CURRENT TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 53, 24 August 1911, Page 4

CURRENT TOPICS.

WEALTH AND SLUMS. Baron De Forest, .who was elected last month for Westham (England), in a recent speech at Dunstable, asserted that the Duko of Bedford, while posing as a generous country landlord, possessed vast slums in London, where the tenants were living in misery and squalor. The Duke of Bedford denied this, and challenged Baron De Forest to renew his statments in a manner affording a chance for legal proceedings. Every peer owning land in London is the possessor of slums, and the Duke will find it hard to substantiate his challenge. It is interesting to know that less than twenty peers own five square miles of London, and draw in rents over £,tQ.000,000 a year. The Duke of Westminster heads the list with £3,000,000. which he draws every year from his London properties. Then follow Lord Howard de Walden £2,900,000, the Duke of Bedford (the subject of the cable message) £2,230,000, Lord Portman £1,890.000, Lord Northampton £1.000,000, the Duke of Norfolk £1,500,000, and Earl Cadogan £1,500,000. These figures do not represent the capital value of the estate. Of course no one, perhaps not even his Grace, can state positively that the Duke of Westminster's annual income from London property is £3,000,000 precisely, but .that, is, it seems, approximately the amount. Mr. W. B. Northrop, in "Wealth and Want," credits the Duke of Westminster with owning 400 acres ofW«st End'property, and the capital value of this may be anything up to, let us say, £100,000,000. 'it would require only; a. reasonable percentage return on this sum to account for a revenue of £3i(K)O,OQO. The London Daily flews declares that if all the leases fell in to-day it is likely that the new lease? would be made to yield a revenue approaching £10,000,000. The other 1 great families are in' like case. According to Mr. Northrop, 19 of them control a revenue of"" £'20,000,000, and their property enjoys a large share of that £5,000,000 which Mr. Sidney Webb estimates is every year added "to the saleable value of London land. The actual income of these exceedingly valuable estates cannot he known to any but the owners. But the acreage is impressive. The Duke of Westminster owns 400 acres, the Duke.of Bedford 200 acres, Lord Howard de Walden 292 acres, Lord Portman 270 acres, Lord Northampton 200 acres, the Duke of Norfolk 180 acres, and Earl Cadogan 200 acres. These seven landlords thus own 1740 acres of the-metropolis; ■■!■ •

THE ANGLO : AMERICAN TREATY. On tho Anglo • American Arbitration Treaty, which has been signed by the American President,.Mr. Boosevelt'made a vigorous criticism in the New York Outlook. . He ~ holds • that:—"Between Great Britain'and the United States it is now safe to have a universal arbitration treaty, because the experience of !)0 years has shown that the two nations have.achieved that point of civilisation irtiere each can be trusted not. to do to the other any of the offences which ought to preclude any self-respecting nation from appealing to arbitration. But . . the United States ought never specifically to bind itself to arbitrate questions respecting its honor, independence and integrity. Either it should be tacitly understood that the contracting Power's no more agree to surrender their rights on such vital matters than a man in civil life agrees to surrender the right of self-defence; or else it should be explicitly stated that, because of the fact that it is. now impossible for either party to take any action infringing the honor, independence and integrity of the other, we are willing to arbitrate all questions. Hypocrisy never'-pays in the long run. Even ..if' the indifference of the majority of the nation should permit a specific agreement to be made to arbitrate such vital questions, that same majority would promptly (and quite properly) repudiate the agreement the moment that it became necessary to enforce it. No self-respecting nation, no nation worth calling a nation, would ever in actual practice-consent to surrender fts rights, in such matters

Let the treaty either keep-silent entirely about such questions, it being tacitly but with entire.- clearness understood that of course- the two contracting parties do not surrender those rights which lie at the foundation <of all that makes national life worth having; or else let it make.use of a preamble wliioh will show that they agree to arbitrate all things only because, certain things have now become unthinkable and impossible, lint the treaty should make no explicit declaration of a kind which would 'brand us with cowardice if we did live up to it, and with hypocrisy and faith if we did not live up to it. Also, it is well to remember that as there is not the slightest conceivable danger of war between Great Britain and the United States, the arbitration treaty would have no effect whatever upon the armaments in either."