Cases. R. v. The London Railway Co. curred, but, from the nature of things, it may be safely said, never can occur. The supposition of a lease of a portion of the railway, and South Western without a demise of the stations, warehouses, and approaches to it, or, at all events, some provision for the use of them, is merely absurd; such a lessee would be a mere toll-collector for the company, without even, as it should seem, any convenient mode of collecting the toll. The supposition, again, of a free competition of carriers on the same railway, is practically little else than absurd: if all difficulties were removed as to the stations, warehouses, landing-places, and approaches, and all these were supposed as much laid open to the public as the railway itself, the very nature of the mode of conveyance forbids a free competition of rival carriers. But how can we suppose any competition possible with the company now the carriers, or, indeed, any free use of the railway, even by a private carriage, the company retaining the independent occupation and control over all the existing approaches? Nay, a lease which should include the stations and warehouses and approaches, and place the lessee, as to extent of occupation, in the same position exactly in which the company now are, would not be without its difficulties; for the company's act is framed, whether quite effectually or not, with some regard to the interest of the public, as well as the company. The travelling and conveyance by carriages drawn or propelled by locomotive engines, are attended with peculiar and very alarming risks; many regulations of police, therefore, are enacted, which the company are charged to enforce; and it is very questionable whether their lessee could be their delegate as to this trust; while it is certain that the company, out of possession, could not discharge the duty so conveniently or perfectly as they now can. These are considerations which make us pause in giving our assent to the argument which suggests them. The proviso in stat. 6 & 7 Will. 4, c. 96, declares that the principles of rating are not to be altered or affected by it; it is therefore important to consider, how, under the circumstances stated in the case, the company would have been rated if that act had not passed. They would then have been found occupying buildings and lands on an entire line of railway, and carrying on a trade not merely therein and thereon, but thereby,-a trade inseparately connected with such buildings and such lands; a trade that could have no existence without the buildings and lands, and but for which the buildings would not have been erected or occupied, and for the sake of which, in great measure, the lands themselves are occupied in a particular manner. Cases. R. v. The London The profits of this trade would be included in the fares received for conveyance of goods and passengers; and the question would be, whether these profits ought in any, or what degree, to affect and South Western the rateable value of the lands and buildings. There is a class of cases often cited, which has established the principle on which this question is to be answered: we allude, among others, to Rex v. St. Nicholas, Gloucester, (Cald. 263; S. C., 1 T. R. 723, note (a), and Rex v. Bradford, (4 M. & S. 317). In the first, a steelyard, part of a machine in a street leading by a house, was in the house; sums were paid by persons for weighing their wagons and carts, but these persons were not compellable to weigh them: without these profits, the house was worth 51. a year; these profits were worth about 40%.; and these, after due deductions, were included in the rate, as enhancing the rateable value of the house. The Court thought rightly so. Lord Mansfield considered the house and machine as one entire thing: "The principal purpose of the house," said he, "is for weighing. The steelyard is the most valuable part of the house." 66 If," said Willis, J., "a billiard-table stands in a house, and the house should, in respect of such table, let at a higher sum, it is rateable, while the table continues there, and it is so let at the advanced rent." Buller, J., said, "There is an extraordinary profit arising from the modification of the enjoyment. The only question, therefore, is, whether a man shall be rated for the property he has? If a house to-day is let for 301. per annum, and to-morrow, if turned into a shop, would let for 50%., when it is turned into a shop, it shall be rated at 501." The Court clearly regarded neither the nature of the source of profit nor its permanence: they looked only to the existing value of the subject-matter of the rate, the house, and rated it according to that value. This principle had become so well established by the time Rex v. Bradford (4 M. & S. 317) came before the Court, that it was there sought, not to deny, but to evade it, by demising the canteen, and the privilege of using it as such, and selling liquors therein, at two distinct rents, in the hope of successfully contending that the rate should be on the rent for the house only. The Court, however, looked to the substance, not to the form, and held both sums to be parts of one entire rent, paid for the occupation of the house and the enjoyment of the advantages which for the time belonged to it, and for the time enhanced its value. As in the former case, people might cease to weigh at the engine, or the engine might be removed, so in this the barrack might cease to be occupied, Railway Co. Cases. the customers be all removed, the license to sell liquors might be withheld or forfeited; still, while these remained, and so the addiand South Western tional value was sustained, that value, it was held, must come into R. v. The London Railway Co. the rate; and, as Le Blanc, J., expressly said, this was not rating the canteen man in respect of the profits of his trade, but only of the rent which he paid. The occupation of the house was, indeed, necessary for the earning of the profits of the trade, but the house became more valuable, because it enabled the profits to be earned: how it became valuable, the overseers were not to inquire; finding it so, they were to rate the occupier according to that value. We are now to consider a case on which much reliance was placed by the appellants; it has always been considered a leading one, and, we think, will not, on examination, be found to conflict with the preceeding, we mean Rex v. The Trustees of the Duke of Bridgewater, (9 B. & C. 68). The question there was simply this: whether, when the other occupiers of lands in the parish were rated on four-fifths, not of the actual value, but of their rents taken as the value, the appellants ought, being the owners as well as the occupiers of land covered by water, and used as a canal, and from which the case found they derived no profit, except from the