336 



GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



gated and consolidated into a single duty. The 

 old duties, which had grown up piecemeal, were 

 complicated and contradictory in their princi- 

 ples, presenting " an extraordinary specimen of 

 tessellated legislation." The probate, account, 

 and legacy duties affected personalty alone, the 

 estate and succession duties on both realty and 

 personalty ; the probate, account, and estate 

 duties were imposed on the corpus of the estate, 

 the legacy duty was an additional tax on prop- 

 erty received by will, graduated according to 

 the degree of consanguinity, and the inherit- 

 ance tax was, like the last, frnposed only on the 

 interest devolving upon th successor. Per- 

 sonalty passing by will or inheritance paid a 

 probate duty, if passing by voluntary settlement 

 an account duty; but realty, settled or unset- 

 tled, was exempt from this species of taxation, 

 and when it paid a tax the life interest, not the 

 fee simple, was affected, whereas personalty paid 

 on the capital value. The budget of Sir William 

 Harcourt consolidated the probate and estate 

 duties into one duty, called the estate duty, but 

 collected like the former probate duty, and fused 

 also the legacy and succession duties, placing 

 both real and personal property, both settled 

 and unsettled property, on the same footing. In 

 all cases the duty is levied on the corpus or 

 capital value of the property devolving at death, 

 and in deference to strong representations from 

 the agents-general of the colonies an allowance 

 was made on personalty held in the colonies 

 which has paid death duties there where the 

 colonial government has entered into a recipro- 

 cal arrangement with the mother country. The 

 duty is 1 per cent, on estates exceeding 100 in 

 value, all below being exempt, up to 500, then 

 2 per cent, up to 1,000, 3 per cent, up to 10,- 

 000, 4 per cent, up to 25,000, 4^ per cent, up to 

 50,000, 5 per cent, up to 75,000, 5 per cent. 

 up to 100,000, G per cent, up to 150,000, 6| 

 per cent, up to 250,000, 7 per cent, up to 500.- 

 000, 7i per cent, up to 1.QOO,000, and on all 

 estates exceeding 1,000,000 it is 8 per cent. 

 Gifts for public "objects are deducted from the 

 taxable value and exempted from duty. One 

 concession extracted from the Chancellor of the 

 Exchequer is the limitation of the valuation of 

 agricultural land to its value, if disposed of by 

 forced sale, or to 25 times its annual value, sub- 

 ject to a deduction of 12^ per cent, and a fur- 

 ther deduction of 5 per cent, for management. 

 The period allowed for the payment of the duty, 

 originally four years, was extended to eight. 



Possessors of great wealth argued that in cases 

 where property passes at short intervals, as fre- 

 quently happens, the tax would practically con- 

 fiscate the estate. The nobility and landed gen- 

 try pleaded that the agricultural depression had 

 already reduced their incomes, while their fixed 

 charges under settlements and other expenses 

 remained the same; that the bulk of their ex- 

 penses, such as the cost of their establishments, 

 subscriptions to local charities, the maintenance 

 of parks and historic mansions, libraries, picture 

 galleries, etc., were not incurred for private grati- 

 fication, but were a public benefit ; and that un- 

 der the new burdens the stately mansions could 

 no longer be supported, the improvement of es- 

 tates would be neglected, employment would be 

 t:iken away from the poor, resident landlords 



would become absentees, the galleries and libra- 

 ries would be sold and their treasures go to 

 America, and eventually the great estates would 

 pass out of the hands of the illustrious families. 

 The impending downfall of the county families 

 and the cutting up of their estates into small 

 holdings caused no sorrow to Sir William II sir- 

 court and the Radicals behind him, but the ar- 

 gument that the land bore a heavier burden 

 already than it ought in being charged with all 

 the rates could not be brushed aside by the suc- 

 cessor of Gladstone, and therefore the Chancellor 

 of the Exchequer was compelled to make the 

 new tax easier for the landlords in practical work- 

 ing, if not in theory, and to promise further relief 

 from the rates. Neither Mr. Balfour nor .Air. 

 Chamberlain ventured to attack the principle of 

 graduation, to which in various forms they were 

 both committed. The aristocracy found no'cham- 

 pions among the striving politicians, but Mr. 

 Goschen, the Duke of Devonshire, Sir John Lub- 

 bock, and other old-fashioned believers in ortho- 

 dox political economy and orthodox finance, pro- 

 tested against graduated taxation and took issue 

 with Sir William Harcourt on theoretical ground, 

 for which he gave an opening by laying down 

 the principle according better with the law than 

 with the modern doctrine of property that a 

 man's title to his property ceases with his death, 

 that it can pass to his heirs or assigns by a fresh 

 grant from the state, and that in making such a 

 grant the state has an anterior title to what it 

 may consider its share over any claimants by de- 

 scent qr testament. The third reading of the 

 finance bill was carried on July 17 by a majority 

 of 20. The Scotch local government bill became 

 law after various features not contained in the 

 English measure had been eliminated by the 

 Scotch standing committee or by the House of 

 Lords. This committee consists of the 72 Scotch 

 members and 15 others, taken from the Minis- 

 terialists and the Opposition in the proportion of 

 their numerical strength. 



The Government attempted to proceed with 

 the registration bill, which appointed two regis- 

 tering periods in the year, prohibited plural vot- 

 ing, fixed one day for elections all over the coun- 

 try, which must be "a Saturday, and imposed the 

 cost of elections upon the ratepayers. The Con- 

 servatives fought it, demanding that a redistri- 

 bution of seats should go first, that would reduce 

 representation in Ireland and Wales to the same 

 proportion as in England, and in July it was 

 withdrawn. The session was prolonged after 

 the finance bill had been disposed of, mainly 

 in order to push through the evicted tenants 

 bill, in the discussion of which all the old con- 

 troversy respecting the plan of campaign was 

 gone through anew. The bill proposed to restore 

 evicted tenants on the decision of a board of '> 

 arbitrators, funds necessary for the operation to 

 be supplied from the Irish Church surplus, with 

 eventual recourse to the imperial exchequer. It 

 obtained a majority of 32 on the third rending, 

 on Aug. 7, by application of the closure rule, wit h 

 the expectation that it would be rejected by the 

 House of Lords, where it was thrown out by 24" 

 votes against 30. The equalization of London 

 rates was criticised by Lord Salisbury as a meas- 

 ure to make the tenants of the West End pay the 

 rates of the landlords of the East End, but it was 





