WAR BREAKS UP ENGLISH ESTATES.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 August 1916, Page 10

WAR BREAKS UP ENGLISH ESTATES.

OWXFUS -POHCEI) TO IJISFOSF. 01THEIR HOLDINGS.

EFFFXT OF TAXKS AX!) WAI! DUTIFS.

•'Country life in Filmland will undergo and is undergoing .a revolution such as England has not witnessed since the Xonnan Conquest."

In these words Frank Hirst, editor of the Economist, and one of the leading authorities on economic subjects in England, slimmed up one of the most striking effects of the war. What he means is that the country gentlemen of the old school are disappeariug,,suneezed out by the high taxation, the death duties, and killed off in many instances in the service of their country. Their places are being taken by men who have grown rich in supplying goods that are needed by England's immense armies, or who are making tremendous profits out of the necessities of the people by taking- advantage of the conditions created by the war. "What will happen to the stately mansions of England after the war?" Mr. Hirst asked. He answered this question as follows: "In individual cases the answer depends on the investments of the owners. A man who has invested in Brazil or Mexico is iu a specially sad way, while the man who has put his money in ships or coal is very fortunate indeed. But on the whole the fate of the landed gentry and of the country seats depends on taxes.

SAVINGS SWEPT AWAY. "Taxes have already risen high enough to make it certain that most large houses will be to let or for sale, for most country people before the war had places which fitted their income, with a comfortable margin for savings or special expenditure. Most of them will have to move into smaller houses if they can find tenants or purchasers. The doubling and trebling of the income tax has swept away the margin, and the higher the Hood of taxation rises the fewer country seats will remain unsubmerged. '

"Evidently there will be a wholesale migration, and country life will undergo a revolution sucli as England has not witnessed since the Norman Conquest. Some of the linest estates, I expect will be bought up by English and American contractors who have made fortunes out of the War Office and the Ministry of Munitions. Others will perhaps be cut up by the Labor Ministry and parcelled out among disbanded soldiers, whose jobs are gone and for whom iio other employment can be found.

"The present public expenditure of the Government is supposed to be about equal to the whole of the private incomes of all the inhabitants of the l.'nited Kingdom. li Alfred the Great had lived until now and had throughout his long life of more than a thousand years burned one £5 ('iadol.) note of the Bank of England every hour of the day and night he would not have destroyed as much money as Mr. Mclvenna is adding every fortnight to the national debt."

SELLING THEIR ESTATES. Mr. Hirst's view is fully borne out by the men who are in close touch with the landed gentry. A member of a famous linn of estate agents, through whose hands most of the sales of property of this description pass, told me that hardly a week goes by that he is not called on to arrange the sale of some large country estate, and that the smaller estates are being placed in his hands for disposal by the score. "The country gentremen of England," lie said, "simply cannot live under the new conditions. Most of them are dependent absolutely on their rents for their income. A man has a couple of thousand acres which have been in his fainilv for centuries. He lets the land out m farmers, many of whom have been on the land as long as himself. The vents were lixed years ago when agriculture was depressed, and, although times are good for the farmers now", it' is too soon to raise rents.

"Xo one knows whether the present high prices for agricultural produce will iast. and at any rate- the farmers have a good many bad years to make up. The squire simply cannot raise the rent, and he cannot live on his income in the old style. The taxes now take more than a quarter of it, and the death duties, if the property should happen to change hands' two or three times in quick succession, as may well happen, and has happened recently in many cases in these days of war, eat up the capital. What is the man to do but try to get rid of the property, which instead of a source of income has become a burden to him V

E1X1) READY PURCHASERS. "So far there has not been much difficulty in finding purchasers, for there are many people in this country who have made money out of the war, and the Englishman who makes a fortune is always in a hurry to acquire a country seat. There have been a good many American enquiries, too. and some purchases by Americans, but not so many us one would have expected. I am told, however, that a good many Americans are likely to come into the market for English estates after the war is finished. They have an idea that prices may be lower then than they are now." Everything that this man says is supported by the advertising columns of the newspapers. The Ijondon Times this week had a full page aflvertisement of country properties offered by one firm of estate agents. These properties were situated in many parts of England. A significant feature of this page of advertisements was that many of the properties offered wei comparatively small country estates. Some of tfie great land owners have been parting with land recently, but these sales have been confined almost wholly to the sale of outlying portions of their estates, and have not included the family seats.

One of the recent sales which excited considerable attention was that of the Annesbury Abbey estate, which includes the famous Stonehenge ruins. It had been the seat of the Antrobus family for centuries. It included 0400 acres. Another historic estate which' recently came under the hummer was the Stisted Hall estate in Essex, while an example ol the sale of outlying lands by great noblemen was the sale of the Earl of Kintore's Aberdeenshire and Kincardineshire estates, comprising 25,000 acres and a rent roll of HO.OOOdoI. a year.