Pine Bluff daily graphic., 1917-05-13
BRITISH PEERESS URGES STATE OWN ALL FARM LANDS
Says Not Just That Man Who Fights for Nation
 Should Be Mere Tenant.

Correspondence Associated Press)
 London, April 30.-The Countess of Warwick, owner of 23,OOO acres, has issued stirring appea to the landed aristocracy of Great Britain to follow the example of the Russian grand dukes and turn all their federal prop critics to the state.
 "We must go," she says. "The aris- tocracy 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, but as 1 see things, the suggestions are in no instance drastic enough.
 "The only cure for the present evils seems to me to be 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 landowners in England. the aristoc- racy and the l lutocra2y.
 "As a class, the aristocracy have been good landlords within limits, but the limits are very marked, because they have always been narrow-nllnd- ed body. The average chatelaine who plays the part of Lady Bountiful is to me an abomination, because her phil anthrophy is so closely associated with dogmatic religion, personal pride, and party politics. "I have known estates where the tenants are expected to belong to the Church of England, and non-conform- ists are barred or persecuted. Radi- calism is likewise suspect. Farmers, laborers, and small village trades. men have been ruined or exiled from the place of their birth because their opinons are contrary to those of their landlord. Men and women on such estates must rule their lives to order, think as they arc told to think. If our amstocarcy possessed the over whelming wisdom necessary to their role as supreme dictators, all would be we'll, but I cannot reckon i'll their ranks more than six whose claims would bear momcntary consideration.
 "As for the plutocrats, the men who have bought lands and titles in the open market-and the one is nearly as readily purchased as the other--- they have not the old feudal tradi- ton of the aristocracy They have been accustomed to make business ven- lures pay; they demand six per cent on their outlay and employ an agent who will See that they get it: The landlord of this class is bad land lord.
 "For the betterment of social con ditions in England a supreme sacri- flee is required. It is no more than justice that the men who have offer ed their lives in this war for Britain should have the freedom of Britain for their reward. It is TO justice tllt.t calls men to fight for the land and leaves it in the hands of 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 died and Dick was sore wound ed and Harry fought unscathed.
 "The country has great needs: If 1t is to remain solvent the united work of one and all is necessary. The old feudal landlord will be an anachron- ism. the new 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 re. tire from them in the real hale of renunciation, and our act of sacrifice would be a better memorial than the host of us could have hoped to gain."