The Sun.
London, England, 1853-05-14 00:00:00

LEGACY DUTIES.-ADJOURNED DEBATE.

The house having resolved itself into committee of ways
and means, Mr. Bouverie in the chair, the following reso-
lution was read at the table :—" That, towards raising the
supply granted to her Majesty, the stamp duties payable
by law upon or for or in respect of legacies, shall be granted
and made payable ;upon and for every succession to the
beneficial enjoyment of any real or personal estate, or to
the receipt of any portion or additional portion of the in-
come or profits thereof, that may take place upon or in
consequence of the death of any person, under whatever
title, whether existing or future, such succession may be
derived."

The adjourned debate was resumed by
Sir JOHN PAKINGTON, who said he was desirous of
taking the earliest opportunity he could of expressing the
views he entertained upon this question. He considered
the proposal now before the committee to be, not only the
principal feature of the Ministerial budget, but one of the
most important financial propositions that had for a long
series of years been submitted to the country. He re-
gretted that further than that ho could not go with the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. He entertained the strongest
disapprobation of the proposal which the right honourable
gentleman had submitted to the committee; and as he had
not hitherto intruded upon the committee with regard to
the financial propositions of the Government, he hoped he
might now venture to request their attention while he, as
concisely and as clearly as he could, stated his reasons for
objecting to the legacy duty resolutions. He confessed he
was somewhat disappointed that the right honourable gen-
tleman, in his able speech last night, did not offer any ex-
planation whatever in regard to the machinery and the
means by which ho proposed to raise the contemplated
legacy duty. (Hear.) Perhaps the right hon. gentleman
adopted a judicious line of conduct in limiting himself to
the principle of his proposal, and inviting the committee
to confine themselves to the discussion of that principle.
He would strictly comply with the suggestion of the right
honourable gentleman' and would confine himself to a
statement of the objections which he entertained to the
principle of the proposed tax. The right honourable
gentleman, in his speech last night, stated several distinct
grounds upon which he was desirous of imposing that
tax upon the country, and the first he mentioned was—
that he would impose it to rectify the inequalities of the
income tax. Now, with the view he took of the financial
scheme of the right honourable gentleman, ho could not
for a moment recognise that as a ground upon which the
Chancellor of the Exchequer was justified in proposing
this tax. He was one of those who thought that the ,in-
come tax, as proposed, bore hardly and unfairly upon rate-
able property, and, therefore, he. could not for a single in-
stant acknowledge the right of the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer to impose any additional burdens upon rateable
property, by way of correcting certain inequalities,
which be said he conceived to exist. The next reason
which the right honourable gentleman stated was that he
thought the imposition of this succession duty would be
ono means of enabling him to part with the income tax in
1860. Now, he was one of those who professed himself
incredulous in regard to the termination of the income tax
in 1860 But what was the next reason which the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer stated in favour of his succession
tax ? Why, that it would enable him to go on with the
remission of indirect taxation. (Hear, hear.) Now, ho
appealed to the committee whether or not those two rea-
sons were consistent with the other—whether, if this duty
was imposed as a means of enabling the right honourable
gentleman to repeal indirect taxation, that did not at once
answer and confute the idea that it was imposed with the,
view of enabling the right honourable gentleman to dis-
pense with the income tax in 1860 ? (Hear, hear.) But
he now came to the fourth reason stated by the right hon.
gentleman, and, in his mind, by far the most important,
namely, that he.sought to impose this burden in order to
remove what he called the glaring anomaly of the present
law. (Cheers.) Well, he would endeavour fairly
the to
grapple with that argument, which he consideredtipde
be
ground upon which the whole question must be decided.
The right honourable gentleman said that it wouldnot
system
m-
possible to go on as we were ; that
that
eperoeucyt
might last for one or two years, but
pro-
ceed with the legacy duty upon its present footing. Why
ts lasted for 70
not ? The present system had at all e
years, the exact system now in o ratiovnenhad existed for
between 50 and 60 years, and thereforepe he could not see
that there was on that score any articular reason
lfeodrtao
change. But the right
.hon. rntleman appea
the authority of Mr. Pitt. o could not have made a
more unfortunate reference, for Mr. Pitt disclaimed his
argument. In the debates which t 'lc place on Mr. Pitt's
plan in 1796, the very argument was used which they now
found stated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, namely,
that because you impose a legacy duty upon personal pro-
perty, justice requires that you should impose it also upon
real property. The answer of Mr, Pitt that was, that he

