Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 25.djvu/48

40 see their way in their next report to give more details on this very interesting point.

Before passing on I should like to add a caution which may not be necessary in this room, but which may be needed outside. All such figures must be taken with a good deal of qualification, owing to variations of detail in the method of levying the duty at different times, variations in the character of the administration, and the like causes. I notice, for instance, an unusually remarkable increase both in the number of owners and amount of property passing in Scotland; this last fact, I believe, having already given rise to the statement that there has been something unexampled in the increase of personal property in Scotland. The explanation appears to be, however, that the increase of property in Scotland is, to some extent, only apparent, being due partly, for instance, to the fact that by Scotch law mortgages are real property, whereas in England they are personal property, so that it was necessary, in the course of administering the tax, to pass a special law enabling the Commissioners of Inland Revenue to bring Scotch mortgages into the category of personal property. This is only one illustration of the caution with which such figures must be used. Taking them in the lump, and not pressing comparisons between the three divisions of the United Kingdom, or any other points of detail which might be dangerous, we appear to be safe in the main conclusion that the number of owners of personal property liable to probate duty has increased in the last fifty years more than the increase of population, and that on the average these owners are only about 15 per cent richer than they were, while the individual income of the working-classes has increased from 50 to 100 per cent.

The next piece of statistics I have to refer to is the number of separate assessments in that part of Schedule D known as Part I, viz., trades and professions, which excludes public companies and their sources of income, where there is no reason to believe that the number of separate assessments corresponds in any way to the number of individual incomes. Even in Part I there can be no exact correspondence, as partnerships make only one return, but in comparing distant periods it seems not unfair to assume that the increase or decrease of assessments would correspond to the increase or decrease of individual incomes. This must be the case, unless we assume that in the interval material differences were likely to arise from the changes in the