burden. Private property taken for 
 any public use, by right of eminent domain, 
 is taken, not as the owner's share of con- 
 tribution to a public burden, but as so much 
 beyond his share. Special compensation is 
 therefore to be made in the latter case, 
 because the Government is a debtor for 
 the property so taken ; but not in the former, 
 because the payment of taxes is a duty, and 
 creates no obligation to repay otherwise than 
 in the proper application of the tax. Tax- 
 ation operates upon a community, or upon
 
 PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN TAXATION. 79 
 
 a class of persons in a community, and by 
 some rule of apportionment. The exercise 
 of the right of eminent domain operates upon 
 an individual, and without reference to the 
 amount or value exacted from any other 
 individual or class of individuals." Is a 
 special assessment for benefit, then, an exercise 
 of the right of eminent domain ? It certainly 
 operates upon an individual and not upon 
 a community, and it is without reference to 
 the amount or value exacted from any other 
 individual, because in each case it is the 
 special benefit derived by the particular 
 property. But it is just as certainly not an 
 exercise of the right of eminent domain, 
 because it is without special compensation to 
 the individual on whom the charge is laid, 
 he only enjoying in common with his neigh- 
 bours the improvement, which is presumed 
 to be his compensation. The American judges 
 were in a great difficulty. They were far too
 
 8o BETTERMENT. 
 
 good lawyers not to see that a special 
 assessment for benefit could not be ascribed 
 to the right of eminent domain : they were 
 equally certain that it could not be regarded 
 as a tax {v. supra), because it did not operate 
 upon a community, and was without rule of 
 apportionment. But they had to give effect 
 to the will of the legislatures : they were 
 therefore reduced, as we have seen, to the 
 somewhat pitiful expedient of explaining that 
 it was not a tax, but an assessment for benefits, 
 or if a tax, one of a peculiar nature. 
 
 The truth is that a betterment charge is a 
 tax, inasmuch as it is imposed by a public 
 body, acting under legislative authority, and 
 collected with all the irresistible machinery of 
 government. But inasmuch as it is lacking 
 in the indispensable elements of legitimate 
 taxation, it is not a tax, but a forced levy. 
 
 The desirable elements in a system of 
 taxation are now established by the experience
 
 PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN TAXATION. 8i 
 
 of mankind ; and have been embodied by 
 Adam Smith in the second chapter of the fifth 
 book of Wealth of Nations in four celebrated 
 maxims or principles, viz., i. Uniformity. 
 2. Certainty. 3. Convenience. 4 Cheapness 
 of collection. It will be found upon examina- 
 tion that the improvement charge proposed by 
 the London County Council violates every one 
 of these canons of taxation. 
 
 I. "The subjects of every state ought to 
 contribute to ihe support of the government," 
 says Adam Smith, "as nearly as possible in 
 proportion to their respective abilities : that is 
 in proportion to the revenue which they 
 respectively enjoy under the protection of 
 the state. In the observation or neglect 
 of this maxim consists what is called the 
 equality or inequality of taxation." In other 
 words, the only standard by which taxes can 
 be apportioned between individuals is the 
 standard of value ; for there is no other 
 
 F
 
 82 BETTERMENT. 
 
 measure of their respective abilities to pay 
 except the value, capital or annual, of their 
 property. In the United States they tax 
 capital value, in England we tax annual value. 
 There is a good deal to be said for both 
 systems, though the taxation of annual values 
 seems to me to possess two advantages over 
 the taxation of capital values ; first, it taxes 
 usufruct, enjoyment, rather than accumulation ; 
 and secondly, annual value is a matter of fact, 
 whereas capital value must always be, to 
 a certain extent, matter of speculation. But 
 betterment is a tax neither on capital nor on 
 annual value ; that is to say, the amount ot 
 the charge has nothing to do with the capital 
 or annual value of the property on which it is 
 laid. Benefit, not value, is the standard of 
 apportionment : not the rental which the owner 
 receives for a house is to be the measure of his 
 ability to pay the tax but its geographical 
 position. For instance, a house fronting the
 
 PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN TAXATION. 83 
 
 new street and let for a long term at ^300 a 
 year might be taxed twice as much as a house 
 round the corner let at ^600 a year. The 
 charge is to be proportioned not to what the 
 property is actually worth, but to what the 
 surveyor of the London County Council, or an 
 arbitrator, says it may be worth in years to 
 come. Nay, worse than this, when once the 
 amount of benefit conferred upon a particular 
 property by a local improvement has been as- 
 sessed by some process of valuation, which Mr. 
 Driver and other eminent London surveyors 
 have declared (in their evidence before the 
 committee on the Strand Bill) to be unknown 
 to them, and which we must therefore suppose 
 to be some species of divine inspiration 
 vouchsafed alone to the surveyor of the London 
 County Council, when once the quantum of 
 benefit has been assessed, its apportionment 
 amongst the individuals interested in the 
 property, the occupier, the owner of the house, 
 
 F 3
 
 84 BEITERMENT. 
 
 and the owner of the land, is determined by no 
 rule, but is left entirely to the pleasure of the 
 municipal authority, or its nominee, a single 
 arbitrator. The occupier, and the lessee, or 
 either, may, at the discretion of the County 
 Council, or their arbitrator, be allowed to 
 escape scot free from any contribution to the 
 improvement charge, which may accumulate 
 with interest until the freeholder comes into 
 possession, to find his property mortgaged for a 
 debt he did not contract, as to the incurring of 
 which he had no voice, and the consideration 
 for which may have failed, or be exhausted. 
 Thus the receiver of the rack-rent may be 
 pocketing ^i,ooo a year for a property for 
 which he pays ^50 a year ground rent. If the 
 reversion is within measurable distance, any- 
 thing under twenty years, the Council might 
 determine that the betterment charge ought 
 equitably to be postponed until the termination 
 of the lease (s. 45, subs. 15). Nor is the free-
 
 PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN TAXATION. 85 
 
 holder, who is thus selected for this hitherto 
 unknown method of deferred taxation, to be 
 allowed the common law right of every 
 Englishman, when his liberty or his property 
 is at stake, to have his case tried by a jury. A 
 debate in the County Council, or, if he is 
 obstinate enough to object to this handling of 
 his property by a popular and tumultuous 
 assembly, then a decision by a single officer, 
 appointed on the application of the tax-gatherer, 
 is satisfaction enough for him. If taxation 
 were not so serious a business, there would be 
 something irresistibly comic in the sub-section 
 which provides that the provisional award 
 shall be discussed at a meeting of the Council 
 (subs. 4), and confirmed or amended. Imagine 
 a debate at Spring Gardens on the question 
 whether an improvement charge should be 
 borne by Scraggs, lessee of rotten tenement 
 blocks, and a fiery Progressive, or should be 
 allowed to accumulate until the freeholder,
 
 86 BETTERMENT. 
 
 Lord So-and-So, an active member of the 
 Conservative party, comes into possession ! 
 This travesty of judicial procedure is worse 
 than nothing, and is a mere aggravation of the 
 original oppression. 
 
 2. " The tax which each individual is bound 
 to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. 
 The time of payment, the manner of payment, 
 the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear 
 and plain to the contributor, and to every 
 other person. Where it is otherwise, every 
 person subject to the tax is put more or less 
 in the power of the tax-gatherer, who can 
 either aggravate the tax upon any obnoxious 
 contributor, or extort by the terror of such 
 aggravation, some present or perquisite to 
 himself. The uncertainty of taxation encour- 
 ages the insolence and favours the corruption 
 of an order of men who are naturally un- 
 popular, even when they are neither insolent 
 nor corrupt. The certainty of what each
 
 PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN TAXATION. 87 
 
 individual ought to pay is, in taxation, 
 a matter of so great importance, that 
 a very considerable degree of inequality, it 
 appears, I believe, from the experience of all 
 nations, is not near so great an evil as a very 
 small degree of uncertainty." Stuart Mill 
 quotes these words of Adam Smith as "having 
 been generally concurred in by subsequent 
 writers," and as therefore "classical." But 
 how can you have certainty in a system of 
 taxation which has no known area and no 
 common ratio ? Certainty can only be secured 
 in taxation by adopting certain known political 
 or parochial areas, and establishing a common 
 ratio, a uniform percentage of value, for all who 
 reside within their limits. I have already spoken 
 of the rating zones which have been drawn 
 around Wimbledon Common, and, I believe, 
 other open spaces, an arrangement by which 
 the rate for the up-keep shades away as you 
 get farther from the common. The plan is
 