tonnage of goods carried on it, to be rated at four-fifths of the gross receipts of such tonnage. The Court determined, as might have been expected, that equal allowances must be made in both cases; the rent, the sum at which the land will let, is the proper criterion; but the rent, they said, "is not supposed" here "to be the value of the land or of its produce, minus the expense of producing it; but the value, after deducting the expenses of cultivation, and of the farmer's subsistence." On this supposition, it is clear the rate was unequal. This was all that was decided; the trustees were also rated as the occupiers of warehouses, &c., adjacent to the canal; but as to these, by arrangement, no question was to come before the Court; and they were also carriers on their own canal, and received freight, as such, for goods carried, on which the tonnage was included in the rate on the canal. The question being thus confined to the canal, and the trustees, as carriers, merely using it as any other persons might and did, their characters of occupiers of land and carriers were quite distinct; the tonnage strictly represented their profits in the one, the freight their profits in the other: these last were unconnected with the land, did not add to its value, and, therefore, were properly excluded from the rate. Let now the principle which these cases established be applied to the facts before us. If we wish to know whether the fares would have been properly included in the rate before the Assessment Act passed, we apprehend, that, according to the principle, the only question to be asked would be-do they increase actually the value of the buildings and lands on which the rate is to be made? If they do, and to whatever extent they do, to that extent, due allowances always being supposed, they must, directly or indirectly, be included. It would be no answer to say, that, by the law, the railway is a highway; that all the world may carry goods and passengers on it; that it is an accident that the company alone monopolise all the trade, and that their monopoly may cease to-morrow. These circumstances, so far as they lessened the value of the buildings and lands, would be proper to be taken into the account as to the quantum of the rate; but they would not affect the principle. Then, do the fares increase the value of the buildings and lands? No one can doubt,—indeed the case has answered that they do,—that a higher rent for the buildings and lands might be obtained, in consequence of the facility afforded by the occupation of them to the carrying on of a lucrative trade, and earning the profits on those fares. The case thus supposed would be exactly the same in principle as that of the house and engine, the house and billiard-table, the house converted into a shop, the canteen; and it would be distinguished from the canal case, because there, by agreement, the warehouses, &c., were laid out of consideration: the trustees were, in fact, only carriers, in common with all the world; and to the extent by which their trade on the canal did augment the value of the canal, it was brought into account. But it will be observed, that, so far, we have supposed lands and buildings, the railway and the stations, &c., all in one parish, and included in one rate will it make any difference in the principle, that the railway is in more parishes than one, and that we are now dealing with a parish in which, so far as appears, there is no station-house or other appendage to the railway? We think not: the subject-matter of the rate in any particular parish is, no doubt, the beneficial occupation of the land there, and you cannot draw into the rate the value of the occupation of buildings elsewhere; yet, as you are to rate on the value in the parish, however occasioned, you cannot strike off any portion, because it would not have existed but for the occupation of buildings in another parish: still it exists, and in the parish, and, therefore, cannot escape the rate there. Suppose A. B. occupying an entire tenement as an inn in two parishes, C. Cases. R. v. The London and South Western Railway Co. Cases. R. v. The London and South Western Railway Co. and D., the lodging part of the building in C., and the tap and stables in D.; there would be two rates: but could the owner say, in C., "True it is, that which I occupy here is, de facto, more valuable than a mere dwelling or boarding-house, but that is, in a great measure, because it is connected with the tap and stables in D.: you must reject whatever is referable to that connexion, and rate me here as if I occupied an inn without tap or stable: you must suppose a demise only of the part in C., and rate upon a rent to be given only for what that demise would pass to me?" The answer would be, "If the occupation of this part is, in fact, of a certain increased value,— whether that increase be derived in part or in the whole from the other is immaterial,-wherever the valuable occupation is, there the occupier must be rated in respect of it." Then, in the present case, it would become a question of fact: is the land occupied in the respondent parish by the railway more valuable, in fact, to the occupier, by reason of its occupation, together with the stations, &c., elsewhere, and the general purposes to which all together are applied? We suppose, that, without doubt, this would be answered in the affirmative: sever it from them, and three or four miles of railway, unapproachable, leading from and to no place, having no connexion with any termini, would be absolutely useless and unproductive give them the connexion which, in fact, exists, you give them a value increased indirectly from the stations, warehouses, and portions of the entire line in other parishes, and directly by the general traffic, to the profits derived from which everywhere they are indispensable contributors, and one part of which they directly earn. We are thus led to the conclusion, that, if this case had been to be considered before the passing of the Parochial Assessment Act, the principle of rating on which the respondents have proceeded would have been found the true one: has, then, the statute made any difference in this respect? Now, without having recourse to the express language of the proviso in the statute, it is clear that the enacting part introduced no new principle of rating. From the time of the decision of the case of Rex v. The Trustees of the Duke of Bridgwater, (9 B. & C. 68), before referred to, it had been understood generally, that, fraud apart, the rent, whether the occupier was the owner or only the tenant, in the former case a supposed, in the latter, a real rent was to be the criterion of rateable value. Both parties, in the present case, appeal equally to this criterion; the difference between them is (there being no real demise), what is to be brought |