the value of all the land in England will fall. This might be so, I
admit, to some extent; and it would favour the employ of the land for
agricultural profit.

The next objection is that it would become necessary to give land
(and money) directly to women without the intervention of trustees:
that women do not understand business and require to be taken care
of. My reply is that they always will require to be taken care of
unless they are entrusted with the management of their own affairs.
The loss to the nation, the expenses, the sacrifice of time and
labour in trusteeships, have now assumed gigantic proportions. If
women were given their own property to manage, some would (at first)
fool it away: we know what high interest, adventurers, unprincipled
persons, etc., can effect. But each woman defrauded or stripped of
her property to starve would be a warning to all the rest: in a few
years women would manage their property just as well as men. I
believe they would manage it better. A smaller percentage of women
would gamble on the Stock Exchange, the Mining Exchange, Austrian and
Spanish lotteries, and horse-races; and a much smaller percentage of
women would embark in desperate "business" speculations, heavy
purchases of foreign produce, etc.

It should be noted that in cutting down the powers of owners to
legally tie up, I do not interfere with honourable trusteeships of
any kind not enforceable by law or in equity. Such exist now, and
more largely than is generally supposed. The absolute devises and
bequests to friends (not relatives) are often on private (not
expressed) trust to provide for illegitimate children or numerous
other purposes which a man may not wish to parade to his family.