NATIONAL TAXES 61 



tion of such a kind that it may be equitably 

 looked on as a rent charge that, in fact, 

 there is somewhere to be found an infinitely 

 larger land-tax than the remnant dealt with 

 by Pitt, and that this immense revenue 

 ought to be considered as a rent charge in 

 favour of the public. This potential rent 

 charge is certainly not to be found in the 

 death duties. For down to the reforms 

 by Mr. Goschen in 1888, and Sir William 

 Harcourt in 1894, ^ * s notorious that the 

 death duties had been in favour of land as 

 compared with other things. The whole 

 subject is smothered with legal cobwebs, 

 or legal reasons and distinctions. But the 

 broad fact remains that real property paid 

 less than personal ; and most interests in 

 landed property were ranked under the 

 former class. 



The truth is, that for a long time as 

 regards this part of taxation (the death 



