194 History of Local Rates 
have a number of differentiations for different kinds 
of expense. The greater harmony of interest which 
might be secured by this method would be dearly 
bought by the complications of finance which it would 
introduce. Different classes must put up with trifling 
discrepancies in particular cases of expenditure if they 
get equality on the whole. The question is, then, 
whether one single differentiation should be applied to 
the whole of the ‘beneficial ” expenditure, and in 
attempting to answer it the best plan seems to be to 
assume a flat rate to start with, and ask what case 
there is for partial exemption. 
Railway lines (not including stations, sidings, &c.) 
and canals (not including wharves, &c.) should be 
entirely or almost entirely exempted,! inasmuch as 
they add nothing except, perhaps, a. very trifling 
expense for police to the cost of localities through 
which they run, and receive no benefit from local 
expenditure. Stations, of course, are in quite a 
different position. The existence of a railway station 
always adds considerably to local expenditure, and 
the local expenditure benefits the owners. The case 
for agricultural land is not ‘so strong, though it is 
also in some measure a good one. In a purely rural 
district the agricultural land causes all the local 
authority’s expense for ‘ beneficial” purposes. and 
gets all the benefit that results. To give it a partial 
exemption can make no difference there. But there 
are few, if any, purely rural districts, and in most 
mixed districts of a stationary character it is fairly 
! This is, of course; intended to indicate the general principle. It 
does not mean that existing lines-should all receive the exemption 
without any equivalent being exacted,