Property and Inheritance 
A generation ago Matthew Arnold exhorted English 
people to ‘choose equality and abjure greed.” 
More recently Mr. and Mrs. Webb have revived 
this precept, and the need of the advice is as great 
as in his time. What progress has been made in 
the interval has been due mainly to progressive 
taxation, the motive of which was almost purely 
fiscal, and the undiscriminating outcry from the 
richer classes against the pressure of this taxation 
to-day seems to indicate a determination to choose 
greed and abjure any thought of equality. Yet the 
organic, highly centralised productive system that 
is developing makes greater economic equality 
essential if the liberty that its productiveness 
promises is to be realised. 
The diffusion of property is the most conservative 
way of securing this greater equality that suggests 
itself, and the regulation of inheritance is only one 
element in a general policy of promoting the diffusion 
of property. In the face of the characteristic in- 
equalities of modern industry democratic reformers 
have concentrated on extending the scope and activi- 
ties of the State. But existing States are not such 
perfect expressions of the people’s will that we should 
wish to put all our eggs into that particular basket. 
The extension of the State’s economic activities is 
necessary and will continue ; the dangers it involves 
would be less if it could be supplemented by the 
creation of a large independent class of small owners 
of property. Whether such a policy is possible I 
cannot say ; all I can say is that it has been achieved 
in Irish rural society, and it has not failed, for the 
simple reason that it has never yet been tried, in 
English industrial society.