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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