TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Waikato Times, Volume 119, Issue 19914, 17 June 1936, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Death Duties ' “Death duties gave us . . . the highest yield ever obtained since they began," said the Chancellor in his Budget speech, writes Frank Longworth in the Daily Mail. He was referring, of course to death duties in Britain. But they are no new thing. Two thousand years ago Julius Caesar thought that death duties were a great idea, though he did not call them by such an obvious name. So long ago as 55 8.C., when the Roman Emperor first cast envious eyes on the shores of England, he was rather low in funds. In a moment of inspiration he decided to levy a fine on the death of any member of the wealthy classes. It was an original method, but a thousand years later William the Conqueror, nearly on the verge of bankruptcy after his spectacular invasion of 1066. revived the tax. More genteel than Cuosar, he levied not death duties, but the same thing under another name. William demanded fines from young men who came before him to claim the estates of their deceased fathers. Yet it was not until 1694 that death duties first benefited the national Exchequer. In that year Parliament ordained that on the death of any person who was possessed of an estate, no matter how large or how small, a nominal sum should be paid to the State. Another eighty-five years were to elapse before it occurred to a. Chancellor that a sliding scale of duties would be more profitable, and it has been sliding ever since, though always in an upward direction. To-dny the possessor of more than £2,000,000 must make provision for 50 per cent of it to be paid to the State within a few‘ days of his death. lßed Belt Round Paris 1 “ Pnris proper is only half the capital. lts three million inhabi—tants urn nmtvhod by (mother three million in greater Paris, scat—tvrml in sm'vrul score industrial suburban cities. Statistics on these extraordinary suburbs are perhaps what scare the Frcnt‘h bourgeois n,..,{_ li‘orty».~o\'un of them- mllnll’lpfllltlf‘s are Communist. They llin‘v (‘ummunist mayors and rounvillors and they send Communist deputies to Parliament. Akin In those municipalities, and now allied with them, are fifteen Hm-ialist and seven Radical towns. With the exception of a few uities like Aubervillicrs, the special preserve of Pierre Lava], and that stockhrokers’ suburb. Neuilly, the towns around the city form an almost unbroken Lct‘tist girdle. These are the rcservoirs of the voting strength of a large part of the People's Front. the alliance of Communist, Socialist, and Radical parties/Fe New York Times Manama.