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LOCAL TAXATION IN COPENHAGEN.

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its maximum rate are close to their end. Truly a remarkable faet is this, that Copenhagen has been able to adapt its outlay to its resources in so large a degree, those resources being beyond the power of the taxing authority to inerease. There is nothing corresponding to the levy of an extra penny in the pound by our rating authorities which is possible to Copenhagen. Yet its development has not been crippled by stinting outlay, and its debt stands at an extremely moderate figure. To have obtained so mueh from a revenue which they could not enlarge certainly speaks well for the administration of the city. TEat the revenue has expanded is a mark of its growing prosperity, and thus obviously the municipal revenue gains from the pros­ perity of the citizens, towards which the municipal administra­ tion has contributed in no small degree. A comparison of the distribution and weight of the burdens of local taxation in Copenhagen and Manchester, beyond the amounts per head levied in the two cities which have been already given, seems almost impossible. I do not propose to attempt it here, but I may say briefly that, so far as I am able to judge, the wealthy Citizen pays more to the city’s expenses there than if he were charged a rate on the annual value of his house, such as to raise the same amount of tax-revenue. More­ over, there is no question of throwing off the burden due by him personally in his quality of citizen, while a levy is made on the non-resident owner of property in the city to cover Kis interest in the city’s welfare. Even if the burden of the floor- tax fall wliolly on the tenant, the property-owner has not been left out. The operation of competition may equalise burdens as between tenants and landlords in England, but it may not. The use of more than one measure of contribution due is, I venture to suggest, desirable from almost all points of view except that of the convenience of the assessing authority. The collecting may be carried out in combination, just as gas and water rentals and rates might conceivably be collected by one and the same set of collectors at quarterly intervals. Before I conclude, I must be allowed to express my deep