s or exemptions such a just and
equal system may abolish or abridge.

The first principles on the subject will naturally suggest themselves on
the principle of "_lucus a non lucendo_," upon considering the gross
inequalities, the enormous injustice of our present system of direct
taxation. Upon reviewing it, one can hardly discover under what
prevailing interest in the Legislature the regulations have been framed,
so strangely is occasional and unjust favour to the landed interest, in
some particulars, blended with frequent and equally unjust oppression of
them in others--so unequally is undue favour to the middle classes, in
some respects, combined with unjust and partial burdens upon them in
others.

To begin with one particular, in which the landed interest are greatly
and unjustly exempted, while the other classes are severely and unjustly
burdened. There is no duty on bequests or inheritance in land, while
there is such a duty, and a very heavy one, in movable succession. The
legacy duty on succession, from one unconnected with the legatee by
blood, is ten _per cent._; from relations six, and from parents one _per
cent._ By the aid of the probate duty, which must be paid by the
executors, and the expense of suing out letters of administration in
England, or an edict and confirmation as executor in Scotland, these
duties are practically nearly doubled. Succession in land, on the other
hand, costs nothing, at least nothing requires to be paid to government;
and though the expense of making up titles to landed estates is often
very heavy, that is a burden for the benefit of lawyers, not the good of
the state. A poor man who gets a legacy of L100, pays L10 direct to the
Exchequer, and the executor, in addition, pays the heavy stamp on
probate of the succession; but the great landholder succeeds to L100,000
a-year without paying a shilling to the state.

A creditor in Scotland, who succeeds to a bond for L100,000, heritably
secured, pays nothing; if it is on personal security, he pays the full
legacy duty of L10,000.

This glaring inequality, the remnant of the days of feudal oppression,
or the relic of a time when the landholders had no money, and taxes
could be extracted from movable property only, should forthwith be
abolished. Succession of all kinds, whether in land, bonds heritably
secured, or movable funds, should be taxed at the same rate. And by the
addition of the vast amount of the landed property to the