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gentleman, upon which the es hole case must be decided,
namely, was this a just and fair tax, and one to which the
show that the glaring anomaly of which they had heard so
much did not exist ; that although the legacy duty was
now raised from personal property, and not from real pro-
perty, there were full equivalents on the other side; that
they could not with justice impose further burdens upon
rateable property ; and that if there was an anomaly in
the law at all, that anomaly told the other way, and pre-
vented the imposition of a succession tax upon real pro-
perty. His objections to the budget might be summed up
in very few words, though they were weighty and im-
portant. His objection to the budget was that it was
deficient in that impartiality and that equal justice to the
various great interests of the country to which every
finance minister was bound to adhere. The right hon.
gentleman himself would admit that a graver objection
could not be taken to his proposals. He did not impute
to the right hon. gentleman any intention to throw him-
self open to that objection, but he thought his budget was
fairly open to it. In the first place, he considered the
budget to be partial and unjust in its operation upon Ire-
land. Into that question he should not at present enter.
What was more germane to the question now before the
committee was, that he thought the budget was partial
and unjust in its bearing upon the landed interests and the
rateable property of this country. He based that opinion
upon the manner in which the right hon. gentleman the
Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to continue the in-
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other night and speak of the " noble and comprehensive"
plan of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and yet in the
same breath vow his opinion that the mode of levying
the income tax was unfair and unjust to the land,
that the proposed mode of levying this succession duty
was unjust and required correction, and that, generally
speaking, the budget bore hardly upon the great interests
connected with the land. He would ask the hon. baronet
how a financial plan could claim the credit of being " noble
and comprehensive," or how it could claim from English
gentlemen the character of being just and worthy of admi-
ration, if it was open to those objections which the hon.
baronet had himself urged against the propositions of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer, namely, that they were
partial and unjust in their operation ! (Hear, hear.) With
regard to the income tax, he did not understand by what
right the Chancellor of the Exchequer could seek to pro-
long it upon rateable property, which, upon his own show-
ing, paid at the rate of 9d. in the pound, while upon other
descriptions of property ho imposed only 7d. in the pound.
The statement of the right hon. gentleman was, that we
must either have a graduated tax or an equal tax; but we
had now neither the one nor the other. The honourable
gentleman professed to give us an equal tax. but upon his
own showing he actually gave us a tax which presed un-
fairly upon real roperty. Now, he was one of that perse-
cuted class, the country gentlemen. (A laugh) The right
honourable gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer
might smile ; but, he repeated, the country gentlemen had
reason to complain of the treatment they had recently re-
ceived. While he said that, however, he was one of those
who counselled the landed interest not to ask any. unfair
exemptions' but to accept their share, whatever it might
be, of the burdens of the country. On the other hand, he
would counsel the landed interest not quietly to be made
the victims of a fashion or a cry, and never to yield to,
but, on the contrary, to resist to the uttermost, any plan
which sought to impose upon them a burden which, they
ought not to bear. The question for the committee to
consider was, whether or not the plan now proposed did
so. In discussing that question he intended to take the
right honourable gentleman's own figures, which referred,
not to land exclusively, but to what he felicitously called
rateable property. He would call the attention of the com-
mittee, in the first place, to what the burdens upon rateable
property really were. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had
himself stated the annual value of the rateable property
of this country at 80,000,0001. Now the landed
property bore, as it was, a share of the legacy duty. Last
year the legacy and probate duties produced 2,515,0901.,
and Mr. Trevor calculated that the legacy duty alone
amounted to 1,380,0001., and that the share raised from
real property was about 5-12ths of the whole, or, in round
numbers, 500,000. Then came the stamps on deeds. The
right honourable gentleman had stated that there were at
present no means of ascertaining with exactness what pro-
portion of the stamp duty on deeds was paid by real
property ,• but the total amount paid last year was
1,409.000/., and he thought the right honourable gentle-
man would admit that he did not over-estimate the popor-

