STAFFORD HOUSE.

Dominion, Volume 6, Issue 1638, 3 January 1913, Page 5

STAFFORD HOUSE.

OFFERED TO THE NATION. QUESTION OF MOTIVE, By iWemph—Prcus Asuoclation-Oooyriclit London, January 1. In the House of Commons >Ir. Asquith, in reply to a question, stated that Sir W. H. Lever had offered Stafford House to the nation on certain conditions Which' the Government wos considering. -. Mr., William Moore, Unionist member for Armagh, asked whether Mr. Asquith could say how much the Government was giving Sir . William Lever by concessions in West Africa;Mr. Asquith remarked that the question tvas' not a proper 'one.'.

ARISTOC3ACY STAMPEDING, SOAPMAICER REPLACES DUKE. ■ "One by one the members of our tocracy are relinquishing thoir great'parts in the drama of English life, disappearing from the stage, and. divesting themselves of the insignia of their rank," 6ays Mr. Filson'Young, in the "Saturday Review. "Our very dukes are effacing themselves. From tho pomps and ,dignities of their past estate they are oiie by one passing into Obscurity. This one bocomes a farmer, that an estate agent j one affects villa life, And'another, in. tho tastes and pursuits of a dissipated stockbroker, modestly, sinks a destiny which he feels to be too high for him." The aristocracy.—tho : real . Aristocracy—ara stampeding. ■ * . • "The sale of Stafford House is mors than a private transaction between a duke and, a .manufacturer; it U a pieco of Eng; lish history; and far more than. tho;fact itself, the thing which it symbolises is important to the. public. : For all. this Stafford: House las been, however, merely a theatre and a shell j tho truo centre and attracting star of it; thO unique per-, flonality of its hostess, will, we may be sure, continue to shine in some other Quarter of the heavens, and in this respect the transference of Stafford House may mean: no. loss to London.

"It is quite possible, moredvof, that Sir William Lever has some ' large: patriotio end in view; and may put Stafford HonsO to an even better' use than tho'Duke of Sutherland put it. That is not the joint. _. It Is as a symbol of something departing that tho discarding of it -, by its ducal owner is chiefly significant) it marks another stago nearer to tho day wheh all the great j houses in London, once the domiciles of great families, will be mero museums, mohumentß' of a bygone day, and repositories of beautiful things 'that men have grown too 6mall and mean to use."