 88 BETTERMENT 
 
 perfectly unobjectionable ; it combines certainty 
 with uniformity. Everybody who lives in zone 
 A pays a rate of so niuch in the pound, everybody 
 who lives in zone B pays so mucli in the pound, 
 and so on : there is a common ratio, a uniform 
 percentage of rental, and a definite area. But 
 uncertainty is the essence of betterment, whose 
 area is arbitrary, and whose rule of apportion- 
 ment is the opinion of a surveyor. The first 
 time that the London County Council asked for 
 betterment, in the Strand Bill of 1890, its wit- 
 nesses admitted to the Committee that the 
 betterment area had been drawn upon the map 
 practically at random. The second time, in 
 the case of the Cromwell Road Bridge, in 1892, 
 its area was a half-mile radius from one end 
 of the bridge. This year the area is the 
 " limits of lands to be acquired " as marked 
 upon the deposited plans, which means the area 
 within which it might acquire property by com- 
 pulsory purchase under the Lands Clauses
 
 PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN TAXATION. 89 
 
 Acts, or, as the Americans say, by right of 
 eminent domain. Obviously this area must be 
 different in each improvement, and is therefore 
 absolutely uncertain. The rule of apportion- 
 ment is even more uncertain than the area, for 
 the latter is at least submitted to Parliament, 
 where an experienced chairman of committee 
 would know pretty well what the " limits of 
 lands to be acquired " ought to be. Or rather 
 there is no rule of apportionment, for there is 
 no common ratio, and the amount of the charge 
 laid upon one property bears no relation what- 
 ever to that paid by another. The charge is 
 to be " in respect or in consideration of any in- 
 creased value or benefit which such lands may 
 respectively derive from the said improve- 
 ments," the only limitation being that the im- 
 provement charge is not to exceed half the 
 enhanced value. Who is to determine that 
 speculative value } The officers of the County 
 Council. Could anything be imagined more
 
 90 BETTERMENT. 
 
 arbitrary ? Did ever a public authority demand 
 from a central government a more tremendous 
 weapon ? The moment you desert settled and 
 familiar divisions, political or parochial, and 
 abandon a common ratio of apportionment by 
 value, you expose yourself to all the difficulties 
 and dangers which Adam Smith has enumer- 
 ated, and which are just as real to-day as they 
 were a hundred years ago. When you put it 
 in the power of a popular body, elected on 
 party lines, to select individuals for a peculiar 
 species of taxation, restrained by no rule and 
 guided by no standard of apportionment, the 
 catastrophe can be but a matter of time. The 
 public has a short memory, but many must 
 remember the fall of the Metropolitan Board 
 of Works. That body fell because its members 
 were unable to resist the temptations, to which 
 they were exposed in handling the property, 
 that had to be dealt with in the various metro- 
 politan schemes they undertook. The tempta-
 
 PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN TAXATION. 91 
 
 tions to which the Board of Works succumbed 
 were as nothing compared with the temptations 
 that will beset the County Council. The Board 
 of Works acted under the Lands Clauses Acts, 
 upon known rules ; the County Council will 
 roam "fancy free" among its constituents, 
 holding in its hands the absolute power to dis- 
 pose of their properties, to make or mar their 
 fortunes ; for it must not be forgotten that 
 in addition to the grosser forms of corruption, 
 the County Council will be exposed to that 
 subtlest of all temptations, before which the 
 most honourable men have been know to fall^ 
 the temptation of winning political adherents 
 and punishing political opponents under the 
 cloak of lightening public burthens. To whom 
 will the task of framing the provisional award 
 be entrusted ? To the surveyor of the County 
 Council ? He will have to employ an army 
 of assistants : who they will be I do not know, 
 nor does anybody. They will be human, they
 
 92 BETTERMENT. 
 
 will not be overpaid, (the Council is stingy in 
 the matter of salaries), and why should they 
 not, in the course of their walks, meet with 
 some Cecil Rhodes, who, naturally anxious to 
 escape their net, will " not fight them, but 
 deal with them " ? Or perhaps assessors, or 
 commissioners of estimate, after the American 
 plan, will be appointed to frame the provisional 
 award ; and who more likely, or better fitted, 
 to be made assessor of benefits than the coun 
 cillor who represents the district in question ? 
 He will be able to assess with judicial eye 
 the exact amount of benefit derived from the 
 new street by Jones the fruiterer (who was 
 the chairman of his committee at the last 
 election), and he will be qualified to weigh with 
 nicety the improvement charge to be divided 
 between Boniface the publican, who stood 
 against him, and the Duke of Blank, the 
 ground-landlord, who subscribed to the fund 
 of the Moderates. Nor needs it any strong
 
 PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN TAXATION. 93 
 
 effort of the imagination to conceive the relish 
 with which the purity party on the Council 
 would assess special benefit upon a music hall. 
 On the whole it may be doubted whether 
 Tammany in its palmiest days ever hit upon 
 a smarter device for capturing the city. 
 
 It may be urged that the same danger of 
 corruption and oppression attends the assess- 
 ment and collection of income tax by the 
 officers of the Imperial Government. But in 
 the first place the danger is only great where 
 the value to be determined is purely specula- 
 tive, as it must be in the case of betterment, 
 for it is impossible to foretell what will be 
 the effect of an improvement upon individual 
 properties. In the Committee on the Strand 
 Improvement Bill, I remember there was a 
 hatter, whose shop is on the south side of the 
 Strand, and who came before us and said 
 (in effect) : "It's all very well to talk of the 
 clearing away of Holywell Street as an im-
 
 94 BETTERMENT. 
 
 provement : upon my business it will inflict 
 an injury, because the passengers who now 
 walk on the southern side to avoid Holywell 
 Street will, when you make your new boule- 
 vard, \/alk on the northern, which is the 
 sunny side of the Strand, and so not pass my 
 window, and buy fewer of my hats." In the 
 second place, the danger of corruption is much 
 greater in the case of municipal than imperial 
 officers. The distance between the Imperial 
 Government and its agents is so great, the 
 latter are so dispersed, the constituency is so 
 enormous, the tone of the Treasury and the 
 Board of Inland Revenue is so austere, that 
 corruption and oppression, at all events of a 
 political kind, are practically impossible in this 
 country, though of course in other countries, 
 particularly in the Spanish-American Repub- 
 lics of South America, they are the ordinary 
 weapons of party warfare. But municipal 
 officers are in close touch with the executive
 
 PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN TAXATION. 9S 
 
 that employs them ; austerity is by no means 
 the badge of municipal government ; and, as 
 the history of Liverpool and Birmingham 
 proves, party zeal is noticed and rewarded in 
 the distribution of offices of profit. This is 
 the reason why municipal socialism is so much 
 more dangerous than state socialism, 
 
 3. The third canon of taxation laid down 
 by Adam Smith is that every tax ought to 
 be levied at the time, or in the manner, in 
 which it is most likely to be convenient for 
 the contributor. Clause 8 of the London 
 Improvements Bill enacts that "the Council 
 and their surveyors, officers and workmen, and 
 any person duly authorised in writing under 
 the hand of the Clerk of the Council may from 
 time to time at all reasonable times in the day 
 upon giving in writing for the first time twenty- 
 four hours and afterwards from time to time 
 twelve hours previous notice enter upon and 
 into the land and buildings, &c., for the purpose
 
 96 BETTERMENT. 
 
 of surveying and valuing, &c." Even a sur- 
 veyor who has been trained in the service of 
 the London School Board will not be able to 
 make special assessments for benefits without 
 entries more than one upon and into the 
 lands and buildings for the purpose of sur- 
 veying and valuing. A very careful examina- 
 tion of the exterior and interior of many 
 buildings will have to be made ; and many 
 inquisitorial questions will have to be put as 
 to the occupations and earnings of the inmates. 
 The only doubt is, how long will the people, 
 in a country where a man's home is still 
 regarded as his castle, tolerate the poking in 
 of the noses of the Council and their surveyors, 
 officers, and workmen ? Canvassers who call 
 for votes in the poorer neighbourhoods oc- 
 casionally get a rough answer, and they are 
 seldom allowed to pass the door. The re- 
 peated entry of surveyors, officers, and work- 
 men to assess for benefits may provoke
 
 PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN TAXATION 97 
 
 something harder than words. Great as will 
 be this inconvenience, it will still be less than 
 the inconvenience, and the injury, to which I 
 have already alluded, of having a provisional 
 award hanging over a property for five, ten, 
 or fourteen years. Many a lessee or owner 
 will be disposed to offer a considerable sum 
 of money to have his improvement charge 
 settled, that he may deal with his property, 
 
