Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-06-16
Decline of AristOcracy

although perhaps more slowly and IN
less conspicu ous proportions, and mat
even there aristocracy Is doomed 70 as
appear, If we think Of aristocracy AS an
institution and not as a collection OF
titles.
England's Revolution.
And il 1t is true that landlordism Is
doomed, it Is equally true that England
is facing a slow, silent, but mexoraole
revolution which will change ner en-
tire framework without any OF the ex-
ternal troubles and noises OF street
revolution.
LLOYD George began 1t in 1910 with
his famous budget. But since then IL
has been a constantly increasing tide.
Rates. taxes, death duties, have been
multiplied to such an extent that many
of the great landlords-dukes to begin
with-are selling their properties, slice
after slice, or changing them INTO COM
panies, in order to escape taxation.
But these are merely transition tricks.
When the duke or marquis becomes
director with a salary in the company
created with his estates he is no longer
the man he used to be. A new atmoS-
uhere swallows him up-and the day
when he is going to sell all his land to
SPECTATORS is not far distant. His
hereditary pride gone, society life In
London being so exciting and--to add
a small but not unimportant argument
with no worries about servants, why
should he keep a formal link with
something whose spirit has already dis
appeared?
Even one of the families where a
beautiful Wing tradition has kept all
its heads at the service of the state,
the Stanleys. whose head is now the
seventeenth Earl of Derby--a highly
respected type Of British statesman
and aristocrat--even this family has
begun to sell. Properties which have
belonged to the Stanleys since the War
| of the Roses have been sold to specu-
lators. The landed properties OF the
Stanleys are still immense, 1t Is true,
but, all the same, 1t Is sign OF the
| times.
Probably a greater resistance will be
| shown by what might be called the
lesser British aristocracy, the families
whose members filled the House of
| Commons until three or four genera
| lions ago and formed-and to GER
! tain extent still form-the backbone OF
local administration and of local JUS
| tice. But the "gentry"-an admirable
reservoir of soldiers and civil servants
| is not, strictly speaking, real his
| torical aristocracy. Its functions were
| other than those of the British aris-
! tocracy; its atmosphere different.
Conditions In Italy.
The same admirable virtues which we
| still find in the English gentry exist in
| the modest middle classes of Italy and
France. Modern Italy was shaped by
the genius of Count Cavour, an aris-
tocrat who was almost always opposed
by his own caste. But, apart from
| Cavour and a few other bright excep-
tions. constantly reappearing from his
day to ours; the great intellectual, NOR
| al and economic progress that Italy
| made from 1860 till the victory in the
| World War was the work Of statemen
| who, like LAMA and Sella in the SOS.
Minghetti in the '70s, Depretis in the
| sos and, last but not least, Giolitti.
found their moral force In no aristo-
cratic inheritance-all of them be-
longed to quite small families-but in
| q natural dignity which made them the
best representatives Of an epoch where
great things and great changes were
achieved without any theatrical arti-
1iciality, without any demagogic ad-
| vertiSing.
The same thing happened in France,
where, since the fall Of the French en-
pire in 1870, three generations of states
men, of generals. of diplomats, have
succeeded In gaining for their country
colonial empire and o diplomatic
situation such as never was reached
under the last Bonaparte.
When living. as I have been obliged
to do, In the French capital, 1t makes
one wonder to witness the pathetic
remnants Of an empty disdain for tbs
Inew classes and the new rulers aEnont
the Inhabitants of q nnrA ana mor'