gure, which I doubt, yet the yield of such a tax would be very large
under any circumstances.

Since this, like every tax on an inheritance, is a tax on capital--that
is to say, it is directly derived from invested capital--it is in the
nature of things that the proceeds should be devoted in the first
instance to the improvement of the financial situation, especially to
paying off debts. Otherwise there would be the danger of acting like a
private gentleman who lives on his capital. This idea is also to be
recommended because the proceeds of the tax are not constant, but liable
to fluctuations. It would be advisable to devote the proceeds
principally in this way, and to allow a part to go towards extinguishing
the debt of the communes, whose financial soundness is extremely
important. This fundamental standpoint does not exclude the possibility
that in a national crisis the tax may be exceptionally applied to other
important purposes, as for example to the completion of our armaments on
land and sea.

There are two objections--one economic, the other ethical--which may be
urged against this right of the State or the Empire to inherit. It is
argued that the proceeds of the tax were drawn from the national wealth,
that the State would grow richer, the people poorer, and that in course
of time capital would be united in the hand of the State, that the
independent investor would be replaced by the official, and thus the
ideal of Socialism would be realized. Secondly, the requirement that
relations, in order to inherit, must be specially mentioned in the will,
is thought to be a menace to the coherence of the family. "According to
our prevailing law, the man who wishes to deprive his family of his
fortune must do some positive act. He must make a will, in which he
bequeathes the property to third persons, charitable institutions, or to
any other object. It is thus brought before his mind that his natural
heirs are his relations, his kin, and that he must make a will if he
wishes to exclude his legal heirs. It is impressed upon him that he is
interfering by testamentary disposition in the natural course of things,
that he is wilfully altering it. The Imperial right of succession is
based on the idea that the community stands nearer to the individual
than his family. This is in its inmost significance a socialistic trait.
The socialistic State, which deals with a society made up of atoms, in
which every individual is freed fr