 4. The fourth canon of taxation is that 
 "every tax ought to be so contrived as both 
 to take out and to keep out of the pockets 
 of the people as little as possible over and 
 above what it brings into the public treasury," 
 and Adam Smith goes on to point out that 
 one of the chief ways in which a tax takes 
 out of the public pocket more than it puts 
 in is when the levying of it requires a great 
 number of officers, " whose salaries may eat up 
 the greater part of the produce of the tax, 
 and whose perquisites may impose another ad- 
 
 G
 
 98 BETTERMENT. 
 
 ditional tax upon the people." I don't see 
 how it can be seriously denied that these 
 special assessments for benefits will be a very 
 costly business for the Council. Property 
 is timid enough and inert enough, God 
 knows. Cowardice is the taint of the respect- 
 able classes : "What white lips they have, al- 
 ways apologising, always on the defensive ! " ex- 
 claims Emerson. But though property is slow 
 to combine, and makes no show at public 
 meetings, it has its horns, and will fight for its 
 life. Owners and lessees, (unless indeed they 
 be completely fascinated by the cobra), will 
 begin by opposing the Betterment Clauses be- 
 fore the Committees of both Houses of Parlia- 
 ment in every Bill that the Council may in- 
 troduce, and a battle in the Committee Rooms 
 at Westminster, if waged with spirit and re- 
 solution, is a costly campaign. Next will come 
 the process of assessing a large number of par- 
 ticular properties for special benefits, and a
 
 PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN TAXATION. 99 
 
 separate report on each property will have to 
 be included in the Provisional Award. This 
 will require an army of surveyors, valuers, and 
 assistants, whose salaries will constitute a large 
 item of expense. As some of the occupiers, 
 lessees, or owners are certain to object to the 
 Provisional Award, there will follow the hearing 
 before an arbitrator, or, as I can hardly believe 
 that the right to a jury will be withheld by the 
 Legislature, before a judge and jury. The 
 costs of the hearing cannot fail to be consider- 
 able. Troops of expert witnesses will be pro- 
 duced on both sides, and the testimony of 
 eminent surveyors is not obtained for nothing. 
 Both parties will appear by counsel, and doubt- 
 less the County Council, with the ratepayers' 
 purse to dip in, will hire the fashionable leader 
 and the leading junior of the day. Leases and 
 deeds of assignment will have to be examined : 
 mortgagees, remaindermen, representatives of 
 deceased builders, private and public trustees, 
 
 G 2
 
 100 BETTERMENT. 
 
 will spring like Cadmean warriors from the 
 ground, and give battle to the common invader. 
 The County Council will begin to wish better- 
 ment at the bottom of the sea. Its bill of costs 
 will eat up the taxes it collects, and though this 
 will be sedulously concealed from the electors, 
 the Moderate party will indeed fail in their duty 
 if they do not bring this fact home to the rate- 
 payers. 
 
 But how comes it that a system of taxa- 
 tion which sins, and sins so rudely, against all 
 the undisputed canons of taxation, should be 
 practised so widely in the United States, and 
 should have so many advocates in this 
 country ? With regard to the United 
 States, I must repeat that betterment is no crea- 
 tion of the American lawyers. The law of the 
 United States is largely English law. American 
 decisions are quoted in our courts with respect ; 
 and were it not so plain that American judges 
 allow special assessments for benefits with
 
 PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN TAXATION. loi 
 
 reluctance, I should think I had overlooked 
 some of the legitimate arguments in favour of 
 the system. But betterment is the creation of 
 the American state legislatures, to which no 
 more respect is due than to the resolutions of 
 our County Councils. 
 
 Unquestionably, however, in this country 
 betterment has many friends, not only amongst 
 the frank corsairs, who roam the seas In search 
 of booty, — this Is not surprising, for "pirates 
 make pennyworths of their pillage and purchase 
 friends,"---but also in the ranks of that party, 
 which was once united in defence of property, 
 but which Is now, owing to recent events, I am 
 afraid, a piece of joinery almost as crossly in- 
 dented and as whimsically dovetailed as was 
 the celebrated ministry of Lord Chatham. 
 
