To judge of the final destination of the institution of property, we must suppose everything rectified which causes the institution to work in a manner opposed to that equitable principle, of proportion between remuneration and exertion, on which, in every vindication of it that will bear the light, it is assumed to be grounded. The question of Socialism is not, as generally stated by Socialists, a question of flying to the sole refuge against the evils which now bear down humanity, but a mere question of comparative advantages, which futurity must determine." §3. From this point Mill passes naturally to inheritance. "No presumption in favour of existing ideas on this subject," he observes, "is to be derived from their antiquity." For in ancient times nearly all relevant considerations, and, in particular, the organisation of the family and the state, were widely different from what they are now. It is important, however, in effecting any change in the law of inheritance, not to check individual saving, unless some counterbalancing advantage can be shown. For, "while it is true that the labourers are at a disadvantage compared with those whose predecessors have saved, it is also true that the labourers are far better off than if those predecessors had not saved. They share in the advantage, though not to an equal extent, with the inheritors."3 Mill favours large changes in the existing law. On the question of succession on intestacy, as far as practical proposals are concerned, he follows Bentham. "I see no reason," he says, "why collateral inheritance should exist at all. Collaterals have no real claims, but such as 1 Ibid, p. 209. Compare Cannan, Theories of Production and Distribution, pp. 404-7, for a statement to a similar effect regarding the modern economists' attitude towards Socialism. 2 Ibid, p. 221. Ibid, p. 219. may be equally strong in the case of non-relatives, and in the one case as in the other, where valid claims exist, the proper mode of paying regard to them is by bequest." But the claims of children are of a different nature. The parent owes to society to endeavour to make the child a good and valuable member of it, and owes to the children to provide, so far as depends on them, such education, and such appliances and means, as will enable them to start with a fair chance of achieving by their own exertions a successful life. To this every child has a claim; and I cannot admit that, as a child, he has a claim to more." After such claims have been met, therefore," the surplus, if any, I hold that the State may rightly appropriate to the general purposes of the community." most Mill next enquires what limitations, if any, should be imposed upon the right of bequest, which " like all other proprietary rights, and even in a greater degree than may be so exercised as to conflict with the permanent interests of the human race."4 Obvious examples of such exercise are the creation of perpetuities and the attachment of rigid and unalterable conditions to public bequests. Under most systems of law, the former are rightly forbidden and the latter subject to revision with the lapse of time. As to restrictions on the right of bequest, similar to those of the modern French law, which was "adopted as a democratic expedient, to break down the custom of primogeniture, and counteract the tendency of inherited property to collect in large masses," Mill remarks, “I agree in thinking these objects eminently desirable; but the means used are not, I think, the most judicious.” "Were I," he continues, "framing a code of laws according to what seems to me best in itself, without regard to existing opinions and sentiments, I should prefer to restrict, not what any one might bequeath, but what anyone should be permitted to acquire, by bequest or inheritance. Each person should have power to dispose by will of his or her whole property; but not to lavish it in enriching some one individual, beyond a certain maximum, which should be fixed sufficiently high to afford the means of comfortable independence. The inequalities of property which arise from unequal industry, frugality, perseverance, talents, and to a certain extent even opportunities, are inseparable from the principle of private property, and if we accept the principle we must bear with these consequences of it; but I see nothing objectionable in fixing a limit to what anyone may acquire by the mere favour of others, without any exercise of his faculties, and in requiring that if he desires any further accession of fortune, he shall work for it." In a later passage Mill proposes to apply this limitation to acquisitions by gift as well as by inheritance. Mill's discussion of inherited wealth is his most important contribution to economic thought. It is not merely an advance on all previous discussions, but is as good as anything which has since been written upon the subject. For, of the few economists who have not wholly ignored it, none has written with a surer grasp of the principles, or with a keener sense of the importance of the problems, which it involves. §4. Mill's views on the "unearned increment" of land value are better known than his views on inheritance, and have had more influence upon the practice of statesHe observes that in "the ordinary progress of society" many persons who own land "grow richer, as it were, in their sleep, without working, risking, or economising." He therefore advocates a tax upon such men. spontaneous increases" in the value of land, and sees no objection, in principle, to the rate of such a tax reaching a hundred per cent. In practice, however, "for fear of miscalculation" by the valuers, he would keep the tax "considerably within the amount thus indicated," and there would thus be "an assurance of not touching any increase of income which might be the result of capital expended or industry exerted by the proprietor." $5. When, however, we turn from Mill's discussion of the laws of property and their effects upon the distribution of income to what he himself describes as "the purely scientific part" of his Principles, we find less originality of treatment. For, over the range of problems covered by Ricardo's writings, "it seems clear," as Professor Cannan remarks, "that Mill became somewhat prematurely committed to a set of economic doctrines," and that "the structure of his theories of production and distribution, though plastered over with a fresh stucco of explanation and limitation, had been built twenty years earlier." But one or two points stand out and deserve consideration. Mill's treatment of differences of wages, for example, is based upon that of Adam Smith, but is a distinct improvement upon it. Most of the cases discussed by Adam Smith are " cases in which inequality of remuneration is necessary to produce equality of attractiveness, and are examples of the equalising effect of free competition," but cases of real inequality arise from a different principle." For "the superiority of reward is not here the consequence of competition, but of its absence." Thus "the really exhausting and the really repulsive labours, instead of being better paid than others, are almost invariably paid the worst of all, because " 1 Theories of Production and Distribution, pp. 389–391. performed by those who have no choice." And likewise, "the fact that " in many occupations "a course of instruction is required, of even a low degree of costliness, or that the labourer must be maintained for a considerable time from other sources, suffices everywhere to exclude the great body of the labouring people from such occupations."2 . "So complete, indeed, has hitherto been the separation, so strongly marked the line of demarcation, between the different grades of labourers, as to be almost equivalent to an hereditary distinction of caste The changes, however, now so rapidly taking place in usages and ideas, are undermining all these distinctions; the habits or disabilities which chained people to their hereditary condition are fast wearing away, and every class is exposed to increased and increasing competition from at least the class immediately below it."s Except that he somewhat exaggerates the rapidity of such "changes in usages and ideas," little fault can be found with Mill's treatment of this part of the problem of wages. It is mostly platitude to the modern student, but it was new doctrine to Mill's readers. His discussion of the general level of wages, on the other hand, is very inadequate, though not more so than his predecessors'. It was not till 1869 that, in a review of Thornton's Labour, he formally abandoned the doctrine of the wages fund. Thornton's argument, he said, had convinced him-though it seems probable that it only put the finishing touch to a long intellectual processthat "the doctrine hitherto taught by all or most economists, including myself, which denied it to be possible that trade combinations can raise wages, is deprived of its scientific foundation, and must be thrown |