LAND MONOPOLY MUST GO

New Zealand Times, Volume XLII, Issue 9692, 21 June 1917, Page 3

LAND MONOPOLY MUST GO

COUNTESS OF WARWICK. CALLS UPON FELLOW LANDLORDS TO SURRENDER. The Countess of Warwick (tUe 'vellknowu Socialist peeress, and h« r =Ut the owner of some 23,W0 acres m the ( Oountry) Ims, states the Au ,''' *° t, “Public/' issued an appeal to England . landed aristocracy to give its “PP*°™ to abolition of private property in iantl. She said, in part; — .. “Wo must go. The aristocracy oi England in its position of hereditary landowners must go. Ine country i »• with suggestions for the betterment o the conditions under which land is cultivated, but as I sec things the suggestions arc in no instance drastic enou^n. “The only euro for the present evil seems to mo to be State ownership, the abolition of all private property in the earth that was given to ail of us m common. There are two classes of largo landowners in England, the aristocracy and the plutocracy. As ' a class, . the 'aristocracy hare been good landlords within limits, because they have always been a narrow-minded body, iho average chatelaine who plays the part ol Ladv< Bountiful is to me an abomination. because her philanthropy is so closely associated with dogmatic religion, personal and party politics. “I have known estates where the tenants are expected to belong to the Church of England, and nonconformists are barred or persecuted. Radicalism is likewise suspect. Farmers, labourers and small village tradesmen have been ruined or exiled from the place of their birth because their opinions are contrary to those of their landlords. Men and women on such estates must, rule their lives to order, think as they are told to think. If our aristocracy possessed tho overwhelming ■wisdom necessary to tneir role as supreme dictators all would he well, but I cannot reckon in their ranks more than six whose claims would bear momentary consideration, ' "As for tho plutocrats, tho men who have bought lands and titles in the open market —and the one is nearly as readily purchased as the other —they have ivot the old feudal tradition of the aristocracy. They have been accustomed to make business ventures pay; they demand 6 per cent, on their outlay and employ an agent who will see that they get it. The landlord of this class is a jjad landlord. "For th& betterment of eocial conditions in England a supreme sacrifice is "required. It is no.more than justicethat the men who have offered their lives in this war for Britain should have the freedom of Britain for their reward. It is no justice that calls men to fight for the land • and leaves it in the hands of a fraction of those who fought. To me it is impossible that in the future Grace* or 'My Lord* should own square miles of mother earth for which Tom died and Dick was sore wounded and Harry fought unscathed. "The country has great needs. If it Is to remain solvent the united work of one and all is necessary. ’ The old feudal landlord will be an anachronism, the new money-spun landlord an abomination. Only the State can own tho land in trust for those who can make it productive. We who are in the high places in England should retire from them in the real halo of renunciation; and cur act of sacrifice would be a better emorial than the best of us could have hoped to gain/'