New-York tribune., 1919-08-24
English Land
Is sClanggiing
Hands
HNHE ownership of ENGLAND is

habit OF giving lHt realm away tC
..beir favorites. Realty sales have
keen averaging S5,000,000 a week
for nearly six months, which makes
ouite tidy aggregate in that time
ard there are as yet no signs of a
let-up.
Various explanations are offered
for the great activity in the British
realty market. In the case of the
MARQUIS of Butte, who has just sold
his great Welsh coal land holdings
the reason is fairly obvious. He
was a witness at the coal commits
sion and the miners subjected him
70 a merciless cross examination.
There were many pointed questions
about the origin of his title to his
lands, and the upshot of the com
missions deliberations was report
recommending the naturalization
Of the coal industry. 1t is conceiv>
able that Lord Butte thought he
would sleep better if he got out of
the coal business.
On the other hand, there has been
vide discussion of the advisability
Of Some form of naturalization of
the land, cutting up the great es-
tates and distributing them among
small holders. Before the war this
vas a heated political topic, and
Lloyd George earned the hatred of
Conservatives by his advocacy of the
policy Of compelling the great land
owners to sell their holdings to
their tenants at a government de-
termined price In 1913 the Duke
Of Rutland created a sensation by
putting q large part of his Scottish
holdings on the market. Since the
war the demand has been to cut up
the big estates to give land to the
returning soldiers and sailors.
The Queer Part
Just as the Marquis of Butte
seems to have thought it wise to get
quito the coal business, large own
ers Of land may deem it wisdom in
the prevailing state of public opin-
ion to let some one else meet the de-
mand for land for the soldiers. The
queer part of it is that there are
just as many people willing to take
chance on the land being nation
allied as there are those who want
some one else to hold the bag.
And this brings up the point that
there have been many large and
unexpected fortunes made in Eng
land by the war. In other words,
there are numerous war profiteers
who are diverting themselves by
purchasing estates, while the pres
ent proprletors cannot resist the op-
portunity to gather in the huge
profits to be realized by selling at
inflated prices. For there is an
even greater and a more universal
lack Of housing in England than
there is in the Immediate neighbor-
"saod Of New York.
AS an illustration of the way the
real estate business has opened out
IN England this year, while the
sales now are averaging $4,000, 900
week, they only amounted to ap-
pfoximately 100000 for the
whole of 1918, and the sales for the
nrst week of July this year were
more than a fourth of the total
sales for July, August and Septem-
Oer, 1918 Included in the sales in
ne tlrst week Of July were about
Sio square miles of Scottish land.
A remarkable thing about the
movement of British real estate has
oeen the large proportion of it
winch has been sold by auction. The
HWlng Gllmour estate of 148,8OO
acres IN Ross and Sutherland coun-
ues, Scotland; E. M. Stewards es-
'ase near Perth, of 5000 acres, and
u a tunningham's estate of 2,400
acres at Roxburgh were sold at
auction Sir Richard Glyn's Dorset
property brought $1,00O,0O0 under
Tue hammer, while Lord Cholmon-
ueieys Barrow property brought
over 100000 on the block. Sales
bringing from 100000 to 1,O0O,-
Voo are not at all uncommon.
old farmhouses have been care
iuly treated so as to bring out, in
We literal sense of the term, the
peauty Of beamed ceilings and fine
v'u half-timbered work, which had
'en concealed by generation that
sonletlnes papered over antique oak
panellMg and did other equally
'eorehenslble things. Until lately, IN
number way and for purely
~iltarian ends, many disused pub
&c houses in London took on a new
ease of life, after alteration, as
private dwellings,, and the operation
turning shops to purely resi-
sehe'al purposes is still going on in
"me of the suburbs.