The inheritance tax is a particularly fitting form of impost in which insufficiently fruitful families might pay the indemnity which they justly owe the state on account of their sterility; for the prime object of the neo-Malthusians is to forestall the necessity of dividing their fortunes among too many children. The laws of succession are so framed now that only sons pay less than others; not only are the expenses of notarial acts less for them than for families with several children, but the latter are liable to pay the tax several times, for when one of the heirs dies his brothers and sisters will have to pay new succession taxes. In all cases of this order the treasury burdens numerous families, and spares neo-Malthusian ones. The institution of heritage stimulates industry, and is one of the chief reasons for it. A great many men, we are sure, would work less and would certainly save less except for the prospect of leaving the fruit of their labor and economy to their children—or, too often, to their only child. But as the institution of heritage becomes under these conditions one of the prime factors of depopulation, it will have to be modified.
The state is as much interested in the fecundity of families as it is in their industry and thrift. To stimulate the latter virtues it guarantees them the right of inheritance. It might withdraw it or diminish it to its own profit, if their fertility was not judged sufficient for it. For such a measure to be effective its application should be severe enough to touch sensibly the fortunes of families which have given the country only one or two children. The state, for instance, might reserve to itself the disposable part of the inheritance—half, for instance, in the case of families having only one child; a third, of families where there are two children; and waiver of the extra tax where there are three children. The principle might be approximately expressed as that of treating single children as to their inheritance portions as if they had brothers. But as a proposition so worded would have but little chance of immediate adoption, we should have to be satisfied with a less radical reform. If it is objected that such measures would be too revolutionary and too much opposed to existing ideas and habits, the answer is that anodynes would be without effect upon so profound and inveterate an evil. French families must cease to have an evident interest in limiting the number of their children, and something more than half measures will be needed to achieve such a result.
Our principle is equality of burdens. We say to the French: "You have three chief duties toward your country: to contribute to its perpetuity, to its defense, and to its pecuniary burdens. We affirm that you have failed in the first of these duties. This being true, you must accept the other two with a supplement. With this principle severely applied, and with some other reforms, we hope to bring back to the country the idea of the respect that is due to numerous families and of aversion against the detestable habits that are destroying France."
The sums derived from the increased succession taxes which we have proposed to assess upon families that have given the country only one or two children might be reserved for the education of poor children or for the realization of some such plan as has been proposed by M. Raoul de la Grasserie for the pensioning of a retreat in old age for the parents of large families.
Another means of encouraging parentage may be found in instituting special honors and marks of esteem for the fathers and mothers of numerous children. Thus the General Council of the Drôme gives a gold medal on the 14th of July to each of the two women in the department who excel in this respect. A fund has been created at Nantes for providing rewards to those who have the most children under fifteen years of age. A system of rewards also exists at Meaux for those who have contributed most to the population.
The French law requiring the equal division of estates among all the children operates as a deterrent to parentage. A father who has built up a large business or accumulated a handsome domain is exceedingly averse to the prospect of having it cut up and dispersed, and is therefore careful to have but one child, so that it may descend unimpaired to him. The coincidence that France is the only country where this system prevails, and is, at the same time, the only one where the population is decreasing, is striking enough to suggest a connection between the two phenomena. The law works mischievously in this respect, and requires modification in the direction of giving the parent larger privileges of testamentary disposition.
Thus, the state should in every way and in every department of law and administration manifest its profound respect for large families; it should set the example on this point, for it is the party most largely interested.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue Scientifique.
WEST INDIAN POISONOUS FISHES.
By JAMES MACDONALD ROGERS, F. R. C. S.,