Inequality.
Ditto.

Rules of rating.

against at the Sessions: and Lord Kenyon, Ch. J. said, "it was a radical defect in the rate itself, which nothing could cure."*

To make a rate which shall not be liable to the imputation of inequality, every person liable must be rated; must be rated in proportion to his property; and every description of property must be comprehended in the rate, which law and usage have determined to be rateable.

The interpretations of law and usage.can only be collected from a succession of determinations, on each disputable point as it arose. The inhabitancy, and occupancy of the Persons rateable, have made two of the most important divisions of the general subject; the nature of the property rated, the other,

It is said by Dalton, "that the most reasonable way of taxing land, is according to the pound rate, and where a personal estate, as goods, money, or the like, is taxed, it ought to be in the same proportion as the lands, viz. the value of every 1007, at 5 per cent. per ann."†

But the rent of houses or lands is no standing rule for making a poor-rate, for circumstances may differ.

And the Justices cannot make a standing rate; for if it be just at first, it may not be so after, for lands may be improved.‡

Neither is an assessment according to the land tax good ;-for in the case of Rex. v. Clerkenwell, Hill, 2 Geo. 1, where a poor's rate was made according to the land tax; it was objected to as not being an equal taxation, because the personal estate in the public funds was not chargeable to the land tax, but that it is to the poor's tax. The whole Court, for that reason, set it aside.*

And the Justices in Session are the proper Justices the judges of the proportion or equality of poor's Proper judges of rates therefore in a case of Rex v. the Church-equality. wardens of Weobly, Tr. 19 Geo. 2, the Court refused a mandamus, directing them to insert the names of particular persons in a poor's-rate, upon affidavit of their .sufficiency, and being left out to prevent their having votes for Parliament men, "for that the remedy was by appeal, and this Court never went further than to oblige the making the rate, without meddling >with the question who is to be put in, or left out, of which the parish officers are the proper judges, subject to an appeal."t

But, if it clearly appear upon the face of the rate itself, or by the circumstances disclosed by the Justices on which they proceeded, that the assessments are unequal, the Court will quash the rate.‡

Criteria of rating.

And the occupier of a house, or of an estate, ought to be rated according to its full value with all its improvements, and not according to the price which he may have paid for it, without taking into account the value of the improvements.*

And the lessee of lands ought to be rated according to the present value of the lands, if the same have become of greater annual value than the rents reserved by the leases.†

Certain occupiers of lands appealed to the Quarter Session against a poor's-rate, setting forth in their notice of Appeal, among other objections, that the rate was unequal and partial, because tenements and farms, consisting of houses, lands, or grounds, were in such rate or assessment charged and assessed 1d. in the pound, and cottages or dwelling houses at only three farthings in the pound; whereas such cottages or dwelling houses ought to have been rated and assessed on a par with tenements and lands at 1d. in the pound. Upon hearing this Appeal, the Session quashed the whole rate, and ordered a new equal assessment, stating the following case for the opinion of the Court. That it was proved on hearing the Appeal, that the rate was made with the above distinction as to lands and cottages; that from

* 6 Term R. 154.

7 Term R. 549.

the year 1735 to 1776 a constant distinction had been observed in rating houses and lands, the former having always been rated in less proportion to their rents than the latter; that the Jand in general is burthened with no particular charges that are not incident to land in general; but that both lands and houses are subject to the usual repairs and taxes generally incident to each respectively."-The proceedings having been moved by certiorari, the case was argued in the Court above, and in support of the order of Session it was said, that in this parish there were circumstances which well warranted an equal assessment on each species of property; and it was suggested that ninetenths of the burthen of the poor arose from the houses. By Lord Mansfield. "There can be no general rule as to the proportion between lands and houses. It must depend on particular local circumstances. There are no circumstances stated in this case to shew, that houses ought to be rated lower and if what is sug gested be true, that is a strong circumstance the other way.-The objection unavoidably goes to the whole rate; for it is made throughout by a rule and proportion which the Justices thought wrong; and therefore they could not amend, and could do nothing but quash the whole."-The order of Session confirmed.*

* Cald. Ca. 105.

Z

We now come to consider the last point

What per

sons and

property liable.

alone, viz. What
ble to be rated.

persons, and

property, are lia

These we see are described by the statute to be" Every Inhabitant, parson, vicar, and other; and of every occupier of lands, houses, tithes impropriate, &c. coal mines, or saleable underwoods in the said parish." So that Inhabitancy, Occupation, and Locality, form the foundations of rateability; and the rate ought to be made according to the visible estate of the inhabitants both real and personal, but none is to be taxed to contribute to the relief of the poor in one place, on account of the estate he has elsewhere in any other town or place, but only in regard to the visible estate he has in the town where he is rated; and, as has been frequently said by the Court, where personal property is rated, it must be local visible property within the parish.

But although a person dwell in another pa rish, yet in whatever parish he has lands in his proper possession, "he is there," says Lord Coke," in law a parishioner; for the place where he lies, sleeps, or eats, does not make him a parishioner there only; but as he occupies lands elsewhere, that makes him also elsewhere a parishioner as to this purpose; for if he should not be charged for those lands which he himself occupies, then no person would be charged with them, and it might happen that