The subject matter of the Act we are dealing with is estate duty in the true sense. It is not a succession duty. In Attorney-General v. Peek[5] the distinction was pointed out. In arguendo Lord Wrenbury (then Buckley L.J.) said[6]: "There is a difference between estate duty and succession duty in this, that the former is a proportion of the dead man's estate which is taken by the State, while the latter is a sum of money which is claimed and taken away from the person who succeeds to the estate." In his judgment[7] the learned Lord Justice again referred to the distinction, and restated it in other words but to precisely the same effect. This is supported by what Lord Shaw said in Winans v. Attorney-General [No. 2][8]. That means that an estate duty looks to the property left by the deceased, and not to persons either in Australia or elsewhere, as the subjects of taxation. Necessarily, the person to whom by law the property is entrusted is made the vehicle for payment of the duty. The scheme of the Act is this: - On the death of any person anywhere in the world who leaves property described in the Act, a duty is imposed on the mass of that property, called "the estate of the deceased person." That estate is defined to include (broadly speaking): (1) all real and personal property actually situated in Australia, and (2) all personal property anywhere if the deceased was domiciled in Australia. The first is in right of territory, and the second in right of jus gentium exercised by Statute. So far for property which legally and ostensibly belonged to the deceased at his death. But further, since experience has shown that gifts inter vivos are frequently made in contemplation of death and intended to operate as testamentary dispositions, though not technically such, it has been for many years the recognized practice of Legislatures to protect the revenue by regarding, for duty purposes, all such gifts inter vivos as if they had not been made. It has further been a recognized test, in order to avoid difficulty, delay and litigation that would often be required to establish that such gifts were in fact made to operate as testamentary gifts, to provide a limit of time before death as determining the question. This has been followed by sub-sec. 4 of sec. 8, and in that case all property within the meaning of that sub-section, which passed from the deceased person by a gift inter vivos within a year before his decease, is deemed for the purposes of the Act to be part of the estate. It follows that not merely Australian property, but also foreign property, which a domiciled Australian had within a year before his death and which was not his at the time of his death, may be his "estate" for the purposes of the Act. Whether Australian or foreign, the gifts inter vivos may have been for a foreign charitable purpose, yet by sub-sec. 4 it becomes taxable as notionally part of his estate. If under sub-sec. 4 no distinction is made between foreign and Australian charitable purposes, we think it tells greatly in favour of the absence of any such distinction in sub-sec. 5. In view of the necessary effect of sub-sec. 4 in this respect, it appears to us that not only is it impossible to say that this provision is to be territorially restricted, but also that it is improbable that the Legislature, if it meant to create the distinction contended for, would have failed to say so expressly. And there is one other consideration, which seems to us to be of weight. The common law of England, notwithstanding its repugnance to inalienability of property, real or personal, always relaxed its prohibition in favour of "charitable purposes," in the large Elizabethan sense, whether in England or elsewhere. Such a purpose is a favoured purpose, not merely because executed in England, but for its own sake. This leads to the conclusion that the mass of property constituting the "estate" is first made primâ facie dutiable, and then such part of it as bears the character, not of private benefit but (inter alia) of "charitable" benefit, is exempted. The Legislature in effect declines to take from such a purpose - irrespective of the nationality of the recipients - any portion of the property. On the whole, we think the following words of Lord Haldane L.C. with reference to the English Finance Act, in Attorney-General v. Milne[9], apply: - "All we are permitted to look at is the language used. If it has a natural meaning we cannot depart from that meaning unless, reading the Statute as a whole, the context directs us to do so. Speculation as to a different construction having been contemplated by those who framed the Act is inadmissible, above all in a Statute which imposes taxation." It is scarcely necessary to add that, as this conclusion is reached on the nature and language of the particular Statute, it leaves entirely untouched the effect of provisions somewhat analogous in other Statutes.