On Wednesday night Mr. Asquith opposed the Bill in a.
studiously moderate speech. He showed that the custom of the Inland Revenue authorities to charge Death-duties on the value of a license did not in any way create a property in the thing charged. The Revenue authorities simply asked whether a thing had a market value at a particular moment, and if it had, included it in their valuation. That, we agree, is the only course they can pursue. The imposition of a very heavy Paper-duty might conceivably ruin many newspapers which depend upon cheap paper for their profits. Would the State grant them compensation because it has always been imagined that "the tax on knowledge" was gone for good, and because Death-duties were levied on market values resting on the expectation that the State would never again tax the Press ? If the last penny of compensation is to be given whenever the State does something which it has a perfect right to do, but was not expected to be going to do, Mr. Chamberlain will not find the task of Tariff Reform any the easier. But though Mr. Asquith opposed the Government's scheme for dealing with the question, he did not, we are glad to say, oppose the grant of a reasonable solatium, or the creation of some scheme of "pecuniary adjustment as between different members of the trade." Mr. Asquith ended by insisting that the intro- duction of a time limit was essential to a settlement of the problem.
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