WIPING OUT CAPITAL

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 68, 17 September 1936, Page 28

WIPING OUT CAPITAL

DEATH DUTIES BURDEN

Criticism by the Marquess of Lothian of the effect of death duties upon land capital, and a reply by the Minister of Agriculture (Mr. Walter Elliot) to criticism 'of his new scheme for beef protection were made at' the annual dinner of the Land Agents' Society in London, says the ''Daily Telegraph."

"I ;have read iome criticisms of the beef proposals," said Mr. Elliot. "I do not suggest they are the ideal but I do say they are a determined effort to grapple with the difficulties of the livestock man. They carry into force a tariff on imported beef.which has been demanded for years." ' • Lord Lothian made a plea for. a revision of estate valuation. "In my experience," he said; "death duties are. paid at one-third more than their real value. I feel it is undesirable that agriculture should be subjected to a taxation one-third more than its value as an investment. The agricultural industry is continually being denuded of capital which should be put into the land. because of this cause." In'his reply, Mr. Elliot referred to Lord Lothian as having formerly "upheld both the right and indeed the left hand of his former chief, that redoubtable robber of the hen-roost; Mr. Lloyd George." Proposing the toast of "The Society," Mr. A. B. Ramsay, Master of Magdalen College, Cambridge, said he was horrified at the way in which in certain parts of the country magnificent trees were being uprooted and conifers planted instead "in a way which would presently 'make us look like Germany or Switzerland." Replying, the president (Mr. Leslie Pym) said the society had been faoed with a seemingly endless flow of legislation concerning the land. He appealed, to landowners to give young resident land agents a chance. Most of the patients in a hospital for sick fish on the island of Lovo, near Stockholm, arrive by post. Experts in the diseases of fish investigate their ailments, at the hospital in order to advise persons in charge of the waters from which they were taken what to do, to prevent a spreading of their disease.