The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-11-02
ARISTOCRAT is
ALIGNING WITH
THE PLUTOCRAT
British Industrial Troubles
Welding Persons Who
Were Far Apart.
HUGE BATTLE is GOING ON
Big Business and Labor Have
Taken Sides for a Long
Struggle.
HUGE BATTLE is GOING ON
BY SHAW DESMOND.

BY SHAW DESMOND.
LONDON, Oct. 10.
THE American woman in London
society-the fact that a real,
L live belted earl and a real.
live strawberry leaved countess are
belping big business chiefs to break
railway mems strikes-the retirement
OF a Commercial" peer with $4,000
0o0--the sale of q dukes house In
Piccadilly-of what import can these
detached things be to the modern
American who does me the honor to
read my weekly article in THE SUN,
whether that American be a captain
of industry or some little woman who
wiles away "a Sunday morning hour
by seeing what people who say
"rathah" instead of rather" and
"nothin'" instead of nothing" are
doing and thinking?
But as write am looking at two
letters out of my American malone
from the president Of great fire in
surance company, the other from a
woman who Is q member of the -four
hundred" The former is good enough
to say that my articles are valuable
to him as business man; the latter.
that they interest her. 1t is this I'M
Outstanding. so typically American.
which gives me the courage to show
how the foregoing apparently "gos-
sipy" facts should have a special in
terest for Americans, whether Eng
land interests them from the stand
point of business or pleasure.
To do business with England you
must understand England. To get
pleasure in England the same holds
good And the England Of to-day is
fast Transforming. 1T is the incredible
that happens"
Labor Causes Big Changes.
Labor troubles are the yeast that il
causing fermentation and change.
1t is labor that is welding the aris-
tocracy and the plutocracy together In
common defence, and with 1t bring
Ing about the erosion of the arlstoc-
iacy and its disappearance; 1t is driv-
ing the blue blooded aristocrat into big
business; and thus it is making the
stage ready for the clash Of the final
protagonists-the big corporations
versus the trades unions.
1t was process of disintegration
which started a decade ago. direct
action" has enormously expedited it.
And the only people who do not know
what is really happening are the
aristocrats and the plutocrats them
selvesl
Ar tha vnop,aot op5or a.. q. a.. -.
OF the railway strike. The strike has,
for the time, split England into two
classes-the pro-strikers and the anti.
In the former are to be found the
100000 Of trades unionists with their
wives and families. In the latter are
the aristocracy, the plutocracy, the
professional man and the little shop
keeper. As I went through London
yesterday 1 saw this demarcation
everywhere. Direct action has cleft
Britain from crown to toe.
AS I pass along those sugar cake
houses in Park Lane which are Tho
homes Of millionairdom and look
through the Hyde Park ratings
see, literally. dukes and shipping
princes, countesses and bankers work.
Ing side by side to break the strike, for
the Government has taken over the
park under national emergency"
trailer running by beyond the
speed limit is being driven by a mem
Der Of the Guards Club-his cargo a
smart young business man. That
giant lorry of the Ministry OF Food
with its Gathering milk cans is being
urged on a juggernaut career by a
duke, while the woman 1 see an hour
or two later at Paddington station
loading up her motor car with
chickens and geese and even a mon
strous goat is no less a parsonage than
the Countess of Drogheda. Her hus-
BAND. one Of those democratic Irish
earls, with whom I had a democratic
conversation the other day at one of
the Government offices, is putting his
blue blooded back into 1t with another
lrishman. the Earl of Portarlington,
while sir and an honorable look on.
Side by side with them are hauling
and pushing and perhaps swearing
men who are owners of motor firms,
heads Of financial houses and pioneers
Of commercial aviation. The friendly
"damn!" is cementing the new COM
radeship. The aristocrat and the
plutocrat. The aristocrat thinks It is
only the comradeship of the moment
the plutocrat hopes It may be forever
but neither sees the meaning and the
end
Another disconnected fact. The
other day 1t was rumored that his
Crans of Devonshire was to sell that
oeautiful-ugly white gravelled house
opposite the Ritz to an American
hotel syndicate. Perhaps that is not
true, but the Times is full each week
OF historic houses and estates, their
walls widowed by the years, each
stone a story. which are to be offered
TO the new plutocracy under the auc-
TONER'S hammer-the herald of the
breakup of the great estates. of insti-
tuuons which have lasted from the
Norman invasion hoary with legend.
DisintegratiOn in the Air.
II is the feeling of disintegration
mat Is In the air-even the ducal fami-
lies despite the veneer of tradition, feel
In their bones the spirit of the time
which TO them means decay and death
They are standing from under
strikes-direct action-loud mouthed
democracy Is rearing itself from its
nelly to engulf. They know It as
giant paohvdarpas xvho faaI IN thai.