The Sun.
London, England, 1870-02-09 00:00:00

CHAMBER OF AGRICULTURE.

•T'he monthly meeting of the Central Council of the
Chamber of Agriculture was held on Tuesday at the Salisbury
Hotel, Salisbury-square, Colonel Tomlin in the chair. The
minutes of the last meeting having been confirmed,and other
formal business transacted, Sir M. Lopes, M.P., presented
the report of the Local Taxation Committee. It stated that
the prize of £5O for the best essay on "The injustice,
inequalities, and anomalies of the present Poor-rate
Assessment, and of incidence of other local burdens

of England and Wales," had been adjudi-
cated to Mr. C. F. Gardener, 8.A., of 10, St.
Michael's-terrace, Stoke Danierel, Devonport. Mr.
Read, M.P., proposed that a deputation on the -malt tax
should be organised at the council meeting in March, to
wait on the Chancellor of the Exchequer. The motion
was seconded and passed.—Mr. Jabez Turner; of
Peterborough, Introduced the first subject. "The best
mode of providing for the future maintenance of
Turnpike Trusts and Highways." He moved a resolution
which declared for the abolition of all turnpike trusts
simultaneously, and for either a reform of the
rating system, or part payment of road ex-
penditure cut of the Imperial Revenue---so that
the burden of the future maintenance of the
turnpikes should not fall from the present users of
the road to the holders of rateable property. The motion
being seconded, Major Wilson, of West Suffolk, spoke as a
member of a highway board, in favour of a Highway Act.
He warned the Council, however, against asking the
Government to pay a portion of the maintenance of turn-
pike roads, because it would only lead to the appointment
of more Government inspectors, of whom they had
enough already. Each parish should maintain its own
j roads. Other speakers feared that there was a
danger in adopting the policy of abolishing turnpike
trusts of acting on a system of repudiation of public debts,
which would shake public confidence.—Sir George Jenkin-
son, M.P., proposed an amendment. It set forth
that the abolition of trusts was mixed up with
the question of local taxation; but the present
system of partial abolition ought to be put an eud to;
therefore legislation should enact :—" (I.) That the abolition
of
all remaining trusts should be immediate and simul-
taneous. (2.) That the Highway Act should be made
compulsory."—Mr. Andrews seconded the amendment.—
After someobservations from Mr. Neville-Grenville, M.P.,
Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen, M.P., Under-Secretary for the
Home Department, addressed the meeting. The right
hon. gentleman said he desired to tell them, without
waiting until the question was put in Parliament, that a
mistake had been spread abroad by the newspapers. A
promise had been given by the Government that this sub-
ject should be considered in the forthcoming session ; but
unfortunately it had happened to the present Government,
as to many previous Governments, to find that when they
approached the time for performance that everything
they bad promised could not be done. He had urged
strongly upon the Government the importance of this ques-
tion, but he had not been authorised to propose to Parliament
a measure, the provisions of which were in his mind. He
should have thought the worse of the Government for nob
giving him that authority were it not for an announcement
made in the Queen's Speech that during the session the ques-
tion of rating would be considered, and a measure proposed.
Speaking as a private member, the right hon. gentleman
did not think it possible to abolish turnpike trusts simulta-
neously ; there were so many in debt, and the arrangements
Of others were so complicated. He did not think either that
any Chancellor of the i-Exchequer could with any
hope of success propose to pay the turnpike
trusts out of the Imperial funds. He hetievod
the best solution would be to
,adopt a general
rule that highway districts should support all the roads
within their district ; and that the charges should be borne
by a common, and not by a parochial, f and. Such
roads should be excluded as evidently ought fairly to be
chargeable upon a wider area, and roads in mineral coun-
tries used principally by owners of quarries. On the
latter, perhaps, turnpikes might properly be erected.
These points should be determined, not by Government
inspectors, but by persons connected with the country.—
Mr. Read, M.P., suggested that, after the statement of
Mr. Hugessen, the resolutions before the meeting had
better. be postponed.—Accordingly, the resolutions and
Sir George Jenkinson's amendments were withdrawn.

THE DERWENTWATER CLAIMS. Proceedings'
nave commenced against the " Countess of Derwentwatee
in the form of a county court action, to recover from Mr,
Henry Brown the sum of £5O, for the seizing of
cattle at South Newlands Farm. The action came
on on Monday at Slictley Bridge. The Countess's
summons had not been served in time, so she obtains
a brief respite. The hearing of the summonses is, there-
fore, postponed. A "defence fund" has been inaugurated
amongst these who are implicated in the late illegal pro-
ceedings. The public excitement has considerably abated.
It is strange that nothing should have been done to
establish or overthrow the claims of noble birth,
which Amelia Radcliffe puts forward. Her arguments
ate said to be as follows :--1. That John (the son of
James, the executed third earl) did not die unmarried in
1731, but was married on the Oth August, 1740, to
Elizabeth Arabella Maria, Countess of Walsteinc, &c., at
Frankfort-on-the-Maine. 2. That the said John had a
family, and was buried at Aschaffenburg in 1793. 3. That
his two sons, James and John James the last-named being
the father of the present (Countess Amelia) were in succes-
sion, buried at Aschaffenburg in 1816 and 1833. It may
be reasonably presumed that the Admiralty authorities do
not consider it necessary to refute these claims, or else it
appears an easy matter to examine the marriage and
burials registers of the above dates, at Frankfort and
Aschaffenburg,