 The fact is that betterment has a superficial 
 air of equity, a false appearance of nice adjust- 
 ment, which cannot but captivate those who 
 have neither the interest nor the time to exam-
 
 I02 BETTERMENT. 
 
 ine its intrinsic vices. That those who are 
 specially Lenefited by the expenditure of public 
 money should be specially taxed in proportion 
 to that benefit, seems so unanswerable, so 
 simple, yet so precise, that it carries something 
 of the conviction of a mathematical proposition 
 
 to the mind. " To be sure the thing is so d d 
 
 right that it must be done," said Charles Fox of 
 the proposal that he should join Lord Gren- 
 ville after Pitt's death. And that is how better- 
 ment strikes many people : the thing appears so 
 right that it must be done : to them the case is 
 too plain for argument. Yet the doctrine is 
 based upon a fundamental and anarchic fallacy, 
 which received its qtiietus from the bare bodkin 
 of John Stuart Mill. The fallacy is known 
 to economic students as the quid pro quo fallacy, 
 and is quite incompatible with the existence 
 of a civilised society. The fallacy is so clearly 
 enunciated in the judgment of Ruggles J. (in 
 People V. Brooklyn 4. N.Y. 419), that I must
 
 PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN TAXATION. 103 
 
 for the last time revert to Dr. Cooley's book 
 (p. 636), to which I am already under such 
 heavy obligation. " A rich man derives more 
 benefit from taxation, in the protection and im- 
 provement of his property, than a poor man, 
 and ought therefore to pay more. But the 
 amount of each man's benefit in general taxa- 
 tion cannot be ascertained and estimated with 
 any degree of certainty, and for that reason a 
 property tax is adopted instead of an estimate 
 of benefits. In local taxation, however, for 
 special purposes, the local benefits may, in 
 many cases, be seen, traced, and estimated to a 
 reasonable certainty." As a lawyer I blush to 
 be obliged to quote this wretched sophistry 
 from the bench, for according to its logic the 
 only reason why special assessment for benefits 
 is not applied to imperial taxation is defective 
 machinery. In Chapter 11. of the second 
 volume of the Political Economy, examining 
 the general principles of taxation, Stuart Mill
 
 I04 BETTERMENT. 
 
 exposes, with cutting contempt, this flimsy 
 quackery of reasoning. " There are persons, 
 however, who are not content with the general 
 principles of justice as a basis to ground a rule 
 of finance upon, but must have something, as 
 they think, more specifically appropriate to the 
 subject. What best pleases them is, to regard 
 the taxes paid by each member of the com- 
 munity as an equivalent for value received, in 
 the shape of service to himself ; and they prefer 
 to rest the justice of making each contribute in 
 proportion to his means, upon the ground, that 
 he who has twice as much property to be pro- 
 tected, receives, on an accurate calculation, 
 twice as much protection, and, ought, on the 
 principles of bargain and sale, to pay twice as 
 much for it. Since, however, the assumption 
 that government exists solely for the protec- 
 tion of property is not one to be deliberately 
 adhered to, some consistent adherents of the 
 quid pro quo principle go on to observe, that
 
 PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN TAXATION. 105 
 
 protection being required for person as well as 
 property, and everybody's person receiving the 
 same amount of protection, a poll-tax of a fixed 
 sum per head is a proper equivalent for this 
 part of the benefits of government, while the 
 remaining part, the protection to property, 
 should be paid for in proportion to property. 
 There is in this adjustment a false air of nice 
 adaptation, very acceptable to some minds. 
 But in the first place, it is not admissible 
 that the protection of persons and property 
 are the sole purposes of government. The 
 ends of government are as comprehensive as 
 those of the social union. They consist of all 
 the good, and all the immunity from evil, 
 which the existence of government can be 
 made either directly or indirectly to bestow. 
 In the second place, the practice of setting 
 definite values on things essentially indefinite, 
 and making them a ground of practical con- 
 clusions, is peculiarly fertile in false views of
 
 io6 BETTERMENT. 
 
