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

thority of Adam Smith and other great political econo-
mil* was opposed to the imposition of a tax on successions.
Now the very reverse of this was the fact, for the doctrine
of Adam Smith was that every subject of the State ought
to be made to contribute towards the support of the Go-
vernmeat in proportion to his ability and to the amount of
the re-renew he enjoyed under its protection ; and that in
the observance or the neglect of that maxim consisted what
leas called equality or inequality of taxation. Now, what
would be the amount of the burden of this tax upon land?
Take an estate yielding 1001. a-year. This at 33 years' pur-
chase would give a capital worth 3,3001. A succession
tax
of 1 per cent. upon that estate of 3,300/. would amount to
331., or something less that one-third of the first years'
rental • -whilst for all the remainder of his life the owner
wonial 'be secured by the State in the enjoymentof industry
or
btained without the least exercise
410100 0 of an in-
skill. That being the amount of the burden in the
ease of a small estate, the position of th4liaarigneopfrpsrioetofarr
would be one that he could not justly
=Saying the Chancellor of the Ecx°che
hbours he should
quer to exempt
from a tax paid by his ne
be inclined to pray him 'to add the r_Olc duties to those
already existing. Ho feared that Putthtehishmaneasceorlloor
sooffullthye
Exchequer was not going to oarri"
as la* speech had seemed to inodicate, and that he was
going to place the gentleman who succeeded to a landed
estate in a better position than the labourer who received
a legacy of 101. No poor person could now escape without
paying at the lowest two and a half per cent. probate duty,
and oafs per cent. legacy duty. A difference of one degree
' 'ty further off would increase the legacy duty-
-1).! consanguinity
Now in the case of real. estate, the Chan-
cellorPe of the Exchequer proposed to impose on the first
degree of consanguinity only 1 per cent.-1,0001., viz., on
succession to 100,000/. ; and for the payment of this paltry
sum be gave a period of five years, which he considered
equivalent to taking 20 per cent. off the amount. But he
would advise the right hon. gentleman to take half per
coils., for ready money, because, before the first five years
were expired, there would in all probability be one hun-
dred thousand accounts to keep against the landed estates
of the kingdom, and the expense attaching to such arrange-
ment would be inordinate. Besides, he did not see the
morality of giving five years' credit to a rich man, and to
a poor man not a single day. It was also a very extraor-
dinary thing that only poor people could be got hold of for
the payment of these duties ; but the registers demon-
strated the fact.
Mr. AGLIONBY had no inter Lion to oppose the proposal
of the Chancellor of the Excha luer. He did not always
agree with the present Government, but he would support
them on this occasion, because lie could see no possibility
of forming a Government to rep lace them with advantage
to the country. The honourable. member who had just sat
down proposed to go beyond the proposition of the right
hon. gentleman, and he inclined to agree with him :
lbr the same reason which convinsced him of the propriety
of extending the legacy duty to land would induce him to
impose the probate duties also. If there existed any in-
equality at all between the real sand personal property
in
respect of nixes, that inequality ought to be removed.
But there were peculiar burdens .on land which he thought
ought to be removed before the measure was carried. The
poor rates he believed to jcipppressive upon landed pro-
perty, and he wished to-MPFert to the principle of the
statute of Elisabeth, which decreed that the poor of the
country should be maintained by the wealth of the country,
and bring in personal property for a share of the local
burdens.
Mr. LIDDELL wadi-apposed to the addition of any new
burden en the already heavily-burdened landed interests of
the country. He looked upon t lie retention of the income
tax as a great injustice. It was; originally imposed for the
especial purpose of providing th .e means by which indirect
taxation might be remitted for the benefit of the labouring
classes. These rereissionkhad doubtlessly fulfilled the ob-
ject for which they were pros td, but the landed interest
had derived no benefit whatever from them, and it was a
great injustice to make still furtinir remissions now, and to
call upon the real property of the country to make good the
deficit is more wsys than one. He believed, too, that this
addition to the taxation on real p roperty must eventually
work disadvantageously to the b ibouring classes, since it
would cripple the means at the ce amend of the landowner
for the employment of labour. It was stated by the
Chancellor of the Exchequer that the tax on succession
would be equivalent for the inepa alities of the income tax;
but in his opinion it would operate still more unequally
than the latter. With regard to the probable amount
which it would produce, he had:the authority of persons
well able to judge for believing that ib Would produce very
much more than 400,0001. IL should resist this tax, be-
cause he thought it had bee in brought forward in a
spirit—a spirit with which t he First Commission& of
Works (Sir W. Molesworth) c.arfessed he sympathised—
agrinst which it would ever be his duty and his pride, as a
member of the great party to wi dch he belonged, invariably
and strenuously, though he fezzes I successfully, to contend.
