The Sun.
London, England, 1853-05-13 00:00:00

of ss. per cent. to -escape g duty of 21., or 31., 'or 41. per
cent. I apprehend also that, according to the doctrine of
the law, the stamp upon the settlement is the proper
correlative of the stamp upon probates. The probate is
strictly a stamp duty to ascertain and validate a document;
the settlement is strictly a stamp duty., and has precisely
the same effect ; but besides that legitimate effect of set-
tlements they have been applied to an illegitimate pur-
pose, and all sorts of forms of settlement have been invented
and used with the object of escaping the legacy duty.
What, I ask, can be more monstrous than the exemption
of settled personalty? When we discuss the case of realty
—whether settled or unsettled—it is very obvious, and
I think it is very fair to call attention to the fact, that
real property is subject to many charges from which
invisible personalty, so to speak, is quite exempt ; and,
therefore, that it is a justification, as far it goes, for
the exemption of realty. But that does not apply to the
personality which is the subject of these settlements.
Funded property, free from every possible and imaginable
charge is, by means of these legal arrangements, enabled to
pass scot free, when other property is called upon to pay
heavy toll. With regard, then, to reality, in the first
instance, and much more with reference to settled person-
alty, I think it is impossible to defend the present state of
the law. But there is another case far more flagrant than
wither of these—that is the case of unsettled property,
not real, but visible, immovable, and therefore subject to
the burden of rates and local taxation. Lot us briefly look
at the position of property of that kind under the present
law. Take, for instance, leasehold property in houses.
(Hear, hear.) Contrast the condition of such property with
chat of settled personalty on the one hand, and realty on
the other. There are two sets of charges which are sup-
posed—and which it is sometimes contended ought to be
considered—as full equivalents for one another. On the
one side you have the probate and legacy duty, and on the
other the land-tax, a greater cost of stamps for transfer,
heavier taxation under schedule A of the income tax, and
exclusive burdens of local taxation. It is pleaded that on
account of this last description of charges real property
aught to be exempt from the first. Now, I do not say they
exactly countervail one another. On the one hand you
have the probate and legacy duties falling upon personalty
in general ; on the other hand you have the local charges
falling upon realty ; but here is leasehold property sub-
jected to both—subjected to the cost of stamps upon trans-
fer, to all the extra burdens of taxation for the income-
tax under schedule A, to the land-tax—(hear)—to the
full undivided burden of local taxation, and yet subjected
likewise both to the legacy and probate duties. (Hear.)
Now, how can any Parliament suppose that, when once
public attention is fairly concentrated upon such a ques-
tion as this, it is possible to maintain a state of the law so
wholly devoid of foundation and of warrant in truth or
reason. (Cheers.) This is the first proposition that lam
most anxious to impress upon the minds of the committee.
I refer with no invidious intention to the course taken on
this subject by the right hon. gentleman opposite (Mr.
Disraeli). He and the Government of Lord Derby were
impressed with the belief that it was impossible to main-
tain the law as it now stands and in consequence
they gave a general pledge which I understood to mean
that there must be some equalization of the pre-
sent system by means of a general tax upon succes-
sions. (Hear.) If, then, it be impossible to maintain
the present state of the law, will you part with that law
altogether ? Will you say, " Yes ; equality ought to be
established by exempting from the tax the property that
now pays it, and not by subjecting to the tax property
which is now exempted ?" This is a course which the
minds of many persons might incline them to take. Many
political economists are of opinion that a tax upon neces-
saries is in its nature an illegitimate description of tax.
Many persons think that, as a tax upon property, it
ought to be absolutely proscribed. I don't mean to
say that that it is my opinion, but I refer to it as
an opinion by no means destitute of great authorities
in its support. I mast confess, for my own part, that
it appears to me that taxes upon property raise a ques-
tion of vast importance, but one which, like other ques-
tions of taxation, cannot be disposed of altogether
upon abstract grounds. I should say it it is straining
the matter too far to maintain that no tax upon property,
as distinguished from income, is a legitimate tax. The ob-
jection to taxes upon property appears to me to be drawn
from practical considerations—from the great difficulty
that attends the adjustment of such taxes, from their lia-
bility to become the subject of continual contests between
class and class, from their setting one portion of society ap-
parently in a state of hostility and conflict with others.
