IN view of the facts as to rich and poor estates which we examined in Chapter 4, it is obvious that to state that the accumulated wealth of the United Kingdom probably amounts to £300 per head of the population, or £1,500 per family of five persons, is to mask in averages a great inequality of distribution.

Reverting to the Death Duty records, it is possible, by means of them, to give a true idea of the manner of distribution amongst our people of the greater part of the nearly £14,000,000,000 of capital.

I again direct attention to the tables on pages 52 and 53. Year after year, with extraordinary constancy, a certain amount of money passes in each class of estate. So small are the variations in relation to the magnitude of the totals that it is hardly necessary to average the five years in working at the figures.

If about 65,000 persons die every year leaving about £279,000,000, what is the ratio to these figures of the numbers and property of the living?

The question thus raised is an exceedingly interesting one. Porter in his "Progress of the Nation" seems to have assumed a ratio of 45 to 1, but I do not think that the true figure can be so high as this.

The British Crown, since Queen Anne, has passed at the following dates:

Thus, in 208 years, the Crown has passed eight times, or, on the average, once in about 26 years.

I have investigated the dates at which a considerable number of well-known estates have passed at death during two centuries and have found the most remarkable variations in different families. The Earldom of Suffolk has passed at average intervals of 16.7 years between 1731 and 1898. The Earldom of Coventry has passed at intervals of 22 years between 1712 and 1843. These are intervals which are well under the average, while above the mean are cases quite as remarkable. The Earldom of Essex, between 1709 and 1892, has passed only four times, giving an average of 45.7 years. The Earldom of Bathurst, again, between 1775 and 1892, passed only five times, giving an average of 43.4 years.

Taking the mean of a large number of actual cases, I get an average of 29.2 years and I have decided to take 30 as a round figure which cannot be far from the truth. Assuming, then, that there are thirty living property owners for every dead one in the final column of the table on page 53, I have constructed the table entitled "The Division of Property: An Argument from the Dead to the Living," which appears on pages 74 and 75. The figures in columns 1 and 2, taken from the table in Chapter 4, are multiplied by 30 to form the figures in columns 3 and 4. The results are exceedingly interesting.