(Hear, hear.)
Lord GODERICFI said, as the chief ground of objection
to the proposition to the Chancel for of the Exchequer had
been that it would bear with pea iliar pressure on the land,
and as hon. gentlemen on the all er (the Opposition) side of
the house were net, the only per' ens whose interests were
entirely bound up in idle land, he was anxious to state the
reasoss why ho should vote to-ru ;ht in favour of the motion
of the Chancelior of the Exche p ter. His hon. friend who
bed just sat clown must admit: that, in principle and in
theory, there could be no obj action to that proposition,
because decidedly it Was desire ble that every tax should be
levied, as far as possible, equall y upon all ; and that, unless
some special case could be shoe rn to justify an exception,
such exception would be unjust . The noble lord. the mem-
ber for Northumberland, tire o ther night, 'when 'speaking
of the budget, warned the coin. nittee how they proceeded
to break down the aristocracy cf the country ; and called
upon hon. ioembora to look to Cie history of Franco before
the first revolution He told the house it was by the im-
position of taxes of this nature tli at the French aristocracy
fell to the ground. But he (Lori I Goderich) ventured to
come to a different conclusion. :If he read history aright,
the fall of the nobility of Franca was from other causes; it
was, that they claimed for themes Ives exemptions from au
equal share in the burdens which were imposed upon their
countrymen, and resisted the tiro sly and salutary measures
°commended by the wisest t,nd best men of their
age—by Turgot, Necker, and[c ilers of equal eminence.
He -would, therefore, ask the c ommitteo to pause before
they rejected- this resolution in aon the special ground on
which it had as yet been argued, and thereby strengthened
the feeling already prevailing in the minds of the people,
that the landed proprietors of E ngland were desirous of
shielding themselves from the bui:e ens which were imposed
upon their fellow-countrymen. (Cheers.)
Mr. CAYLEY said he had b card with satisfaction,
which he was sure was also felt by the house, the speech of
the noble lord who had just doe in—a speech so full of
promise and ability, and so worthy of the distinguished
name he bore. (Hear, hear.) The noble lord, however,
seemed to imagine that the land ed interest of the country
desired to shelter itself from ti se due weight of taxation ;
but if he had considered for a en oment ho would have seen
that the landed interest was jilt it the property that could
not so shield itself, for it was al w aye there, open to taxa-
tion, while personal property was only evanescent. (Hear,
hear.) One of the great difficulti es of the income tax, as
was stated by the Chancellor of t he Exchequer, was that
although it was laid equally on Is! ersonalty as upon realty,
yet, in nine cases out of ten, it (Lid not only not pay its
full share, but, in fact, did not pa y more than one-sixth as
compared with land. The right 1 son. gentleman the Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer had enite srrassed the question be-
fore the house, which was ludo el, not one as between skill
and intelligence and proierty, but as between realty and
personalty. Skill and intelligence escaped taxation, and in
that way trades and professions paid lees than land. The
noble lord had referred to a tax which had been very much
alluded to in the course of th Brae debates—the land-tax.