These are, I think, groat objections to taxes upon property ;
but Ido not consider that they are so likely to attach to a
tax upon succession, °miring once in a generation, as they
would if you were to attempt to lay a tax upon property
which was to recur again and again upon the same property
from year to year. I won't say that I look to the practice
of antiquity, and especially of remote antiquity, as of very
great authority in fiscal matters, or that the extreme
antiquity of this tax upon successions is its main recom-
mendation in my eyes, but the committee must bear in
mind that it is no innovation of modern times—that it is
rather a revival, in a modified form, of what was originally
among the main resources of the revenue of the State,
namely, a tax upon successions to property, supported
by a regular legal process of inquisition into its value.
(Hear, and cheers.) It is, therefore, no mere innovation
that we are now recommending, but is it an injustice ?
Of course, it is unjust if you levy an unnecessary tax,
a tax you don't want, or a tax to support wasteful
and profligate expenditure. Such a tax is an un-
just tax, lay it on what you will; but I am now
assuming that the purposes to which we apply the
resources of the State are in the main reasonable. If,
then, we want a given sum, is it unjust to raise
a portion of it by a tax upon successions ? I should say
not. It seems to me that the passing or carrying of pro-
perty in perfect security over the great barrier which death
places between man and man in the highest achievement—
the most signal proof of the power of civilised institutions.
(Hear, hear.) I think that ability to determine the future
with respect to property, and to fix its course from man to
man and from life to life—passing over one contingency
and another, and extending the private, personatwill of an
individual into a distant future—limited, no doubt, and
wisely limited, by law—is an instance so signal of the
great benefit conferred by law and by civil institutions
upon mankind, and of the immense enlargement that comes
to natural liberty through the medium of law, that I can
conceive nothing more natural than that if taxes are to be
raised at all, in the midst of those arrangements the State
should step in and take a just portion for its necessities.
I will now look to considerations more practical than those.
I am now endeavouring to put before the committee one
possible alternative—namely, that of equalising by aban-
donment. If you are prepared to do that you must be
prepared to give up the legacy duty and the great bulk of
the probate duty, now producing something over
2,500,0001.; and, assuming that you retain a small stamp
on probates corresponding to the stamp on settlements, as
a mere validifieation of the document, you still would have
to give up '2,500,0001. of the fixed income of the State. I
think no one who hears me will be prepared to give up
that amount ; and assuming, then, that you are not pre-
pared to give up the principle and practice of making death
and the passing of property on death from the predecessor
to the successor the occasion of your stepping in to levy
what you require for public purposes, then we come to the
point that you cannot maintain the tax as it now stands.
What then is to be done ? I hope the committee will arrive
at the conclusion at which the Government have arrived,
viz., that this tax ought, on principles of equity and jus-
tice, to be made a general tax freed from its present gross
and crying anomalies. I appeal in this instance to a sense
of justice. I know it is said that this proposal is conceived
in a spirit of hostility to laud. (Hear, from the Opposition.)
That is (said the right hon. gentleman addressing the Oppo-
sition benches) I have no doubt your conscientious opinion.
Allow me respectfully to disclaim any such motive. (Oh !
oh !) lam as much entitled to disclaim as you to impute
it. (Hear, hear.) I wish without any offence to appeal
to the sense of justice, which from actual experience and
knowledge I am convinced does, and will influence many
gentlemen, in despite of what they think their own per-
sonal interests, to vote for this tax. The ancient fable
ran, that when justice was banished from other quarters
on earth, she still for a while was to be found among agri-
culturists. (Laughter.)
