The Sun.
London, England, 1844-03-15 00:00:00

fused by the Hon. Member, he would ask, where
the question would then be? The next best thing to
a withdrawal, would 'be to vote with the Honourable
Member for Kendal (Mr. Warburton), and this, he
for one should do. The fact was, the law had done
all it could do, but society refused to act upon that
lax.—(Hear, hear.) The opinion already expressed
in that House, echoed as it loudly would be by the
country, would be the surest way of rooting up this
great crime of society.—(Hear, hear.)
Mr. TURNER, in reply, stated that he would'be con-
tent to leave the whole subject in the hands 'of the
Right Hon.
.Baronet. He trusted the Right Hon. Ba-
ronet would introduce a Government measure on the
subject, and would not let the heavy responsibility 'of
introducing a Bill on the subject devolve upon an indi-
vidual Member. If, however,, the Right Hon. Baronet
did not introduce a Bill on the subject, he (Mr. Turner)
should feel it his duty to do so. He wished to correct a
misapprehension under /which some Hon. Members
seemed to labour as to a statement which he had Made.
What he had said was that it was the law of Switzerland
that the man who killed another in a duel should be
liable for the debts of the deceased. He would at once,
seeing the general feeling of the House, withdraw the
motion, and he took no merit to himself for so doing.
The motion was then withdrawn.
PROBATE AND LEGACY DUTIES.

Mr. ELPHINSTONE then rose to move—" That
this House do resolve itself into a Committee of the
whole House, on an early day, for the purpose of taking
into consideration the Acts 36 Geo. 111., c. 52, 45
Geo. 111., c. 28, 48 Geo. 111., c. 149, and 55 Geo. 111.,
c. 184, with the view of imposing the same amount of
probate-duty on real estate, as is now, in similar cases,
imposed on personal property ; and, likewise, of con-
sideringthe expediency of imposing a probate-duty in
all cases, on the death of the cestui que trust (whe-
ther the trust_ property be realty or personalty); in order
to substitute such proposed probate-duty on real estate
for some of those taxes which now press most
heavily on the productive industry of the people."
In asking the 'House to take this subject into their
consideration', he hoped, he should be enabled
to show to them that it was only just and fair
that the same taxes should be levied upon real property
which were levied upon personal property'. As the 'law
at present stood, all personal property was liable to the
payment of probate duty and legacy duty upon the death
of its holder. Probate duty was levied upon the whole
of the property according to its value, whilst the amount
of legacy duty.imposed varied according to the degree of
relationship subsisting between the party receiving the
legacy and the deceased. There was this difference
between the two duties—that while real property was in
no case liable to the probate duty, in certain instances,
annuities, rent-charges, and lands directed to be sold under
the provisions of the Act 43 Geo. 111. were liable to
legacy duty. With these trifling exceptions, it might be
assumed that personal:property was in all cases liable to
these dutig, while real property was exempt.(Hear,
hear.) Noll/ this state of things was most unjust to the
trading and commercial classes of this country.—
(Cheers.) It exposed the Members of that and of the
other House of Parliament to most unpleasant imputa-
tions. It was known that the great majority of them
were landowners, and it exposed them to the imputation
of having passed a law, not for the public benefit,
but .for their own private advantage.—(Cheers.)
When the imposition of the legacy duty was first pro-
posed by Mr. Pitt in the year 1796, he had intended to
impose the same tax upon real property, and although
the landowners were too strong for him, he told them
that he considered it would be unjust to lay a tax upon
personal property to which real property should not be
at the same time liable.—(Cheers.) Mr. Pitt, in intro-
(hieing the Bill, said that he considered it but right that
property should contribute towards the expenses of a war
undertaken to defend the rights ofproperty,and that landed
property being the most permanent of all property ought
to be called on to contribute accordingly—(Cheers)—
but, continued Mr. Pitt, " I do not intend that the im-
position of the legacy duty shall be confined to landed
property. I intend that it shall be imposed on per-
sonal' property also."—(Hear, hear.) Such were the
sentiments of Mr. Pitt.—(Hear, hear.) The exemption
of real property from those duties was not only unjust,
it was absurd. In cases of leaseholds held for a term
of years, the leasehold was considered as personal pro-
perty, and was liable to the tax, but when a leasehold
was held for lives it was considered as .real pro-
perty, and was exempt. It so happened in the
borough of South Shields that one-half of the
town was let on leases for lives, and the other
on leases for a term of years, so that one-
half of the inhabitants of the town were liable to the
tax, and the other half were exempt. He would ask
the House how they could suffer the liability to a tax
to be regulated by these absurd ,technicalities ? (Hear,
hear.) Why should the leaSeholder in London be sub-
ject to this tax, while the copyholder in the country was
exempt ?—(Hear, hear.) He would now proceed to
show, from papers on the table of the House, what
was the amount paid by the personal property of the
country from which the real property was exempt. It
appeared that, for the year ending sth of January, 1844,
a sum of 2,239,768/, 7s. 44-d. had been levied as probate-
duty and as legacy duty; while from the returns; as
regularly laid before the House, it would appear that
from the year 1797, when these taxes was first imposed,
up to the close of last year, a sum amounting to
66,835,9591. had been contributed to the revenue from
the personal property of the kingdom by these taxes,
for which the real property was entirely exempt. There
were no precise means of getting at the amount which
the revenue would derive from the imposition of the
probate and legacy duties upon the real property of the
kingdom, but he thought they might arrive at some near
conclusion on the subject by a little calculation. Mr.
