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CONTEMPORARY AGRICULTURAL LAW. 



T, — Legislation. 



At the time of writing this article the completed legislation 

 of 1912 was very small in quantity, and had very little bearing 

 on agriculture or agricultural interests. The only Act of 

 Parliament that it appears to be material to notice is the 

 Finance Act, 1912 (2 and 3 Geo. 5 c. 8). Section 4 of that 

 Act enables the Commissioners of Customs and Excise to 

 authorise responsible persons, duly licensed to grow tobacco 

 within the United Kingdom, to grow tobacco for the sole 

 purpose of obtaining an extract therefrom, to be used without 

 payment of duty, in the manufacture of insecticides or sheep- 

 wash, or for other purely agricultural or horticultural purposes. 

 The authority is to be granted subject to such security and 

 the observance of such regulations and conditions as the Com- 

 missioners may proscribe, and if any person so authorised acts 

 in contravention of or fails to comply with any of those 

 regulations or conditions, the article in respect of which the 

 offence is committed will be forfeited and a penalty of 501. is 

 imposed. 



Section 9 of the same Act provides for estate duty on timber 

 or underwood payable on the death of a person dying after 

 April 30, 1909, in substitution for the first paragraph of Sub- 

 section 5 of Section 61 of the Finance (1909-10) Act, 1910. 

 The value of such timber or underwood is not to be taken into 

 account in estimating the principal value of the estate or the 

 rate of estate duty (as was required by Section 61, Sub-section 

 5, of the Act of 1910), and estate duty is not to be payable 

 thereon, but is, at the rate due to the principal value of 

 the estate, to be payable on the net moneys (if any) 

 after deducting all necessary outgoings since the death of the 

 deceased, which may from time to time be received from the 

 sale of timber trees or wood when felled or cut during the 

 period which may elapse vintil the land on the death of some 

 other person again becomes liable to estate duty. This is a 

 concession in favour of owners of woodland and will make it 

 unnecessary to include standing timber in the valuation of 

 land for the purposes of estate duty. 



Section 10 of the same Act amends Section 2, Sub-section 3, 

 of the Finance (1909-10) Act, 1910, in respect of the ascertain- 

 ment of the original site value of land for the purposes of duties 

 under the Act. It provides that the substitution allowed by 

 Section 2, Sub-section 3, of the Act of 1910 for the original site 

 value as ascertained under the Act, of the site value at the 



