case of large sums passing on death to persons other than the widow,
direct descendants, or other near relatives of a deceased person. On
small legacies the present rates should suffice, but there is no moral
claim for distant relatives to be allowed to take large sums. Would
there be any real hardship in imposing a heavy duty of, say, 25 per
cent. on gifts over, say, £1,000 to collateral relations not dependent
on the testator or to strangers? Or there might be a graded scale
according to the remoteness of the relationship. In case of intestacy it
would be often a real advantage to take the _whole property_ for the
State, if there were no relations within the third or fourth degree,
i.e., uncles and aunts, and nephews and nieces being in the third
degree, first cousins in the fourth. Economists for the last hundred
years--Bentham, Mill, and others--have advocated such a change. Nearly
every judge or officer of the Courts who has to do with the
administration of estates would support a change which would do away
with much wasteful litigation and disappoint no reasonable expectations.
No source of revenue should be neglected if it can truly be said that by
imposing the additional taxation proposed there will be (i) no
dislocation of trade or hampering of industry or commerce; (ii) no
discouragement of thrift; (iii) no real hardship; (iv) no great expense
incurred in collection in proportion to the amount raised. It is only
sheer stupidity that refuses to adopt a means of raising even a small
amount when the method proposed for doing so would have positively
beneficial results in other ways.

The land increment duty should be a warning as regards cost of
collection. That cost relatively to the amount produced has been
enormous. But actual cost of collection as returned, represents only a
small part of the expenditure really caused by the tax. The time taken
up in making returns and filling up forms and obtaining the necessary