How Land Escapes the Death Duties.

This Table, of itself, affords a sufficient answer to the clamours of the landed gentry and others, who complain that Real Property is sadly overburdened in the matter of Taxation. It shows that from 1797 to 1886, Personalty paid, in the shape of Probate, Administration, and Legacy Duties, from which Realty is wholly exempted, no less a sum than £230,000,000. And this is only part of the case; for of the produce of the Probate Duty for 111 years in England, i.e., from 1694 to 1805, for 26 years in Scotland, and for 31 years in Ireland—as also of the produce of the Legacy Duty for 17 years in Great Britain, and for 32 years in Ireland—we have no account at all. Furthermore, Real and Personal Property were both included in Pitt's Legacy Bill of 1780. Its division into two Bills was deemed expedient, and the Commons passed both; but the Lords only adopted that relating to Personalty, rejecting the other; so that for upwards of 70 years Realty enjoyed entire exemption from these duties. Yet again: the Succession Duty imposed in 1853, as some sort of palliation for this gross injustice, has been frittered down to one on the Succession valued as a life annuity, and made payable by easy instalments, so that its annual yield, instead of the £2,000,000 anticipated by Mr. Gladstone, or the £8,000,000 by Lord Cairns, is only something between £600,000 and £800,000. Once more : what if the successor die before the instalments are paid? Considering these and other matters of the like nature, are not the Landholders somewhat imprudent in disregarding Mr. Cobden's warning not to put the people upon inquiring into Taxation, lest they should discover how "they have been robbed and bamboozled for ages by the Aristocracy."