The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-27
ENGLAND LAUGHS AT LORDS DISCOMFORT Fight Was Won Through
 Game of Bluff"
 NATION PEER POOR?.
Recent Bankruptcies Among Aris- tOeracy Are Calling Attention to Their Growing Impe-
 cunious State 9@,
By PHILLIP EVERETT


 By PHILLIP EVERETT
 London. August 26.---( Especial )-ANow that
 parliament has adjourned; now that the government has triunlphcd in it's measure to curb the power of the lords, and now i that sufficient time has elapsed to allow keen analysis of the position taken by the opposition and the government in the great veto bill fight, England-at least a majority of the inhabitants-is enjoying the dlscomfiture of the lords with extreme gusto.
 The fact is that while the ancient con stitution of England has been bandied about between the warning parties, the parliament bill and its threat of "back- leg peers,'' was supremely Imaginable, for time has uncovered the gigantic game of bluff on which tho government damned its measure down the throats of the aris- tocracy. Whether the bill stood or fell there would have been no "black-leg peers"
 Had the lords refused the bill 1t Is be- lieved that the King. seeking an easy and graceful manner of evading the gov ernments prediction of a wholesale ad- dition to the peerage, would have instruct ed his ministers to make attempts to bring about the same ends through chan nels less offensive to their lordships: per haps refusing outright to flood the peer age and in any event delaying his ac- ton till every other means had been ex- hausted.
 So it seems that the great body of Eng lands nobility has had all it's worry for nothing, and that bluff, almost American in it's intensity, has won.
 Is England becoming peer poor? This question is engaging the attention of the elite as it has never done before Scarcely a month goes by that does not chronicle the bankruptcy of one or more of the aristocracy. The civil courts are becoming as familiar to the nobility as the halls of Buckingham palace.
 The epidemic of impecunity. which ! started with the apearance of several creditors of the Earl of Yarmouth, erst- while spendthrift of Miss Alice Thaw's accumulation of steel currency, rapidly spread to the ancestral estates of the Marquise of Huntly, whose home at Orton Hall, Orton Longueville, was in pawn to the three-ball merchants and had its continuation in the involuntary petition of bankruptcy made by the creditors of Gerald Oakley Cadogan, Viscount Chelsea, son and heir of Lord Cadogan.
 The trio, each of whom are young
 prone to pleasure and fond of sport, are but the unfortunate examples of a con- | dition that prevails extensively in the English peerage. They are but the ex- l trene exempliHcation of the state of | penury that prevails throughout the English peerage, many of whose landed estates are mortgaged up to the wealth | ercock on the stables, and who are only kept afloat because of the impos- sibility of their creditors realizing by foreclosure
 In the case of the three young mo- bles now in court each is the heir to | an extensive patrimony and the legal action was simply taken that the credi- tords might have their clients well de- | fined, but throughout the British em- | pire there are hundreds of peers whose | family finances are in the last stage of senile decay and whose perverted sense | of the fitting prohibits them from seek 1 ing their financial rejuvenation by any means that entails the sweat of toll. | The eccentric American millionaire | yachtsman, who, for 20 years has lived off the coast of Essex, surprising the natives with sudden fits of generosity and repelling the advances of the tax collectors with a refusal to submit to | British taxation, has at last been round : ed up by the slow process of British civil procedure. MT. Brown will here after pay "'is bloomin' taxes or suffer the visit of bobby"
 l Brown has come to be known as "the | old man of the sea" His yacht has been moored near Essex for over 20 years and during that time he has set l foot on shore only some two or three l times. Ills character is as eccentric as his habits are peculiar. He evil SerSey hated the sight of anything Brit ish, yet his generosity has tided over many a poor family
 He first began his fight against tax ation many years ago, when he re- fused to pay the income tax. For years his boat remained an enigma to the tax l collectors, who. because they were un- able to catch him afoot on British soil, could not legally seize his person or his property. As time went on, however, and the tax mounted up into the thous- ands, 1t was decided to have recourse | to the law. with the result that the in- l land revenue commissioners have been
 instructed by the court to levy and collect such taxes as apply to his pe- culiar mode of living.
 | The widespread pubic criticism of the English war departments lack of Iro- gressiveness In the matter of aeronautics has had the result of quiclSening that body into fit of energy that bids fair l to add several innovations to the familiar modes of attack and defense by air | The latest scheme is the construction of torpedo boat with wings, or. not to confuse the reader, an aeroplane capable of carrying a torpedo.
 | The naval advisory committee on aero lnautics has the matter in hand md las set about the construction of a model. The machine will be driven. in the first instance, by the propeller of the torpedo, thus effecting great economy in weight. | When the torpedo is released the aero plane.s will, it is blieved, require cnly Q low velocity to keep it up, and this Will be supplied by switching supplement- ary engine, possibly of the compressor air turbine type
 1 It is expected that the first machiae will be ready for trial within a year --------e------------ CnTyT nN,T GAG CADNECTE