A DEMOCRATIC COUNTESS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 1737, 14 July 1917, Page 4

A DEMOCRATIC COUNTESS.

APPEALS TO HER CASTE. The Countess of Warwick, who has decided Socialistic leanings, and who is the owner of 32,000 acres of fine arable land, has issued a stirring appeal to the landed aristocracy of England to follow the example of the Russian Grand Dukes and tixrn over their feudal properties to the nation. She writes: — “We must go. The aristocracy of England, in its position of hereditary landowners, must go. The country rings with suggestions for the betterment of the conditions under which land is cultivated to-day.* But, as I see things, the suggestions that have been made are in no instance drastic enough. The only cure for the present evils seems to mo to he State ownership, the abolition of all private property in the earth that was given to all of us in common. , “There are two classes of large landholders in England, the aristocracy and the plutocracy. As a class, the aristocracy have been good landlords within limits, hut the limits arc very marked, because they have always been a narrowminded body. The average chatelaine who plays the part of Lady Bountiful is to mo an abomination, because her philanthi’opy is so closely associated with dogmatic religion, personal pride, and party politics. “I have known estates where the tenants are expected to belong to (he Church of England, and Nonconformists are barred or persecuted. Farmers, labourers, ami small village tradesmen have-been mined or exiled from the place of their birth because their opinions are contrary to (hose of their lamllurd. Men and women on such estates must rule their lives to order, 'think as they are told to think. If our aristocracy possessed the overwhelming wisdom necessary lo their role as supreme dictators all would he well, hut 1 cannot reckon in their ranks -more than six whose claims would bear momentary consideration, As for the plutocrats, the men who have bought, lands and title in (he open market-—ami the one is nearly as readily purchased as the other—-as they have not the old feudal tradition of the aristocracy they fall short of their duly. They have been accustomed to make business ventures pay; they demand (J per cent, on their outlay, and employ an agent; who will see that they get it. The landlord of this class is a had landlord. “For the betterment of social conditions in England a supreme sacrifice is required. It is no more than justice Unit the men who have offered their lives in this war for Britain -should have the freedom of Britain for their reward. It is no justice that calls men lo light for the land and leave it in the hands of a fraction of those who fought. To me it is impossible that in the future ‘ his grace’ or ‘my lord’ should own square miles of the mother earth for which Tom diet! and Dick was sore wounded and Harry fought unscathed. “The country has great needs. H it is to remain solvent the united work of one and all is necessary. The old feudal landlord will he an anachronism, the now money-spun landlord an abomination. Only the State can own the land in trust for those who can make it productive. We who are in the high places in England should retire from them in the real halo of renunciation, ami our act of sacrifice would he abutter memorial than the best of us could have hoped to gain.”