The Express.
London, England, 1853-06-30 00:00:00

TO I UIiIiESPONLIENTS.

A veci.nd Edittan rf "The Vapeera,' eontaia!ne tea ram evening's
te ',unlinked every Tateday sad Friday eight, in Ulna
lat post.
• ivisent• la:ended .or Eapreea." London Evening paper,
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HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.
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LONDON, THURSDAY, JUNE 30.

IN the order of business in the House of Commons
for this day stands the Succession Duty Bill. The
measure—so far as it goes—is one of mere justice ;
for there is no possible reason (except that
the landed interest is strong and fractious) why
landed property should not bear precisely the same
rate of taxation on its transmission as is borne by
other kinds of property. In fact, the Succession Tax,
now for the first time to be imposed on land, is so
arranged that it will amount only to one-half the
burden to which all personal estate has long been
subject; and the manner in which the landowners
in the Legislature resist this modified taxation—this

placing of the slightest burden on the strongest—in-
evitably provokes an examination of the grounds for
taxing real property at a lower rate than personalty.
Though there are cues in which a tax on succession
acts with some severity on individual interests,
such a tax is by no means open to the same objec-
tion as many of our fiscal burdens arc open to.
The worst case is where all the capital of a deceased
person is employed in a business of which the suc-
cessful prosecution mainly depended on his skill and
activity. Such a capital, when it devolves to his
children or other relatives, may not be used so effec- ,
tively, and may not be aided by the same energy
and tact as when in the hands of the deceased ,
owner. Yet that would occur in the event of a
father retiring from business and giving up his capi-
tal employed in it; and the succession tax is paid on
the value of the capital only, not on the value
of an annuity calculated upon the income
derived by the deceased from the combination
lof his capital and skill. In any other
instance the tax on successions conforms to most op-
I proved economical laws; it is "levied at the time and
in the manner in which it is most likely to be con•
venient for the contributor to pay it;" and it fulls
due " when he is most likely to have wherewithal to
pay." It is, morecvcr, a tax easily collected and at
little cost. Confining our remarks, at present, to
personal property—we shall see hereafter whether
there is any real difference as regards real estate—
when can a man so conveniently pay one, two, or
even ten per cent. upon the succession to 1001.,
1,0001., or 100,0001., as when he first succeeds to it?
The tax is then a deduction from property he has
never enjoyed. He has formed no habits of expense de-
pendent on the income of his newly-acquired property,
be it a mere pittance or enormous wealth. His
sole objection to the tax then must be that he would
rather not pay it,—that he would prefer to receive his
legacy entire. But that applies to all taxation ;
nobody likes to pay taxes. The man who pays tax
on a succession pays it not, however, out of his own
means, but as a deduction from that property into
the enjoyment of which he is about to enter. How
otherwise could a tax be paid either at a time or in a
manner so likely to be convenient to the tax-payer?
And this is equally true in whatever form the pro-
perty subsists. Be it invested in the funds, or on
mortgage, or in shares, or employed in trade, or con-
sist of specific chattels, the succession tax is simply a
deduction from the yet unenjoyed succession. Poe-
sibly in many instances it may be highly advantageous
mot to disturb the actual investment of the property.
The new owner may wish not to call in a well-secured
and beneficial mortgage, or to sell the railway shares
or debentures, for the sake of taking out of the
capital the tax payable on his succession. What
then does he do ? Why, he borrows the amount of
the tax on the security of the property if he is abso-
lute owner, or pays it out of the income if he does
not possess the complete ownership. In either ease
he pays the tax on the full amount of his interest
in it; if absolute owner on the value of the property ;
if life-owner on the full value of his life interest.

Let us see in what respect landed property differ*
from personal estate, which in contemplation of law
includes all leaseholds, as the subject of a succession
tax. The objections raised by the landowners to
equal taxation, when equality adds to their burdens,
are innumerable. It would throw upon trustees for
landowners most onerous duties to disclose the suc-
cessions which formed the occasion of, and the pro-
perty liable to, the tax ; the enactments necessary to
prevent the evasion of the tax by fraudulent—in

fact, pretended—transfers from the landowner in
1 possemion to the landowner in reversion, would
"shock the moral feelings" of the class; that from
the complications in which landowners involve their
property by means of settlements, jointures, life
annuities, charges for younger children, remainders,
and the like—there would be such a frequent accrual
of some duty on a succession, their trustees and them-
selves would be involved in trouble, and would have
to employ a solicitor ; that if numerous deaths should
occur in a family, the estate might have to bear fre-
quent repetitions of the succession duty; and
much more of an equally inconclusive nature.
Sir JouN PAKINGTON roundly declared that to
tax landed property by means of a succession tax
was plunder, robbery, and so forth ; and a
desperate struggle took place to exempt the value
of the timber on an estate from all liability to
the tax.

