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_iCS 
Property and Inheritance. 
of an encumbered English landed estate before the 
reforms of the Victorian age. 
Extinction or Diffusion. 
These administrative difficulties would have to be 
considered in any attempt to act on Rignano’s or 
Dr. Dalton’s proposals; but they are not decisive. 
Dr. Dalton is justified in claiming that equal or 
greater administrative difficulties are successfully 
overcome in much existing legislation. The decisive 
question is whether we desire the progressive reduc- 
tion of the field of private property, which is the 
real end of these proposals. To accept them is to 
give up the attempt to diffuse property, and to place 
our reliance entirely on constitutional safeguards 
to secure personal liberty and independence against 
the pressure of modern industrialism. 
In the circumstances of post-war England, how- 
ever, the ultimate effect of the Rignano principle 
need hardly be considered. The National Debt is 
so great that there is no likelihood of the State 
accumulating assets as a result of taxation for some 
generations to come. Any surplus of revenue over 
current expenditure should go in repayment of debt. 
The difficulty will be to secure a surplus. From this 
point of view Chancellors of the Exchequer of all 
political complexions may welcome the Rignano 
principle, especially in the more practicable form 
into which Dr. Dalton has thrown it. By taxing 
inherited property at death at a higher rate than 
“earned ”’ property, and by imposing a graduated 
tax on legacies, as well as on the value of the estate as 
a whole, the Death Duties might be made to yield 
more even than at present with less danger of checking 
the accumulation of capital. At the same time the 
tax would tend to lessen inequality, a principle 
27