A CAPITAL LEVY.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—In reading the article on " A Capital Levy in your issue of November 11th, I see, as everyone must, the difficulty of the valuation and sale of Capital on a large scale ; but is the necessity of a sale as obvious ? The State accepts certain securities in payment of Death Duties ; why should it not accept any trustee securities, at their price on a given date, in payment of a Capital Levy, not for the purpose of selling them, but to hold them as it holds Suez Canal shares ? The dividends could be hypothecated to the service of the National Debt. The writer of the article says that the Capital Tax Collector would refuse payment in kind, such as diamonds and houses ; he omits, in this connexion, the railway debentures mentioned a few lines before. I am not an advocate of a Capital Levy, but it seems a pity to use a weak argument against it ; or niight a Socialist Government some day sell even the Suez Canal shares ?—I am, Sir, &c., A. A. LEA. 53 South Terrace, Littlehampton.
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