Undoubtedly some part of this opposition has been
brought upon the CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER
by his attempts to conciliate the landowners by con-
cessions and exemptions. A new mode of estimating
the value of " rateable property " for the pur-
poses of the succession duty is to be established,
by the effect of which the ad valorem tax
payable on a succession to land will be
' about one-half the amount payable on per-
sonal property. The time afforded to landowners for
payment is extended over eight years, and all sorts
of minor advantages are afforded for reducing the
valuation of the estate to which a succession has
taken place to the lowest rate. There is really no
reason why in every case of succession to land the
full value of the interest of the new owner should
not be taxed, as personal property has so long been
taxed, and the measure of that value should be its
worth for sale in the market. If my Lord A. or Sir
John IL and Squire C. find it conducive to their
dignity or convenience to erect or maintain stately
mansions, surrounded by pleasure-grounds, garden.,
deer parks, forests, and the like, and to retain fine
masses of ornamental and other timber on their

estates, why should not the full market value
of such possessions .be charged on the oc-
currence of a succession to any of these
costly inheritances? These stately luxuries have a
market value, and should be paid for accordingly.
The leasehold villa of the merchant or tradesman has
long been taxed at its true value for probate ant
legacy duties, although great part of that value may
consist of objects analogous to ornamental timber.
Nor would there have been any practical difficulty is
requiring immediate payment of the succession duty
payable on land. The person succeeding to land sr
any interest in it, comes into the enjoyment of pro-
' perty not before possessed, and whether the operation
of the tax be to abstract a part of the estate or to
lessen for a time the income derivable from it, he
suffers no greater hardship than has always bees
incident to the succession tax on personal property.
lie would pay out of property he is about to
enjoy. Nothing would bo taken from that
which constituted his existing source of income,
or enjoyment. Had the full amount of the succes-
sion tax been made immediately payable, the new
owner might have been authorised to sell a sufficient
part of the land to raise the amount of the tax, and
land thus sold might have had the benefit of a Par.
liamentary title, so that the purchaser need not go
into, and the landowner would not be burdened with,
any investigation of title. It might have been seeds
sufficient that the land was sold to pay auseweisse
duty to communicate an indefeasible title to the par-
chaser. Or, instead of selling part of the estate, a
power might have been given to raise the amount
of the tax of a terminable annuity, extending over,
say, fifteen or ',twenty years, in the same way as
public money drainage loans are repayable; and thus
the immediate payment of the tax having been pro-
vided for, the estate would, by means of the termi-
nable annuity, be ultimately cleared. And various
other modes might be suggested for raising at once
out of landed property the amount of the succession
duty.
Instead, therefore,of offering any factious and selfish
opposition to the modified and too lenient scheme of
the CIIANCLLLOR of the EXCHEQUER, the land-
owners ought to have borne, with decent de-
meanour, that approach to an equality of taxation
they are now about to be subjected to for the first time.
They should have recollected that they are still
exempt from probate duty, which personal property
bears in addition to the succession tax, and that far
such exemption not a shadow of reason or justice
can be urged. They should bear in mind that
all the difficulties of detail they urge so passionately
in Parliament are caused, so far as they
have any reality, not from the nature of
the property to be taxed—for there is no more diffi-
culty in raising legacy duty from a freehold farm
than from a leasehold manufactory—but from the
complex system of settlements and entails, by which,
for their own objects of pride or feeling, the land-
owners of this country have trammelled their estates.
Nothing can speak more plainly the moderation with
which our great industrial interests seek to redress
the inequalities of taxation created by a Legislature
of landlords in their own favour than the steady sup-
port all the representatives of popular constituencies
have afforded to the Government Succession Duties
Bill.

That measure is not one of restitution, as might
have fairly been demanded; it does not even place
the future burden of taxation equally on the two
kinds of property, real and personal; but because it
contains an admission of the principle of justice, and
affords an approach towards equal taxation, all the
representatives of the industrious communities of the
country rally round the Government in its support.
This is a lesson which the PAIINGTONS and other in-
discreet landowners, who cry out " robbery," when
they are called on to contribute some portion of
their fair share towards the expenses of thel/4,6tate,
would do well to study.