 social questions. It cannot be admitted that 
 to be protected in the ownership of ten times 
 as much property is to be ten times as much 
 protected. Neither can it be truly said that 
 the protection of ^i,ooo a year costs the state 
 ten times as much as that of ^loo a year, 
 rather than twice as much, or exactly as much. 
 The same judges, soldiers and sailors, who 
 protect the one protect the other, and the 
 larger income does not necessarily, though 
 it may sometimes, require even more police- 
 men. Whether the labour and expense of the 
 protection, or the feelings of the protected 
 person, or any other definite thing be made 
 the standard, there is no such proportion as 
 the one supposed, nor any other definable 
 proportion. If we wanted to estimate the 
 degrees of benefit which difi'erent persons 
 derive from the protection of government, we 
 should have to consider who would suffer 
 most if that protection were withdrawn ; to
 
 PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN TAXATION. 107 
 
 which question, if any answer could be made, 
 it must be, that those would suffer most who 
 were weakest in mind or body, either by 
 nature or by position. Indeed, such persons 
 would almost infallibly be slaves. If there 
 were any justice, therefore, in the theory of 
 justice now under consideration, those who are 
 least capable of helping or defending themselves 
 being those to whom the protection of govern- 
 ment is most indispensable, ought to pay the 
 greatest share of its price." I have quoted 
 this passage at length because it completely 
 disposes of the whole theory of better- 
 ment, for there is no difference between the 
 principles of imperial and local taxation. 
 The local government, except in London, 
 protects the persons and property of 
 the ratepayers, and there is nothing to 
 differentiate one function of government from 
 another, or to justify the application of the
 
 io8 BETTERMENT. 
 
 quid pro quo principle to one function more 
 than another. To assess particular properties 
 for the a.mount of benefit derived from the 
 action of the local government in making 
 a new street is setting, or attempting to set, a 
 definite value on something essentially indefinite, 
 something which defies the skill of the sur- 
 veyor. To lay an improvement charge of 
 ;^5000 on one property, and one of ^500 on 
 another property 200 yards away is as in- 
 defensible as it would be to tax the residents 
 in Whitechapel twice as much for the police 
 rate as the residents in Mayfair. No one can 
 deny that the neighbours of Jack-the- Ripper 
 require twice the police protection that suffices 
 for the denizens of Grosvenor Square ; 
 and it is notorious that the professional 
 thieves prey chiefly on the poor. If the 
 County Council were given the control ot 
 the police to-morrow {di boiii avertite /) they
 
 PLACE OF BETTERMENT IN TAXATION. 109 
 
 ought logically to assess every occupier, lessee, 
 and owner, to the police rate in proportion to 
 the amount of protection received. 
 
 Taxes are the contribution of the individual 
 to the society, or subdivision of the society, 
 to which he belongs. They should always be 
 levied in certain areas, and by a common 
 ratio. The benefits which he receives in 
 return are not to be measured by any plumb- 
 line, or appraised by any surveyor, but are 
 conclusively presumed to be all the advantages 
 of that society. There are good cards in life 
 as well as good players ; and every member 
 of a civilised community is entitled to profit 
 by the favourable chances that come his way. 
 
 Perhaps I ought to apologise, before laying 
 down my pen, to those who are sufficiently 
 interested in the subject to read these pages, 
 for having pressed on their attention nothing 
 but elementary and accepted truths of political 
 economy, often in the language of others.
 
 no BETTERMENT. 
 
 Having no credit or authority with any one, 
 I have thought it better, where possible, to 
 quote the very words of men of acknow- 
 ledged eminence, especially when, like Stuart 
 Mill, — '' clarum et venerabile nomen gentibus^' 
 — they belong to the Radical party. The 
 re-statement of general truths is justified by 
 their public defiance : and in days when such 
 extreme laxity of principle prevails, and when 
 men of all parties discover so alarming a 
 disposition to ignore or deny settled and 
 established axioms of government, no excuse 
 is necessary for remindmg the people that 
 there are certain canons of taxation whose 
 violation brings its own punishment, and 
 that the greatest of political impostures is 
 the idea that the impoverishment of indi- 
 viduals enriches the State. 
 
 RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BUNGAY.
 
 37 Bedford Street, Strand, London, 
 December 1892. 
 
 Selections from 
 
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 ENGLAND IN EGYPT. 
 
 By ALFRED MILNE R, 
 
 Lati Under-Secretary of Finance in Egypt. 
 
 With Map. Demy 8vo, i6j. 
 
 This important work deals with the period of the British occupation 
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 it presents a record of events rarely paralleled, and full of deep 
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