RUT-IT IS objected by the Beaverbrook press and others—the Bill
wil4 perpetuate the Earl Marshal- ship in the Norfolk family and will enable the Duke of Norfolk to pay less tax. The first objec- tion is simply untrue. A'§ to the second, the Bill tnaY mean that the Duke's estate when he dies Will have to pay lower death duties. But is that necessarily undesirable? After all, Lord Beaver- brook's action in handing over his shares in the Express newspapers to the Beaverbrook founda- tion, generous and admirable though it no doubt Was, must have greatly reduced the liability to death duties of his estate. The Duke of Norfolk could perfectly well save death duties on his castle (When the entail has been broken) by handing it over to a cat-and-dog home or some other simi- larly worthy institution, but I should have thought that for the community as a whole the Duke's Own solution was infinitely preferable. The objec- tion of Mr. Herbert Morrison to the Bill is slightly different. He believes it wrong that a Member of Parliament (in this case a peer) 'should have the right to bring in a Personal Bill in which his own interest is involved.' This argument would perhaps be stronger if just such a Bill had not happily passed through the House of Commons when there was a Labour majority of 190 and Mr. Morrison was Leader of the House. The Beaver- brook press was bound to lead a hue and cry against the Bill—the Duke of Norfolk, along with the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Mount- batten, has long occupied a prominent place in Lord Beaverbrook's pantheon of villainy—and the Bill is naturally offensive to many of the more dog-in-the-manger egalitarians in the Labour Party. But what on earth are Conservatives doing in such company?
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