26 AUGUST 1899, Page 3

In a letter to the Times of Saturday, Mr. Bowles

returns to the charge in regard to the purchase of Sir Michael Hicks- Beach's estate on Salisbury Plain. His innuendo is that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was greatly over-paid when be got a little under 212 an acre for his estate, including, of course, the house. That is a very grave accusation, and we admit that it is possible to make the purchases on Salisbury Plain bear a very ugly look. It can be pointed out that when the Government wanted land for the manatuvres they went to a place where no less than three Cabinet Ministers owned land (i.e., Lord Lansdowne, Mr. Walter Long, and Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) one of them being in the department concerned with paying the price. On this fact it is easy to found the sarcastic question,—Was Salisbury Plain really the only place in the South of England where land could be got for the manoeuvres P Well, strange as it sounds, we believe it was. The essential point is, was Sir Michael Hicks-Beach prepared to say, 'I admit that Salisbury Plain and the other scheduled estates are the most suitable places in the South of England for the needs of the War Office, and I admit also that I am willing to sell, but since I am Chancellor of the Exchequer, and unpleasant remarks will be made, I will not let the War Office have what they say they ought to have in the public interest' ? If the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not prepared to say that, and it would, we hold, have been foolish for him to have said it, then the only thing for him to do was what he did,—i.e., let the price be fixed by arbitration. Taking the transaction as a whole, we consider that the Chancellor of the Exchequer behaved quite properly, but circumstances gave the appearance of a job, and so a splendid opportunity to Mr. Bowles. The public, however, recognising that there was no mala fitles, has steadily refused to scream "shame" and "scandal" to Mr. Bowles's promptings.