814

THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

duties on the registration of deeds or writings, except the feesof the officers who keep the register ; and these are seldommore than a reasonable recompense for their labour. Thecrown derives no revenue from them.

In Holland* there are both stamp-duties and duties uponregistration ; which in some cases are, and in some are notproportioned to the value of the property transferred. Alltestaments must be written upon stamped paper of whichthe price is proportioned to the property disposed of, so thatthere are stamps which cost from three-pence or threestivers a sheet, to three hundred florins, equal to about twenty -sevenpounds ten shillings of our money. If the stamp is ofan inferior price to what the testator ought to have made useof, his succession is confiscated. This is over and above alltheir other taxes on succession. Except bills of exchangeand some other mercantile bills, all other deeds, bonds, andcontracts, are subject to a stamp-duty. This duty, however,does not rise in proportion to the value of the subject. Allsales of land and of houses, and all mortgages upon either,must be registered, and upon registration, pay a duty to thestate of two and a half per cent, upon the amount of the priceor of the mortgage. This duty is extended to the sale of allships and vessels of more than two tons burden, whetherdecked or undecked. These, it seems, are considered as asort of houses upon the water. The sale of moveables, whenit is ordered by a court of justice, is subject to the like dutyof two and a half per cent.

In France there are both stamp-duties and duties uponregistration. The former are considered as a branch of theaids or excise, and in the provinces where those duties takeplace, arc levied by the excise officers. The latter are con-sidered as a branch of the domain of the crown, and are le-vied by a different set of officers.

Those modes of taxation, by stamp-duties and by dutiesupon registration, are of very modern invention. In the courseof little more than a century, however, stamp-duties have inEurope become almost universal, and duties upon registra-tion extremely common. There is no art which one govern-ment sooner learns of another, than that of draining moneyfrom the pockets of the people.

Taxes upon the transference of property from the dead tothe living, fall finally as well as immediately upon the per-

* Meraoires concfin^nt Droiti, Sec. tome i, p. JtS—