" Extrema per riles
Justitia excedens terris vestigia fecit."
Whether that fable were wisely conceived or not, I may
appeal, I believe, to your sense of justice, and I request
you to consider whether, before the tribunal of justice, the
proposition of the Government is one that ought
to be
the law, and as
entertained. It appears to us, that as you cannot maintain
or justify the present state of
you cannot
abandon this source of taxation, the wise course is to make
the tax general in its application. (Hear, hear.) It ought
to be an equal charge without exception, though with
adaptation, made on all descriptions of proper. A ques-
tion may occur to the minds of gentlemen, whether they
could not maintain some exemption—whether they could
not, for instance, exempt real property ? Upon what
grounds would you do that ?—would it be because it pays
local taxation, the land-tax, and pays under the income-
tax more heavily than personal property? Every one of
these considerations also applies to leasehold property ;
would you then be prepared to extend the exemption to
that species of property ? I must confess that I should
think such a course very unwise, and if you adopted it you
would find your exemptions grow so enormous that you
must raise what would be an intolerable rate and burden
of taxation on all descriptions of property left to pay the
tax. Though I cannot altogether adroit tliat it ap-
pears fair to urge these burdens
borne by land,
yet there is some exaggeration on that question.
Take the case of transfers. Very long ago it
might be true that personal
property might be trans-
ferred for the most part without expense, and land
could not. But since those days great masses and classes
which were not known
of personal property have grown up,
before, which, under law at this moment, are subject to
every expense of transfer like real property Take the
railway shares, and you have at once a mass of property
amounting to 300,000,0001. (Here some hon. member, on
the Opposition benches referred to the subject of the sim-
plification of titles.) Nothing would give me greater satis-
facti
which would effectually provide on than to see some measure pfor the reducassed throughtion of those
Parliament
costly and cumbrous forms now in use. ,
I shall take the liberty of suggesting to the committee, and
Before I conclude
those connected with the landedinterest, that really we
quarrel about comparative trifles, and leave the greater
matters untouched. The question now about to be con-
tested respecting 1 per cent. to fall on one generation
question on
the descent of real property is an insignificant
compared with the question referred to by the hon. gen-
tleman opposite, namely—the simplification of title, and
the relieving of land from those enormous expenses which,
from want of it, the land is now subject to. (Hear, hear.)
The fact that railway property
better Parliamentary title than landed property would
for exceptional.
at present enjoys a
btaexaatiomne,stthiollueggihtimitatiesreason for giving
Parliamentary title as
to landed property as good a
it, th
ere
fore, I put railway property has. (Hear, hear •)
v supposing fore, to the committee, raeoasoenxoetlolenurgt urge
as we am. "a "consideration of
our-
selves to be engaged in the serious
fear to the reconstruc-
tion of the law—(hear),—l put it without .
safely, or justly propose
com-
mittee, that you cannot wisely,
e from the operation
to give real property a total exemption
the question of the legacy duty, din the
if
an exemption for other
exemption would necessarily sandrt would make such a hole
very large classes of prope y,
rate you would be obliged to lay
in your measure that the
of 1.6 erty would be intolerable.
of the legacy duty for this, for no other reason, that such
upon other descriptions p
of personalty from
land, landed settlements, or settlements
i ht think that settled land de-
serves(Hear, hear.)
the tax. Perhapsyou g
consideration'n from unsettled land, but
a separate
I assume, then: that you cannot exempt
Government have
the reasons I have adverted to.
such distinction, for .
°Teat question, and had its
The law of settlempnt is a ,„
With respect to the
not been able to find grounds for any
tamps 'that is more than compen-
tax in the shape of s ,
ou escape by settle-
sated by the probate duty, whichitself y
is
question
a great
t. But the law of settlement
apartmen from all matters of taxation. I repeat, it is attended
I
with great advantages, and likewiseruse with considerable
the other hand,
drawbacks. The fixing and ty'ne up of land constitute, no