Note 43 — Chapter XVII · THE “ALABAMA” CLAIMS.

Sir Massey Lopes desired that the cost of administering justice, and the Lunacy and Police Acts—then charged on the rates—should be thrown on the Consolidated Fund, i.e., transferred from the ratepayer to the tax-payer. The county members on both sides objected to the whole system of rating which fell not on personal, but real property, and which threw on rates the cost of doing work which was done not merely for the locality, but for the community at large. The Ministry maintained that it was impossible to give effect to Sir Massey Lopes’ ideas till the whole question of Local Government and Rating was taken up and settled on a sound basis.