THE price of wheat in Mark-lane rose on Monday
from ls. to 2s. per quarter ; at the same time France,
which has sent us large supplies of wheat and flour
in the course of the last three years, has become a
purchaser of the cargoes intended for our market.
The autumn was an unfavourable seed time; the
winter and the spring have been long and dreary;
the summer seems setting in wet, and our prospects
are such as to make us look at our stocks and the
probable sources of our future supplies.
For some time past there has been a drain of corn
for the neighbouring continent, and we may not ex-
pect much from there. The stocks are short, the
prospects from the Vistula to the Garonne are un-
promising, and the consumption is everywhere extra-
ordinarily large. Throughout France and the
greater part of Germany trade is flourishing
in the same manner as here, though not to
the same extent, and the demand for food is
great. Flour has risen within a short time consi-
derably in Paris; the stock, that has hitherto been
large in the capital, is dwindling rapidly away ; for
the same means that brings the supplies from a great
distance,—the rail,—brings the more distant parts of
France, when destitute, to Paris for a supply ; and
flour is now dearer in Paris than in London. From
France we have latterly obtained from 1,500,000
quarters to 2,000,000 quarters of grain, or flour
measured as grain, annually, and that source of sup-
ply is for the moment dried up. At the same time con.
gumption here is very great. There was imported last
month no less than 525,236 quarters of wheat, be-
sides 341,964 cwts. of flour; the wheat being a larger
quantity than has been imported, except on two oc-
casions, in any one month, since the Corn
Laws were repealed ; and all that quan-
tity was immediately taken into consumption.
In fact, the rising prices show that, large as was the
quantity, it was not one grain too much. From the
north of Europe we shall get but little. The politi-
cal proceedings of Russia threaten our supplies from
Odessa; from Egypt, according to the latest circu-
lars, the sale of wheat and beans had been stopped
by the Government, and there is " no private-trade
grain " coming forward, or expected. The possibi-
lity of war may put a stop to the imports from the
Levant; and we have thus a prospect of both a defi-
cient and late harvest at home, and curtailed sup-
plies from abroad. The time is coming when Free
Trade will be strongly tested, and we must take care not
to run under a full and flowing sail into the breakers
of scarcity. The subject is one of great interest, no-
thing less than how the people are to be fed, but it is
not for the State to take the matter up. When the
State has set trade free and given all the protection in
its power to the property and the operations of the
merchants, it has done its part, and it must leave
the duty of supplying the markets to the industry,
enterprise, and interest of individuals. It will find,
however, when we have to compete with France and
other countries for our supply, that the shilling duty it
still imposes on imported corn,—to which we have so
frequently referred,—will be a great impediment tol
our success, and a short ,harvest here and abroad
would probably compel the Ministry to remove that
trammel from trade. With the shilling duty, how- I
ever, for the moment we have no concern—we wish
chiefly to draw attention further to the supplies we
may receive from America.
We are promised, we are happy to say, a large
quantity of corn from Canada, and its expected ap-
pearance made the flour and wheat market dull at
Liverpool last week. This is one of the many unex-
pected and beneficial results of free trade. From the

The average growth of wheat in the States, though
increasing every year, is not above 13,000,000 qrs.
In the year ending June, 1850, it was 100,503,1 99
bushels, or 12,562,986 qrs. Now, there has already
been exported from the States since last September, ac-
cording to the circular of Messrs. lionEnts, BROTIMRS,
of New York, 2,285,016 barrels of flour, equivalent
to something more than 1,500,000 qrs. of wheat, and
4,000,036 bushels of wheat, together somewhat more
than 2,000,000 qrs., or nearly one-sixth, since last
h t, of the avenge crop of wheat grown in the
States Of that a considerable quantity was Canada
wheat, but as the exports of the present year exceed
the exports of last year to the tune of 1,838,737 brls.
of flour, and by 2,152,774 bushels of wheat, we may
infer that the suppliesyet to come from America of last
year's crop cannot be very large. We trust, however,
as the weather is said to be very favourable in
ICanada, it may also be favourable in the States, and
that an early and an abundant harvest there may
be the means of giving us a large future supply.
We know from the exsmple of the year 1847 that
when high prices tempt exportation, the large
quantity of maize which the Americans grow—in
1850 no less than 592,326,612 bushels, or upwards
of 74,000,000 quarters—enables them to dispense
with a large proportion of their growth of
wheat. Wo will not pretend to say, there-
Awe, what quantity we might get from the States
were prices to rise much above their present level;
and it is probably so great as to ensure us against
very high prices. We continually import from the
States large quantities of maize—since September
lest year no less than 1,479,994 bushels—and the
Immense quantity the Americans grow assures us
that if we cannot get wheat or flour from them, we
shall not want for food. Our Free Trade, however,
opens all the markets of the world to our merchants;
there is no place hardly from which we cannot, and
from which we do not, now obtain supplies of corn.
It the north of Europe shall have no stores
to send us, Egypt will probably have abundance; if
both these springs should be dry, America may over-
flow. And if the continent of' Europe, instead et
sending us breadstuffs, should want food, the trade we
have established all over the world will send some et,
the abundance our merchants are preparing for vs,
as at present, into its ports; and the Free Trade,
which some continental statesmen yet deride, and all
refuse to imitate, by encouraging production every-
where for our use, may save their subjects from
famine.