The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-05-28

have been fixed years ago when agrlcul- ture was depressed and although times are good for the farmers now, it Is too soon to raise rents. No one knows wheth CT thep resent high prices for agricul tural produce will last and at any rate the farmers have a good many bad years to make up.
 EATS UP CAPITAL
 "The squire simply cannot raise the rents and he cannot live on his income in the old style. The taxes now take more than quarter of it and the death duties,
 if the property should happen to change hands two or three times in quick sue cession, as may well happen and as 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. So far there has not been much difficulty in finding purcha serS for there are many people in this country who have made money out of the war and the English man who makes fortune is always in a hurry to acquire a country seat. There have been a good many American in quiries, too, and some purchases by Americans, but not so many as one would have expected. I am told, how ever, that a good many Americans are likely to come into the market for Eng fish 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 sup ported by the advertising columns of the newspapers The London Times one day this week had a full page advertisement of country properties offered by one firml of estate agents. These properties were situated in all parts of England and the significant feature of this page of ad- vertisements was that many Of the prop critics offered were comparatively small country estates. Some of the great land owners have been parting with land re- cently, but these sales have been con fined almost wholly to the sale of out lying portions of their estates and have not included the family seats The dukes and earls are hard hit, of course, but as a rule they have a greater margin for economy than the squires, and can draw in their horns a bit without too much sacrifice.
 One of the recent sales which excited a lot of attention was that of the Ames- bury Abbey estate which includes the fla nous Stonehenge ruins It had been the seat of the Antrobus family for centuries. It included 6400 acres. Another historic estate which recently came under the hammer was the Sisted Hall estate in. Essex, while an example of the sale of outlying lands by great nobemen was the sale of the Earl of Kintore's Aberdeen shire and Kincardinshre estates, com prising 2o,000 acres and a rent roll of S110 GOO a year.
 This revolution is hailed with anything but delight by the plain folk of the Eng fish countryside. With very few excep tions the relations between squire and peasant in England have been ideal. The squire was brought up on the land and he knew it and loved s. He was as much interested his tenants in getting the best out of it, and his traditions imbued him with a sense of responsibil- ity of the welfare of the people commit ted to his care No doubt he was a poor business man and was often imposed on but he did not care to be hard with his own people and he got enough out of the land to satisfy his own rather modest wants. His eldest son inherited the land and was brought up to manage it. while his younger sons-and English country families are large-supplied the army and navy with officers and the church with parsons. "
 IS REAL ARISTOCRACY
 The squirearchy in England is in fact the same class as that which used to be known on the continent of Europe as the
 petit nobility" and in the best sense of the word it formed the real aristocracy of the country. As far as antiquity is concerned it can give points to the peer age, which Is constantly being recruited from the lower ranks of society by the promotion of distinguished men or of men whose only distinction is wealth or polt- ical service. It has never been. enervated by luxury and it has always been in touch with the land and earned its wages of administration.
 The countryside has had some experi- ence of the wealthy business man turned Crt1 tpn 1yn1 1oAe ,lt l.. rl~o dency for the old families to be squeezed out by modern conditions had been in evidence for sometime before the war, which, of course, has greatly accentuated it No one can deny that there are non orable exceptions, but as a general rule the business man turned squire tries to run his estate on the same cold business lines that he runs his business. He wants it to pay a fixed percentage, and if it doesn't he wants to put his rents up and if the tenants don't like that, they can go. Unfortunately there is no security of tenure for the English farmer. He can be turned off at any time at six months notice, and may thus see the labor of generations swept away without any return. Under the old system he did not need any legal security for he knew that the squire on whose land he and his ancestors had lived for genera tions would treat him justly. The new landowner, too, does not feel his respon- sibility to the village poor and the peas antry in the same way as his predeces- sor He may be charitable man, but he feels that he has done all that is requiI ed of him when he has subscribed to some charitable organization or the local hospital, and he does not feel the call on himself and on his family for personal service. He also does not feel called on, to supply the amenities and 'conveniences of village life in the same way that the old squire did. case in point came under my notice recently in a Worcestershire village. The old squire was forced to sell and the place was bought by a wealthy tobacco manufac- turer. Shortly after his advent the one well in the village fell in The villagers as was their custom, notified the squire never thinking for a moment that he would not rebuild it. They were aston ished when he informed them that he was in no way responsible, sbut that he would be glad to contribute his share to a village fund for the reconstruction of the well. That was comparatively small matter, but it caused a lot of bit ter feeling. The old squire would have rebuilt the well without any question and considered it his duty to do So, although he was under no legal obligation. On the same estate a number of farmers, some of whose families had held the same land for generations, were turned off because the new owner decided that he could get more out of the land by farm ing it direct