§ I now turn to the death duties. They produced £18,398,000, namely, £14,200,000 to the Exchequer, and' £4,198,000 to the Local Taxation Fund. The Exchequer receipts were £1,220,000 more than the previous year, and £200,000 more than my estimate. These high receipts were due to two causes on which I had calculated. In the first place, I had made arrangements to clear up a good many outstanding arrears, for the benefit, not only of the Exchequer, but also of the parties concerned, as a preliminary towards adopting in the death duty office certain arrangements for expediting business which were very much needed for the advantage of the public, and which will result, I believe, from the recommendations of a Committee presided over by the hon. and learned Member for Haddington. In the second place, at this time last year, I had reason to anticipate that the duties on certain large estates would become payable during the year. I am afraid both of those causes will not be so operative in the year now before us, and that I shall have-to make a lower estimate of the yield from death duties. I may say generally, that the receipts from death duties have already suffered from the heavy fall in value of Stock Exchange Securities, especially Railway Securities, which has led, not only to a lower value in the case of the estates which fell in for death duty, but also sometimes to estates paying a lower rate of duty than they would have done three or four years ago. The total capital value of the property paying estate duty last year was £264,000,000 or £2,000,000 more than in the previous year.