THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume L, Issue 16459, 18 June 1924, Page 5

THE OLD ORDER CHANGETH.

PASSING OF ENGLISH COUNTRY LIFE. (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON, June 16. Following the lead of many other notabilities owning large- estates, t-li-e Marquis of Linlithgow has registered, the Hopetouni estate as a. private limited company with, a capital of £235,725.

“Those who study the advertisements of auctioneers and estate agents must feel many pangs of regret on seeing week alter week the lists of historic houses and estates which come under the hammer,” writes Mr. Christopher Hussey in- till'd Quarterley Review. “A great firm of auctioneers who transact perhaps a quarter of this business have sold since 1918 1,416,291 acres—an area between Hie size of Norfolk and. Lincolnshire. The transfer of capital represented by this amount is £22,306,164. In 19l'8 that firm disposed of 44 important country seats; in 1919 of 52; in 1920 of 23, in 1921 of 19; in 1922 of 35, not including- sporting properties in Scotland, and no account is taken of hundreds of lesser liouses. Assuming that this represents a fourth part of the total transfer, about 600 capital seats have changed hands 1 and a total acreage exceeding 5,500,000 acres, representing a transfer of some £89,000,000 and an area exceeding that of Wales and Cheshire combined. This represents a most serious weakening of the backbone of economic life; namely, the increasing poverty of the old squirearchy in whom, more than in any other section,, the rural life of England preserved its fine characteristics.”