produce of the
succession duty, it would be in the power of Government _to reduce the
general tax at least a half_ without any diminution, probably a large
increase, in the general result. This must be at once apparent, when it
is recollected that out of L5,303,000, which the income tax produced in
1845, from Britain, no less than L2,666,000, or nearly a half, came from
the land. When it is recollected that the remainder embraced, besides
income from realized money, no less than L1,541,000 for professional
income, which of course corresponds to a comparatively small amount of
realized capital, it is evident how great an increase to the taxable
amount of succession this most equitable change would produce. It need
hardly be said that the land should pay on so many years' purchase, say
thirty in Great Britain, and twenty in Ireland of the _clear rent_,
after deducting the interest of mortgages or heritable bonds or
jointures. _They_ would pay the tax on the succession of their holders
respectively. And the distinction as to the lesser amount of the tax to
be paid by children and relations, than strangers, now observed in the
succession to personal property, should be applied also to landed
succession.

This is one obvious burden, which should be applied equally to landed as
to any other class of proprietors. But there are several particulars in
which they are most unjustly subjected to burdens from which other
classes are relieved; and if they get justice done them in this respect,
they could well afford to pay the succession duty.

In the first place, the levying of the POOR'S RATE as a burden
exclusively laid on _real_ property in England, that is, lands and
houses, to the entire liberation of personal property or professional
incomes, is a most monstrous inequality--indefensible on every principle
of justice or expedience, and the long continuance of which can only be
explained by the well known and proverbial supineness of that class of
men, and their inability to rouse themselves to any combined or general
effort, even for matters in which their own vital interests are
concerned. The Poor's Rate, it is well known, is, especially in England,
a very heavy burden. It amounted, prior to the late change in the law in
England, to above L8,000,000 a-year: and although it was at first
considerably reduced in the years immediately succeeding the first
introduction of that Act in 1834, yet it has been steadily rising since,