The Sun.
London, England, 1853-07-29 00:00:00

SUCCESSION DUTY BILL.

The Earl of ABERDEEN moved the third reading
of this bill.

The Earl of CLANCARTY said, before this bill was
finally disposed of he wished to say a few words. En-
tertaining as he did a strong objection to its principle,
it was with very great disappointment that he observed
how precipitately it was being hurried through the
house. He did not think the second reading ought to
be regarded as an approval of the measure generally ;
nor did he consider that even the carrying of the amend-
ment would have been a condemnation of the principle.
His principal objection to the bill was that it was op-
posed to the fundamental principle that property had its
duties as well as its rights. It entirely ignored that
principle ; landlords had other expenses to bear besides
poor rates, and charges of that kind ; there was the
management and improvement of the land with which
they had been entrusted by Providence, the employ-
ment of the population, the improvement of agriculture,
the maintenance of hospitals, schools, and so on. This
would have the effect of creating encumbered estates ;
it would sever that tie between landlord and tenant,
which had exercised such a favourable influence on the
social condition of the country. What was to be the
compensation for such a bill as this ? Relief from the
soap duty and the advertisement duty. As regarded the
former, he was perfectly satisfied there would not be a
single hairy chin the less in consequence of the remis-
sion of the duty- -(laughter)—neither would their lord-
ships find any reduction of their washing-bills, unless
they drove a hard bargain with their laundresses. As
to advertisements they were already lost in a labyrinth
of announcements about hats, trunks, medicines, &c.
He protested against the steps taken by the Govern-
inent to carry this bill, which he thought affected the
privileges of their lordships' house, and calculated to
compromise its utility.
The bill was then read a third time.

On the motion that the bill do pass,
Lord St. LEONARDS said that before the bill passed
he wished to show, in the shape of amendments, the
objections that existed against it, so that hereafter the
country would be able to judge between the bill as it
stood and the bill as it would be if these amendments
were adopted by Parliament. Having once ascertained
that the feeling of the house was in favour of the prin-
ciple of the measure, his sincere wish was to make the
bill as good as it could be made. As it was not his in-
tention to divide the house, he would not ask the
opinion of their lordships on each amendment, but
would move them altogether at the close of his obser-
vations. n the preamble of the bill he proposed to
strike out the declaration which declared the permanency
of the measure. In section 2, he would move a proviso
against the retrospective operation of the measure.
This addition would not in any degree impair the gene-
ral operation of the act, but it provided that where a
person sold or mortgaged his reversion, or where a
person advanced money on its security, it might be 26
years ago, and without any idea that such an act would
be passed, such person would be liable to pay 10 per
cent. on such by-gone transactions. The next amend-
ment had.reference to the case of joint lives. The clause
having reference to joint tenancy would create great
hardship as worded. In the case of two sisters, they
paid the duty as the successors of their father, but in
the case of the death of one, the other would have to
pay the duty, not as the daughter, but as the sister,
which was a great hardship. He should therefore pro-
pose words, the effects of which would be, that the party
should only have to pay according to the original crea-
tion of the gift, that was to say, that she would pay as
a daughter and not as a sister. In section 4, page 3,
it was provided that where a person had general powers
of appointment, he should in that case be himself
considered in the same light as the successor. Now, ac-
cording to the clause, if a tenant for life who had power
to leave the property after his death, and who might
please to exercise that power, and leave the property to
some stranger, be would be obliged to pay a double suc-
cession duty. What he proposed in lieu of these words
was that where any such persons should already be
charged with the duty, no further duty should be pay-
able by him on succeeding as tenant for life to the same
property. The next amendment was in section 9, page
4, which placed the duties under the care of the com-
missioners of inland duty. The end of the clause de-
clared that " they shall have all other powers and au-
thorities requisite for carrying this act into execution."
No man ever saw such words as these in an act of Par-
liament before. He therefore proposed to leave out
these words. The next amendment had reference to
section 10, page 5, which declared what ratepof dutywas
to be paid by different classes. This bill was founded
on the legacy duty, but every legacy from 1797 to the
present time declared that no duty was to be paid in
the case of property passing from the husband to the
wife, or from the wife to the husband, or in the case of
property left to the Royal Family. This clause was
omitted from the present bill, and he proposed to restore
it. At the end of the same section, 10, which provided
that " where the successor shall be in any other degree
of collateral consanguinity to the predecessor +han those
before described, or shall be a stranger in blood to him,
a duty of 10 per cent. upon the value should be levied."
He thought it a great hardship that where a man was a
stranger, and had property given him for life on which
he paid 10 per cent. duty as a stranger, that his children
should also pay the same amount. What he proposed,
therefore, was that in such case the children should only
pay as if they were the children of the predecessor
(Hear.) He also proposed another addition to the
same section 10 of this nature :---suppose a man made
a marriage settlement—say of ten thousand pounds—on
his daughter—that was to say on the husband, for life,
on the daughter for life in case the husband died, and
then on the children. That man might see in his life-
time the husband die before him, and on the property
going over to the daughter that man would see the legacy
duty paid during, his own lifetime on the property from
which be excluded himself in favour of his own child.
The right hon. gentleman the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer said lie was wrong in that view, but he (Lord St.
Leopards) believed he was light, according to the con-
struction of sections 2 and 18, and he therefore proposed
no succession duty should be payable in such a case as
that adduced during the lifetime of the settlor. In section
11, which provided that brothers-in-law and sisters-in-
law should be put in the same position as brothers and
sisters; the clause as it stood would not meet ninety-nine
cases in a hundred of those which it was intended to em-
brace. He, therefore, proposed to add words at the end
of the section which would carry out what seemed to be
the object of its framers. In section 14, page 6, he pro-
posed to omit the words which declared that in the case
of transmitted successions the highest duty which would
have been paid by any one of them should be paid. This
appeared to him the most unjust clause he ever saw.
Supposing the case of three persons becoming successors
—the first of them a stranger, the second a son, and the
third a grandson—why should the latter, if he came into
possession, pay the highest duty? The next amendment
was in section 21, which was a clause he could not well
understand. In the end of that clause it was provided
that if the successor should die before the instalments
were paid, then any instalments not due at his decease
should cease to be payable, except in the case of a succes-
sor who should be competent to dispose by will of a con-
tinuing interest in such property, in which case the in-
stalments unpaid should be a continuing charge on such
interest. He apprehended, therefore, that in the case of
children they would be compelled to pay the instalments
contrary the intentions of the framers of the bill. He
proposed, therefore, to leave out the end of the clause,
after the words "except in the case of a successor com-
petent to dispose by will," &c. He also proposed to
leave out the clause relating to timber, which, if re-
tained, would require every landlord to keep an account
of every tree he sold in the course of the year, and
greatly tend to discourage planting in this country.
(Hear, hear.) His next amendment referred to section
44, which empowered " trustees, guardians, committees,
tutors, &c., to compound or commute any duty, and
retain out of the property subject to
t such dutyte
to
the
amount thereof, or to raise such amount, and h
ex-
penses incident thereto, at interest on he security of the
property." He proposed to omit the words which gave
this power, because in his opinion no more. dangerous
power could be given to trustees than this power of
commutation ; that was to say, the pa.
ying ofthe sup-
posed value of the expectancy before it dropped in. In
t section 49, relating to the production of documents, he