tion which ought to be charged upon real property when
he put it down at 1,000,0001., or about two-thirds of the
whole. The right honourable gentleman the member for
the University of Cambridge, in a speech which he made
upon this subject in 1842, estimated the proportion paid
by real property at 1,200,0001., but a considerable altera-
tion had taken place since that time in the stamp duties,
and the charge upon real property could not be fairly stated
at more than 1,000,0301. Again, the Chancellor of the
Exchequer had admitted that the extra income tax paid
by real property, keeping out of view the charge of 7d. in
the pound which applied to all descriptions of property,
and calculating only the additional charge of 2d. in the
pound which the right honourable gentleman had clearly
proved was paid by real property, amounted to 460,000/.
lie next came to an item which ho thought tho Chancellor
of the Exchequer would admit must fairly be charged
among the direct payments by real property—he meant
fire insurances. The total amount received last year was
1,220,000/. ; but as he was aware he might be told that a
portion of the payments for fire insurances was made for
furniture and valuable articles within houses and buildings,
ho proposed to deduct the odd 290,000/. on that account,
and to take the charge for fire insurances upon rateable
property at 1,000,0001. Then came those acknowledged
burdens upon rateable property which the Chancellor of
the Exchequer had himself stated amounted to between
14,000,0001. and 15,000,0001. He believed that in that
statement the right-hon. gentleman included the laud tax.
He would take the total amount at 14,500,0001, and the re-
sult of what he had stated was that the 80,000,0001. of rate-
able property annually paid direct burdens to the amount
of 17,460,0001., or, as near as ho could put it, 22 per cent.
(Mar.) He now asked, where was the glaring anomaly of
which the Chancellor of the Exchequer spoke last night.
(Hear, hear, hoar.) Where was the injustice as regarded
personal property, which, according to the argument of
the right hon. gentleman, not only justified him, but
almost compelled him to proceed to impose this heavy and
grievous additional burden upon rateable property? How
stood the other side of the account ? What were the direct
burdens upon the great mass of personal property in this
country ? Ho knew of none excepting the balance of the
legacy duty, over and above the 500,0001. which ha had
charged to land. That would give 2,000,0001. to be paid
by personal property, which, added to the balance of one-
third of the stamp duty on deeds, amounting to between
500,0001. and 600,0001., and to the charges paid on bills of
exchange' amounting to about 500,0001., gave about
3,000,0001., if he was right in his calculations, as the sum
now paid in direct payments by personal property, as com-
pared to 17,500,000/. paid by rateable property. (Hear,
hear.) Well then, his argument was—and he hoped the
house and the country would deem it to be a fair argument
that this was not a state of things which justified the
Chancellor of the Exchequer in coming down and seeking
to impose not only this heavy burden, but a burden so
vexatious and so odious in its character, that nothing but
a stern necessity, nothing but a strong and unanswerable
case of requirement by justice, could, in his mind, justify
or excuse the Chancellor of the Exchequer in seeking to
impose it upon the country. (Hear, hear.) One of his
main objections to this tax was its inquisitorial character.
They could not, in fact, devise a tam more objectionably
inquisitorial in its nature. They were not yet informed
of the mode in which the tax was to be levied ; but he was
afraid it could not be collected without calling upon the
parties to expose every portion of their affairs, and all the
mortgages and encumbrances to which their estates might
be liable. What were the authorities ? The right hon.
gentleman had referred to Mr. Pitt ; but he had already
shown that Mr. Pitt was, if anything, on the other side of
the question. But what was the fate of Mr. Pitt's bill ?
Why, the House of Commons and the country would not
have it—they rejected it ; and Mr. Pitt, in the plenitude
of his power, was obliged to abandon his proposal.
Mr. HUME—It was the country gentlemen who defeated
the bill. (Hear, hear.)
Sir J. PAKINGTON—If the fact was so, he could
only say that he hoped the country gentlemen would do
the same. (Hear, hear.) But it was not the Tory party
who threw out the bill. He regretted that the noble lord
the leader of the house was not in his place, for he was
going to name authorities who, although the right hon.
gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who found
himself in new company, might not regard them with any
very peculiar respect, would, he was sure, have great
weight with the noble lord the member for the city of
London. He begged to remind the house that Mr. Pitt's
Succession Bill on land was defeated by Fox and Grey, the
great Whig leaders, on the ground that it NM a tax upon
capital, inquisitorial in its nature, and unequal in its ope-
ration. (Hear, hear.) Were these the only charges against
the tax ? Did not Adam Smith urge, as an objection to
it, its necessary inequality ? (Hear, hear.) The right
hon. gentleman had, indeed, made some effort to remove
that inequality ; but he (Sir J. Pakington) could not con•
gratulate him on the success of his attempt. With regard
to the general principle of the tax, Adam Smith said :
" All taxes on the transference of property of every kind,
so far as they diminish the capital value of that property,
tend to diminish the funds destined for the maintenance
of productive value. They are all, more or less, unthiifty
taxes, that increase the revenue of the Sovereign at
wasthe
expense of the capital of the people." (Hear.) Such
the light in which that high authority regarded the prin-
ciple of this tax. But he (Sir J. Pakington) v
upon the attention of the committee other highNould urge
authori-
ties. In 1842, an hon. member of that hone (Mr. Elphin-
stone) raised the question of the legacy duty upon land.
At that time it was not in the least regarded as a party
question, and the principal speakers in opposition to .the
motion were
University of Cambridge (Mr. Goulburn), Sir It. Peel, and
the noble lord the member for the city of London. The
noble lord the member for the city of London then re-
sisted the proposal for the imposition of the tax upon real
property, on the ground that Parliament had recently con-
sented to the imposition of tho income tax, and he ex-
pressed an opinion that, under those circumstances, it
would be unjust to place an additional impost of succession
on real property. The right hon. gentleman the member
for the University of Cambridge also opposed
upon the ground of the weight of the
the motion,
e stamp duties to
which real property was subject—(ear, hear)—and his ar-
gument was one of unanswerable power.eemaiSdir
()env. Peaeyel,tho,nt
the same occasion, remarked that " h
the subject was a most extensive and complicated one, and
that no just conclusion could be drawn respecting it with-
out looking to the whole of the stamp
on conveyances. Any modification
duties and the duties
lon of the probate and
lcoogulacay
IcalQuttiteaks, ore place without
of them to other property,
Withtnit a change in other burdens