Fort Mill times. [volume] (Fort Mill, S.C.) 1892-current, 1922-05-25
REVOLUTION m ENGLAND.

suQQen, ucrce upnedv6lS Sucn as
we have seen in Russia. They
may be silent, graudal, almost
junnoticed for years, until we sud:
denly awake to find them accom-
plished. Such a revolution IN
The social structure of the Eng
lish nation has been going OH for
a generation, and with speed
lately accelerated by the Great
war, says Youths Companion.
For $50 years, England has
been ruled by it's landed aristoc.
racy. From that class, not al
ways titled but always distin-
guished by long occupancy Of the
land and by social and political
authority, came most of the
statesmen who built and main.
teined the British empire. Their
wide and fertile estates and tn.
"stately homes where they
dwelt were perhaps the most
beautiful and delightful things
that modern civilization has to
show in any country in the world.
But for some time their glory
has been waning. The growth of
industry at the expense Of agri..
culture in England has made the
land less and less profitable and
the means of the landlord smaller
and smaller, especially when COM
pared with the income of the
successful merchant or manufac-
turer. But the crushing blow to
the landed class has been dealt by
taxation. Heavy before the war,
ii is simply tremendous now.
Great parts of old estates bring
in no revenue whatever; they are
parts of hunting grounds. The
parts under cultivation are usu-
ally cultivated under the tradi-
tional easy going methods of the
British squlrarchy. Not much
other property brings SO low u re-
turn on its assessable value as
that kind of real estate. But
taxes, snpertaxes and death du-
ties are inexorable. Landlords
great and small are selling OH,
because they cannot find the
money to keep their property up
ard pay their bills. Many OF the
oldest and greatest places in Eng.
land have gone under the ham.
mer in the last few years. The
newspapers are crowded with ad.
vertisements of manors, parks,
mansions and baronial estates for
sale. Famous old art collections
are broken up tor the money they
will bring; that is how Gains,
borough s charming blue Boy"
came to. the United States.
The face of the country is
changing; no longer one by one,
but score by score, the old fami-
lies are leaving the land where
they have lived for generations.
The estates are not often broken
up, and sold to small farmers.
Newly rich men buy them for
the prestige they bring and main
tain them from the returns from
more profitable investments. The
people who lived on the land,
loved the land, carried on in
gentler form the old feudal ira
ditions and felt their response
bility to their neighbors and. to
the nation for the position they
occupied are disappearing; their
homes are becoming the "coun.
try places of the city men.
Since the whole social structure
of rural England was built on the
foundation of those Of landed
families their decay is equivalent
in parts of England to a revolu-
ton. The new owners. will hard,
ly be able, even if they wished,
to, take their place. Indeed, af-
ter a time the taxing policy of
Great Britain will almost surely
dlspossess them too. - 80
England is becoming too crowd
ed and too busy to find room
and time for the many great es-
tates and the slow moving, leis-
urely life Of the old county
families. Democracy and altru-
ism both forbid. The path that
England has taken made the
/ nacO;,,,. 80 %hn IN lcnaoI ol.,. =.