DUKE OF BEDFORD'S ESTATES.

Colonist, Volume LVI, Issue 13391, 12 February 1914, Page 2

DUKE OF BEDFORD'S ESTATES.

The sale of tho Covent Garden Es-tate-by the Duke of Bedford occupies a good deal of space in the latest English files, and has naturally been much discussed in connection with the Liberal land campaign. An Englishman, who boasts of a foreign title, Baron De Forest, has recently attacked the Duke of Bedford and held him up to obloquy as the owner of three million pounds worth of land. The total is characteristically exaggerated, but the Duke, by offering to take half that sum for his remaining estates, is admittedly a very large land owner. It is probably more his misfortune than his fault that he is so. The estates which he owns have been secured by various ancestors in the past; the estate just sold has been in his family for nearly three centuries. We are not attempting to defend the system which permits such large aggregations ; but it is well to recognise the facts that in most cases these big London estates have been bought at various times, and were not the result of spoliation or other discreditable transaction.

At all events, the Dulcc of Bedford has recognised as wise men will that the spirit of the age. is against him, and he has been gelling pretty heavily during the last few years. Two years ago he sold large estates in Devon and Cornwall with a view;to allowing j'armors and tenants to acquire their own holdings, and lie devoted part of hi-> Wobuvn estate to the same purpose. On the whole, therefore, as dukes go, he is a progressive sort of person.' But town property is not so easily disposed of in this way. In view of the laud campaign, however, the Duke may naturally have thought it was time to get quit of some part of his London estates —for he owns others in Bloomsbury and St. Pancras. And he found in Mr. Mallaby-Deeley—another Liberal be it noted—a gentleman who was able to find the cash and whose political principles did not prevent him becoming a landlord on a grand scale, if, indeed, he really intends to retain the valuable property which he has so sensationally acquired.—Exchange.