Property and Inheritance. 29 
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generation, to enforce a continual redistribution of 
property, and to substitute a large number of small 
fortunes for a small number of large fortunes. The 
rate of change would be set by the scale adopted, 
and the steepness of the scale would depend on the 
strength of society’s desire for equality. 
Mill found himself, in putting forward this proposal, 
faced with a difficulty he could not overcome. At 
that time his proposal would have involved the break- 
ing up of the unity of large industrial enterprises. 
Since his time the development of joint stock has 
removed the difficulty. The separation of the 
ownership of capital from the administration of 
industry has made possible any division of the former 
without affecting the unity of the latter. 
Property and Equality. 
Mill’s proposal, so far as I know, failed entirely to 
secure consideration. No country or party has 
deliberately adopted a policy of equalising property. 
It is not that the principle of compulsory division 
at death is novel ; it is well-established in the practice 
of other countries, though not with the direct object 
of promoting equality. Nor are the administrative 
difficulties insuperable ; most of them have already 
been faced and overcome in the administration of 
the Estate Duties; evasion by gifts inter vivos 
would promote rather than prevent the object of 
this reform. It would seem that the distinction 
between the effects of the property right as such 
and the effects of the inequality of its distribution 
has escaped politicians. The defenders of property 
are, in the main, the defenders of inequality ; the 
advocates of equality have given up all hope of 
reforming property, and thrown in their lot with the 
authoritarian reformers who seek to abolish it.