“I hope, however,” said Sarah, “some other tax that falls upon the poor will be taken off first. It is a pity that landlords should pay unequally for their windows; but I think it is far worse that the poor should pay as much for some things as any landlord. But I suppose these taxes will make your house worth more than it would be worth without them.” “In general, the value of houses must be raised by these taxes, because it will not be worth while to build till the ground-rent is high enough to pay the taxes as well as remunerate the landlord. But much depends upon situation, you see. The ground-rent of my new house is very low, because it stands in a situation that nobody cares about but myself; and the ground-rent of a house in the Strand is very high, because people bid against one another for the advantage of living in the Strand. If the taxes were taken off to-morrow, the value of the houses in the Strand would not be lowered till the Strand began to be deserted for some other great thoroughfare.” “But if the taxes were to be taken off to-morrow, the value of your house would be lowered.” “If I had not secured my bargain with the ground-landlord. If we were only beginning our negotiation, he would say, ‘You will be at so much less expense for your house than you calculated upon and can afford; and you must therefore pay me more for your ground.’ But Sarah knows that my house is too far advanced for any such speech to be made to me.” “Besides that the taxes remain.” “For how long? You know what an outcry there is about them in London?” “From landlords or tenants?” “From tenants chiefly;—from shopkeepers who will pocket the amount of tax for the time their leases have to run, and will then be just where they are now.” “But they ought not to be indulged, while so many worse burdens are pressing on a larger and more suffering class. They surely ought not to be indulged.” “Not as to the repeal of the house-tax, which is, if people would but examine and judge, perhaps the very best tax we have. But then, it wants to be equalized. The London shopkeepers are right enough in saying that. But its being unequally laid on is no reason for its being taken off altogether.” “How does it want to be made equal? between houses of a different rank in London? or between houses of the same rank in London and in the country?” “Chiefly between houses of a different rank, in London and in the country. It seems to me ridiculous to make such prodigious complaints as we hear about the enormous amount levied on London in comparison with the country. London may measure no more miles than there may be seen lying below my new house; but the property of London is more than our whole county; and the property on which the tax is levied is the question; not the space within which it is levied. The number of houses assessed in London and Middlesex is above 116,000; and in the county of Rutland 240.”