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5
A new item has fur the Inst two years appeared in the
accounts of the Board, although not properly included in their
expenditure, viz., the contribution of the District to the expenses
of the School Hoard for London, and of the Elections of its
members, amounting in the present year to £1704 15s. 8d.
An important question—as affecting the finances of the
Heard—was raised in the early part of the year by the South
Eastern Railway Company; having regard to the great extent
of land within this District for agricultural purposes, it was long
recognized by the Board as a grievance to the occupiers of land
that they should be charged under the General Purpose Rate
to very heavy expenses incurred almost exclusively for the benefit
of householder; the Hoard therefore resolved in May, 1870,
under the advice of counsel, that they would exercise the provisions
of the 159th section of the Metropolis Management Act,
1855, as regarded expense of the following character, viz., dust
collecting, road watering, kerbing, channelling, and paving footpaths,
and general improvements of a permanent character, and
that the money required for such purposes should be raised by
rates, in which "land used as arable, meadow, or pasture ground
only, or as woodlands, orchard, market-ganlen, hop, herb, flower,
fruit, or nursery grouud," should be assessed in the proportion of
one-fourth part only of its nett annual value; thus placing land
so occupied on the same footing as with respect to sewerage
expenses, and redressing the grievance complained of by the
farmers and other occupiers of land in the District.
The South Eastern Railway Company claim to be rated for
their lines of railway on the lower scale, and at the Kent Quarter
Sessions in April, 1872 they appealed against the rate; it was,
however, confirmed, subject to a case for the opinion of the Court
of Queen's Bench, and although the Company has not yet set
the case down for hearing, the question raised has not been
abandoned.
The same Company has also raised a similar question as to
their chargeability to the Lighting Rate, and the importance of
the questions at issue will at once be apparent when it is recollected
that the rateable value of the railways in the District is
upwards of £50,000, or nearly one-fourth the value of the
entire rateable property.