Gwynne, who had for years held 'a situation in the
Legacy Duty office, and who was a high authority on
the subject, estimated that one-thirtieth part of the per-
sonal property of the country was annually subjected to
these duties. The Right Hon. Baronet, in introducing
his measure for imposing the income-tax, had estimated
the gross rental of the kingdom at 39,400,0001. ; now,
estimating the value of landed estates at 25 years pur-
chase, that would give 985,000,0001., as the landed capi-
tal of the kingdom. If they applied Mr. Gwynue's cal-
culations to this statement, they would -find that
33,000,000/ would be liable to this tax, and
that a revenue of about a million and a
half annually would be derived from this source.
There was another method of arriving at the
same conclusion. From Mr. Porter's valuable work on
the " Progress of the Nation" it' appeared that there
were 46,000,000 of acres under cultivation in this coun-
try. If they took the rental at an average of 15s. an
acre, they would arrive at pretty nearly the same amount.
But whether his calculations on that point made the
amount too large or too small, still the fact remained
the same, that the land was exempt from a tax which
personal property was called ox to pay. What could be
more unjust than that a merchant or manufacturer leav-
ing a small pittance to his widow and family, should
have that pittance lessened by the imposition of these
duties, while the landed proprietor, who inherited an es-
• tate of perhaps half a million, went scot free.—(Hear,
hear.) What could be more galling than that land,
while it continued to be the property of a landed gen-
tleman, should not be subject to this tax, but that the
moment it should be employed for the purposes of
commerce, that moment it was purchased by
partnership capital, it became liable.—(Hear, hear.)
Tim moment it was directed to be sold to satisfy the
demands of his family it became subject to the legacy
duty. It was a great injustice that land ordered to be
sold should be saddled with this legacy duty, because
it was also at the same moment liable to other taxes.
It was liable to auction duty, and to the duty paid on
conveyances—such was the case with land directed to
be sold ; but land that was inherited was exempt. Taxes
on real property_ had been imposed in all civilized
countries, except England and Spain. The Romans
had levied a very large revenue from the levying of the
twentieth penny—the vicesima pars. France derived a
large revenue from the imposition of a tax upon real pro-
perty. The same was the case in Belgium, in Holland,
in Germany, in Switzerland, and in many of the smaller
States of Italy; and he trusted the time was not far dis-
tant when the same would be the case in this country.
When he brought this question before the House two
'years ago he was met by two assertions—the first of
which eas that it would be un fair to adopt this course,
because the stamp duties and. the duties upon mortgages
were more than equivalent to any extra burdens which
might be imposed upon other classes. But he was able
to show the fallacy of this assertion by stating that the
whole amount derived by the revenue from stamps upon
deeds and other 'documents amounted to 1,600,000/, but
then, in that sum Was included the stamp duty upon per-
sonal property, and he knew that only 400,0001. was de-
rived, from real property, and mortgages, and settle-
ments, while the remainder of the 1,600,0001. was made
up out of personal property and bOnds of every descrip-
tion. He was-ready to admit that these stamp duties
were a heavy burden upon the landed proprietary, inas-
much as they considerably increased the expenses of the
transfer of property. He was fully borne out in his views
upon this subject by the opirdons of the eminent
conveyancers of the day. He found the same
principle of benefiting the rich at the expense
of the poor, pervaded al! those-. laWs. He should
take the case of a mortgage, or transfer of property; un-
der 100/, and the stamp required for that would be a,
whilst the amount of :stamp duty on a mortgage of
20,0001. bore by no mer.ns a relative and proportionate
increase. If a poor man were to require to transfer
property to the amount of 201. the stamp' duty would be
10s., whilst the rich Nobleman, who would have to trans-
fer property of the value of 20,000/, would pay 1,000/.
When a very large quantity of goods were to be sold,
those duties pressed much more lightly upon the large
salesman, and they made a, ilkstinction in his favour
against the small 'tradesmnn. Now he thought what
was fair in one case was, and ought to be applied to all.
He should, if the House went into Committee upon this
matter, be able to pr .)%C to their full satisfaction, that
the same principle should be in operation with respect
to both personal, -and real property ; and the thought
this was quite a -sufficient reason for his making this mo-
tion. 'The i" eq& of this country, above all other things,
loved fair 'play., and they could not understand the rea-
- son for this unfair decision.
• Mr. TRELAWNEY seconded the motion. He did
not see how this motion could be opposed, because Hon.
heoeupia. unfm. the
eilacbolernd -
thrs e in
the t Gentlemera opposite had said that it was necessary to
keep
m
orderbtn.d
tehnast
imposed t e l anupdhoonl dtehr
the
agricultural interest. It was true that some of those
e
gentlemern had alluded to the necessity of upholding
those law s to meet mortgages, and enable them to grant
marriage :settlements. He denied that those burdens
pressed rn ore heavily upon the agricultural than they did
upon any other class of the community. The former
paid qu'Ati as heavily as the latter for the support and
repairs of the highways. Again, the land and other
taxes were borne by the others quite as heavily as the
landholders. He utterly denied that the land bore
more tl min its fair proportion; of the . burdena _of ,
_the