The Death - Duties : a Handbook. By Sydney Burton, M.P., and
G. S. Barnes. (John Murray.)—This is a very good little guide to the maze of the Death-duties, put together in Mr. Buxton's usually succinct and exact manner. The most interesting thing about the recent history of this complicated and perplexing subject, is the way in which Mr. Goschen has handled it. He has introduced reforms and improvements which have been long agitated by the Liberal Party, the actual execution of which was inaugurated by Mr. Gladstone in 1881, and followed up by Mr. Childers and Sir M. Hicks-Beach in 1885. By increasing the Succession-duties, thus increasing the share paid by land (which, as we have often demonstrated in these columns, is unduly favoured), by sweeping in many kinds of settlements and quasi- settlements which previously escaped, and above all by the introduction of the " Estate-duty," with its graduated scale, increasing the proportion payable on estates over £10,000, Mr. Goschen has not only largely benefited the revenue, but has advanced principles which will render it far easier for some of his successors to reduce the present miserable muddle to simplicity and equity. One could almost wish that Mr. Goschen himself should be greeted with a deficit instead of a surplus, so that he might be forced to deal with the subject as a whole. A succession of surpluses caused by normal growth of trade and revenue is not favourable to that scientific readjustment which the Death-duties, consisting of five or six separate duties on the same subject- matter, emphatically demand.
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