The Equity of Local Rates 171 
claim, often made, though with far less influential 
backing, by the localities in which “ onerous” rates 
are heaviest against those in which they are lighter. 
The ratepayers in the heavier-rated localities are apt 
to complain that it is unfair” that they should have 
to pay a much higher rate for a “national service” 
than some other place of more ability. So far as the 
mere occupier of other persons’ property is concerned, 
the complaint is clearly an empty one, since about 
half the occupiers in most rateable areas,! and often a 
larger proportion, have immigrated into the area and 
voluntarily made themselves subject to its taxation. 
The high rates of a highly-rated district undoubtedly 
tend to deter population and business from settling in 
it, and this means that they will not settle in it unless 
the owners charge less than they would if the rates 
were lower. If the rates were reduced, the owners 
would be able to charge more for their properties. Con- 
sequently these high rates are at bottom an owners’ 
grievance, and to any complaint against them on the 
ground of equity it may be answered, as before, that 
property has been bequeathed and inherited, bought 
and sold, and made the subject of innumerable con- 
bracts on the assumption that the inequalities of rates 
existed and would remain in existence. A man who 
buys property cheap in Stoke Regis because of the 
high rates there, and then demands that his rates 
should be made level with those of Pedlington, where 
he sold property dear because of the low rates, is 
little better than a thief. If an owner says in answer 
to this that as a matter of fact he has held the same 
property since 1369, and has seen the education rate 
1 See below, p. 181.