THE ABOLITION OF TITLES
SIR,—The late Duke of Atholl, whose recent death we mourn, was the holder of eighteen titles. His brother, now the Duke, is reported to be unwilling to assume the major title, but the Lyon King at Arms has ruled that he cannot divest himself of his dukedom. If this is so, it gives encouragement to some of us to consider the abolition of all titles. In a feudal society the owners of large territories and great titles had their uses. The best of them, perhaps the most of them, gave to their country courage and service. They understood noblesse oblige. How well they understood was shown in the last war, when the flower of the British aristocracy perished with a million others. Some romantics may regret a break with the colourful past, but so long as books remain and ballads are sung, the names of Marlborough and Montrose with scores of others, and the deeds of the Scotts of Buccleuch and the Percys of-Northumber- land will need no stamp to keep their memory green.
We are no longer a feudal society, and in many cases great names have become separated from great estates. The Earl of Mar, the premier
earl of Scotland and thirty-fifth of the title, appears to be a landless Great names descend in devious ways. Recently The Spectator the case of Lord Nelson, who is not descended from the great sea yet is the holder of the name, and a pension of £5,000 a year to his and successors for ever. This is no reflection upon Lord Nelson, uh not responsible for the privileges thrust upon him, but it does not necessary to continue these privileges in perpetuity to keep the Ad in mind.
There is something unreal about titles, and especially about some re elevations, and the ritual that surrounds them. Do we contempla post-war society in which people will purchase robes, ermines and u Does a title add any distinction to a man of the first rank? frequently we say Disraeli when we mean Beaconsfield. Were Gladstone, Bright, Cobden not leaders of their countrymen? Wouil title add a cubit to the stature of Mr. Lloyd George or Mr. Wins Churchill? Was not something lost when Arthur Balfour, John Mor James Bryce became, from a sense of duty, Lord Balfour, Lord Mo Lord Bryce?
In recent generations men of the first political rank have not accep titles, but conferred them, almost cynically at times, "for political sem which is sometimes supposed to mean large contributions to the funds. Titles, whether hereditary or personal, tend to create a class the impression of a class which is not conducive to ease of social in course, for many of us still love a lord.
The opinion formed of us in respect of titles by the democratic peop and particularly the English-speaking peoples overseas, is unfonun They read of our popularly elected House of Commons, of our La Party, of the careers of men of humble origin who, strangely to complete themselves with a peerage. They observe the constant recr ment of the Knightage and the Baronetage. They note the promir place allotted to holders of titles in so many forms of effort to uh publicity is given. Easily it is assumed, particularly in the U.S.A.. the essential Great Britain has not changed, that it is still an oligarL that it cannot be in sympathy with the untrammelled social outlook the younger and, as they think, the true democracies. The thought decadence, of being out of date, easily arises. Hardly any other would produce the same confidence that Great Britain was abandon her old forms of caste and privilege, and aiming to reach a new or of equality of opportunity, of opposition to domination either of in viduals or of peoples, as would the abolition of all titles of rank, her tary and personal. And what of ourselves? We know that some old titles were conk for reasons that could never be defended now, and that others have their significance. Can we be expected to admire a society which, throu accident of birth, continues to maintain a superior caste? And if consider, and rightly, I think, that great public services, civil or mili rendered by men and women, should be recognised in their lifetime, perhaps a sense of proportion, or of equality, or even of the ridiculo would prefer an affix such as O.M. or C.H. rather than a prefix to
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