That was one of the grievances under which they really
suffered, as compared with personalty. It was not im-
pose/ as the noble lord supposed ; it was a tax upon land,
and upon all other kinds of property—upon means and
substance, and that was what those who were connected
with land complained of. Both tleat tax and the poor-rates
oiliest to fall equally on persons-slay, and it was only be-
cause they did not do so that t:e. legacy duty had been im-
pesed on that description of property ; whereas now, in
consequence of clamour, not ions its injustice, but as he
feared from some other peculiar motive, because that tax
new rested son personalty, whiilla had for so many years
evaded the land tax and the poor • rates, it was to be im-
posed upon land. Before this oo- entry was more accommo-
dated to the change in our comet ercial policy, he was not
prepared to assent to the imposition of any more taxes. He
had given his support to the budget of the right hon.
gentleman the member for Buclkinghamshire, because he
thought the right hon. gentlem ar a had entered into a com-
prehensive view of the wants of the community as re-
garded taxation, and that the priaciple of his budget was
founded upon financial justice--justice to all persons, not
only to the landed interest, but to shareholders, traders, and
professional men. He had no strata g personal feeling, but was
determined, as far as he could, tc s see justice done to those
interests which he thought had. 'been hardly dealt with in
Vie changes that had taken plea" :; and, thinking there was
still a very undue share of burdens upon land—that virtu-
ally it paid four or five income-taxes or legacy taxes for one
paid by personalty—he would riot give his assent to the
imposition of the legacy tax on land. All he asked was,
that the landed interest should be put in the same cate-
gory with that the manufactoalteee - (Hear, hear.) If li-
giantess were good for malt and Naps; they were as good for
calicoes and yarns ; if Excise del •les were good for malt and
hops, they were just as good fo r hardwares and cottons.
He asked for nothing more th an justice to the interest
with which he was connected.

Mr. PETO, after adverting to the advantages which
the holders of land had gained from the new finyncial sys-
tem of the country in conseqw 'ewe of its having raised the
wages of the poor man, made labour more abundant, and
emptied the workhouses, obser r d, with respect to the pre-
sent budget, that it would rec (vivo his support because it
appeared to him to deal more equally and fairly with all the
interests of the nation, as a wbx de, than any other scheme
that he had heard suggested. 7 'hey had been told a good
deal about land being encumber ed ; but the house had no-
thing to do with that, its sole duty being to see that
there was no inequality in the taxation of the country.
(Hear.) The hon. member for E;outh Northumberland had
referred to the impolicy of frir.ther dealing with indirect
taxation, and regarded the land as injured by any tax
being placed on it in order to diminish the former. Had
the hon, gentleman ever made a calculation of the taxes
paidby the labourer as com pared with the landowner ?
-11 (Mr. Peto) knew thousands of men who had—and it
would be wise in that house n of to give them ground to
point out anything clone for th e protection of the rich to
the injury of the poor. (Hear,, hear.) The general feeling
ithnotughehcluentinryznith regard to the present budget was that,
endured for the saekt:mo was not liked, that evil would be
and it
was f the good which accompanied it ;
scatter of rejoieintt in the country that the
taxes OH soap, tea—on
Let neee
tahsa:ies and comforts of life—
were to be xeduceel.landowners bear in mind
that every comfor£ they gave th
those already enjoyed, rendered
man, in addition to
more secure. (Hear, hear.) a their own possessions
Mr. NEWDEGATE said,
that as the Chancellor of the
Exchequer had sallied his resol cation for the income tax,
he was, therefore, insured A tho
ficiency, if he managed the iiiances any passibility
roufd ean cdeo
coneeetnently the right hon. gentleman had no right to ex-
pect those sitting in his (Mr. Newdegate's) art of the
house, who, in some degree represented realised)
to consent to the imposition of another tax, which, y,
all the exigencies of the war, had never yet been sauctinon
ed
as extended to real property. The tax might be moderato
now, but, onto placed on, who could say it would remain
moderate, especiitlly as, by the redaction of indirect taxes,
they narrowed the sphere of taxation, while by a new Re-
form Bill they proposed to extend the political franchise,
thus diminishing the power of those paying the taxes t,O
protect their property? This he declared, was a policy
tending rapidly towards confiscation. (lEar.)
Mr. BRIGHT referred to the speech of the hon.mtehmat-
ber for tho North Riding (Mr. Cayley), and observed
his opinion ought to be regarded with a good deal of
sus-
icion on matters like the one under consideration, as the
n .member had held some very heterodox notions on the
estion of land, and what ought to done by Parliament for
eland. It appeared from a statement which appeared
some years ago in Mr. Dod's Parliamentary Companion,