forms of property." No won- less, to destroy our existing territorial system, and with it the territorial aristocracy. It is quite clear that if this is his object the exemption of agricultural land will soon be discovered to be an "anomaly.” We know that it was not contemplated in the original Budget. And though Mr LloydGeorge has been forced to concede it for the present, the scheme still remains up his sleeve as a card to be played at some more favourable opportunity-perhaps when there is another sixteen million deficit.

der Mr Asquith had nothing to say in reply to Lord Rosebery on this point. Yet it is one on which the whole mercantile community, the whole body of shareholders throughout the country, all who have invested their savings in any form of security whatever of which the value is capable of increasing, are deeply interested. Lord Rosebery's speech challenged a reply. Are these apprehensions groundless; or are we to expect that Mr Asquith, if he has the chance, will act up to the declaration which he made last June, and which Mr Herbert Gladstone repeated in July? But the oracle was dumb. And we are bound to believe that silence gives consent.

Then Mr Asquith makes great play with the exemption of agricultural land from the clutch of the tax-gatherer. The territorial class, the main bulk of whose property is agricultural land, have, he says, no cause of complaint. But Lord Rosebery very properly asks how long this remission is likely to last, or this distinction to be maintained? What, again, is to be the definition of agricultural land? The Government inspectors and valuers will sweep into the net all that they possibly can. But independently of these particular objections, Mr Asquith has given himself away by saying that one of the main objects of the Government is to break up large estates. In other words, for it comes to nothing

Mr Asquith sneers at Lord Rosebery's tribute to the great public services rendered to the country by the territorial class, whether titled or untitled. As Mr Gladstone is frequently appealed to by the Premier, we would refer him to Mr Gladstone's well-known description of the English the English aristocracy, whose position he hoped in turn might be attained by the Irish aristocracy,—

"A position marked by residence, by personal familiarity, and by sympathy with the people among whom they live; by long traditional connection, handed on from generation to generation, and marked by constant discharge of duty in every form that can be suggested, be it as to the administration of justice, be it as to the defence of the country, be it as to the supply of social or spiritual or moral or educational wants, be it for any purpose whatever that is recognised as good or beneficial in a civilised society."

Mr Asquith may not be aware either of the somewhat important fact that the territorial aristocracy made the land.

1909.] The New Army of Commissioners and Inspectors.

Mr Pell in his admirable essay shows conclusively that the value of English agricultural land at the present day is its manufactured or artificial value, created exclusively by the outlay of landed proprietors, extending over many centuries. It is they who have "made the land,”—i.e., have at their own expense brought it into a condition in which it repays cultivation. This is the class which the Government are bent on robbing and humiliating, with a view to their ultimate extinction, And among other more sinister excuses for this exceptional treatment of them we find the rather comic one that the landowner is more easily got at. He cannot evade or deceive the tax collectors, as members of the commercial community can. He must therefore pay for both. The land-tax is to make up for the deficiency due to the dishonest evasion of income-tax by the commercial classes. We wonder how our mercantile and manufacturing friends will relish this!

But it is not by iniquitous taxation only that the depression of the landed interest is sought. The establishment of bureaucratic government in contradiction to all oldfashioned Liberalism, as well as to Toryism of every kind, whether old or new, will be dealing another severe blow to our old county system, and to the hereditary influence of the rural aristocracy. Jealousy of this class is one of the motive springs of Radicalism. And its

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professors would trample it in the dust, if they could, at any cost. But it was this system of bureaucracy superseding the legitimate functions of the provincial aristocracy which more than anything else contributed to the French Revolution. Lord Rosebery speaks with well-deserved severity of this encroachment on our old local liberties and jurisdictions. But Mr Asquith is silent. The landowner's footsteps will be dogged, almost from the cradle to the grave, by an army of commissioners and inspectors empowered to pry into his private affairs, and in many cases to value his possessions at their own discretion without any appeal, which has never yet been refused to any Englishman conceiving himself taxed beyond his proper liability. The proposed regulations in regard to the assessment of super-tax are one example out of many of this arbitrary system of procedure. All this inquisitorial and vexatious tyranny is exposed by Lord Rosebery with consummate force and clearness, and still Mr Asquith is dumb.

The truth we believe to be that he hates the whole business as much as Lord Rosebery himself, and that he has no heart to take up the defence of it in the same spirit as Mr Lloyd-George or Mr Churchill. He tries feebly to maintain that the Budget is not Socialism. But he does not attempt to argue the point. He is conscious that he can't, and that the Budget can only be logically

be

and successfully defended by value them just as he pleases. frankly recognising Socialism It was also laid down that and boldly proclaiming the no legacy duty should revolution which it is intended levied on estates passing from to effect. Any other defence father to children. Now they of it is so weak and watery have to pay 1 per cent. But that no wonder the unhappy the crowning iniquity of all is Premier, in trying to find one, the levy of death duties on becut so poor a figure as he did. quests made by men three years As to unearned increment we before their death. The Governneed say no more, as Mr ment intended to make it five Asquith has given himself years-let that be remembered. away on that point and relieved himself from the necessity of answering Lord Rosebery's very cogent and pregnant observations on consols, railways, and other personal investments. Let this, then, be steadily borne in mind. The extension of the unearned increment doctrine to all kinds of property is no idle prophecy of unscrupulous partisans circulated only for the purpose of damaging their opponents. The Government themselves confess it.

We must still find space for Lord Rosebery's criticism of the death duties at once humorous and indignant. It might have been expected that Mr Asquith should say something in reply to Lord Rosebery's charge of breach of faith. When the death duties were imposed in 1894 by a Government of which Lord Rosebery was a member, "there was a solemn promise, a solemn undertaking to Parliament, that agricultural estates should be valued only at twenty-five years' purchase. Now this limit has been done away with, and apparently the Government inquisitor may

"From the date of the passing of this Act every man will be in this position. He may outlive the three years.

time may come, and therefore every But no one can tell when his man must behave as if death were to come in three years. For the rest of your lives you cannot be sure of him to join a profession, or your giving anything to your son to enable daughter to enable her to marry, you cannot pension your old workmen or your old servants, without years previous to your death will be knowing that when you die the three taken out of your life, and everything you have done or given during these three years will be reckoned a part of your estate for the purposes

of death duties."

"Say a father has got £40,000. He gives £10,000 to his son and £10,000 to his daughter, and dies reckoned up at £20,000; but 'No, four years afterwards. His estate is no,' says the Commissioner, I find out that he gave his son £10,000 and his daughter £10,000 four years ago'; and he says to your executor, and the wretched heir with £20,000 "That makes the estate £40,000,' remaining will have to pay on £40,000, besides the sum of any charities and bounties."

"I venture to ask," continues Lord Rosebery, "Is there country, any century, any state of any civilisation in which such incredible provisions have been devised? I submit to you that to carry it out beside which that of the late Sultan would require a system of espionage of Turkey would pale."