§ Brigadier-General CLIFTON BROWNasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the fact that English fanners enjoy the use of a capital estimated at £815,000,000 at rates of interest far below those which Government can borrow, through the expenditure of the private money of landowners in the equipment and maintenance of their farms, he will assist this cheap flow of capital into the industry by the relief of agricultural land from death duties?
§ Mr. CHURCHILLI would remind my hon. and gallant Friend that when the rates of Estate Duty were raised to their present level in the Finance Act, 1925, special relief was accorded to agricultural property, in that the agricultural value of such property was not made subject to the increased rates, but was left liable only at the rates previously fixed by the784W Finance Act, 1919. The relief so granted amounted to £144,000 in 1926 and to £237,000 in 1927.