276
* and adorning of landed estates. Expediencies here clash, and‘ the subject is confessedly of great delicacy. Farmers, no doubt,
* are apprized of their situation, and, in their calculations of dis-‘ count must make allowance for risks, whether more constant‘ or occasional. Meanwhile, I have stated the matter in the« strongest point of view, as there can be no harm in reminding< hunters of the very particular situation in which the very va-
* luable farming stock of the country is placed,—a circumstance‘ perhaps too apt to be forgotten in the ardour of the chase.
‘ Game seems now, by the latest decisions, to be considered
* as property, or at least, that the property of another cannot be
* rendered subservient to the use of starting game in it, or of
* following game through it; and it is thus happily in the powerf of the proprietor of the lands to exclude all privileged hunters,
‘ whose rashness might render them more regardless of risk upon
* the property of another, where they have less interest in the‘ tenant’s thriving. ’
Burdens affecting the leaseholder deserve consideration, in re-gard to their effect upon agricultural industry.
Taxation, laid equally and proportionally upon real income, isundoubtedly the fairest of all, and, if fairly and impartially le-vied, could discourage no kind of industry in particular, as noperson would refrain from bettering his own circumstances, thathe might thereby impoverish the public treasury. But the pre-sent system of taxing the imputed, as the real income of Scots leaseholders, must be extremely unequal. At next period ofleasing, no doubt, offerers will be in a state to consider the taxpaid upon rent, as, in effect, an addition to the rent; their offerswill be proportionably less, and the tax will turn out merely atax of 1 5 per cent, upon land.
Taxes upon gross produce of land are of the very worst con-stitution of taxes, because they cannot be proportioned to profitor real income, as the worst land requires always equal, oftengreater, expense of culture than the best, whilst the return mustafter all prove greatly inferior.
Tythe of produce is, in this view, as well as in various otherrespects, an ill constituted tax, more expensive to the payers thanprofitable to the receivers ; highly discouraging to agriculturalindustry, and more particularly to the cultivation of lands of in-ferior quality. From this tax, at least in shape of a tax upongross produce, the lands of Scotland are entirely exempted. E v ^ rsince the decree-arbitral of Charles I. in 1629, as confirmed byact of Parliament in 1633, it hath been in the power of everyScots proprietor of land to have had the tythe of his lands valuedand fixed for ever, at one-fifth part of the actual free rent at thetime of valuation, and also to purchase his tythe from the layimpropriator, or titular of the teinds, (the tythe having never, inany part, been in the possession of the Reformed Clergy), at t aC ‘