4 APRIL 1931, Page 12

It is very interesting to any student of English country

life to see how the landowners are reacting, and are likely to react, to these light-hearted proposals that their property should be immediately scheduled for perennial rusticity or suburban shame. It may serve a useful purpose not to argue the case, but to indicate the nature of the response in the half-dozen cases of which I have some particular knowledge. Those whose purses are deep—perhaps because they are filled with the returns from town properties—give gracious welcome to the town-planning " traveller " who proposes to schedule their fields as open spaces in perpetuity. They realize that their heirs will thus escape heavy Death Duties—for Exchequer agents delight, if they can, to regard land as possessing a building site value—and they will be assured of the amenities that they and perhaps their fathers enjoyed. Some examples are to be found along the Thames and in Bedfordshire. So far, so good. The town-planning representatives, whether representing the Ministry of Heath or the local councils, have be received with open arms. All is well in the best of pos- sible worlds (which is undoubtedly the English country house).