2 
Property and Inheritance 
and the need for a continued extension of State 
action are mutually complementary, and arise from 
the same technological developments in industry. 
We have seen that it is the growing complication of 
economic relations and the growing dependence of 
the individual on the productive organisation that 
make the possession of a reserve of property for 
most people an essential condition of any real 
freedom and independence. It is the same com- 
plication and concentration of industry that explains 
the changes in the relation of Government and 
industry since 1833, and calls for a further extension 
of the regulative and the administrative action of 
the State in industry. More State enterprise is 
needed, not less, because there are many social needs 
that can be met, and social activities that can be 
organised, only by communal provision. More 
industrial legislation is needed, not less, because 
social relations are becoming more complex, and 
require more laws to keep them orderly, and because 
there are still cases of exploitation of the weak 
which legislation could prevent. There is even a case 
for more taxation, not less, because current expendi- 
ture by the rich on luxuries is much greater than the 
post-war world can afford, and taxation for debt 
repayment might check it. 
But the maintenance of the present right of pro- 
perty and a wide diffusion of its enjoyment is needed 
as well, to provide a check on bureaucracy, to enable 
the wage-eamner and salaried worker to bargain on 
equal terms with the large-scale employer, whether 
that employer be public or private, to facilitate 
voluntary co-operative movement. State action 
supplements the economic organisation based on 
property ; the social problem of property is the 
problem of diffusion. 
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PG 
19: 
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