CORRESPONDENCE.
THE TRADE IN PLACES OF INTEREST. [To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR. ] Sin,—.The owners of places of interest appear to have realised the idea that there is a trade to be done in this commodity. Hitherto ruins and earthworks have been viewed as a pretty toy, which a landowner might preserve or destroy at his pleasure. Mr. Drax indignantly levelled foss and vallum at Wimbledon, because the public ventured to show an interest in Cmsar's Camp; but it did not occur to him to offer the Camp for sale at a fancy price. More often, interesting remains have been obliterated merely as a matter of course, when so-called improvements were in progress. The awakening feeling for such remains has convinced land- agents that there is a more excellent way. Old abbeys and castles, stone-circles, and beautiful lakes and hills are now to be offered for public sale, in the hope that some public-spirited society may run up the price, and some wealthy capitalist step in and buy. Tintern Abbey, for instance, is to be bought at any moment ; but the sum talked of by the vendors has no relation to any pecuniary value the Abbey and its site may possess,—even were it run as a show by Barnum or Kiralfy. Usk Castle was recently sold ; and Mon- mouth, Chepstow, and Raglan are still in the market. The Lakes of Killarney are offered at just three times the sum which the estate would (in the opinion of competent judges) command as a residence and sporting domain. But the terms quoted for Stonehenge do most credit to the ingenuity of the auctioneer. Stonehenge is a monument of surpassing interest ; therefore no ordinary treatment was adequate to the occasion. To have sold it alone, with an acre or so, would have been a poor way of dealing with it, whatever the price asked. So the bold design was conceived of offering it as an incident of a large estate, and putting a fancy value on the whole of the land. Mr. Gibson Bowles says that the nation has paid too high a price to Sir Michael Hicks-Beach for his lands on Salisbury Plain. That price works out at from £10 to £12 an acre. For the Stonehenge estate of thirteen hundred acres £100 an acre is asked. If we apportion the aggregate of £130,000 between the land and the monument, taking the recent purchase as a guide, the land would stand at £16,000 at the outside, and Stonehenge is put at the trifling sum of £114,000!
How is the nation to respond to this movement? It is easy to say that landowners should be actuated by the time-honoured maxim, .Noblesse oblige, and should not seek to make money out of possessions which have no money-getting value, and which are part of the nation's history. Bat there is at present no law which in any way regulates the treatment of such monuments, and, though public opinion is strong, it did not save the Falls of Foyers. Indeed, the nation is peculiarly helpless. For not only has it no power to prevent a sale, but it is not able to make a bid for its treasures when put up to auction. If a great picture comes into the market the trustees of the National Gallery are not wholly without resources, though the sums voted by Parliament for such purposes are trifling. In relation to rare prints or manu- scripts there is a more liberal tradition ; the British Museum is enabled to take the field with effect. But for the acquisi- tion of such priceless relics as Stonehenge or Tintern—of infinitely wider interest than the most unique specimen of early printing or penmanship—not one penny has ever been voted by the Legislature of this country. The Commis- sioners of Works were antborised nine years ago to pur- chase megalithic remains, but, so far as is known, no First Commissioner has yet been bold enough even to suggest to my Lords of the Treasury a single purchase. Parliament is asked each year to grant the munificent sum of £100 for the protection and maintenance of ancient monu- ments; but this grant, if used at all, is doubtless expended in the petty expenses involved in an occasional visit to some stone-circle or earthwork voluntarily placed by its owner under the Commissioners' care. Even to the more favoured sister-isle, where legislation has gone further, and where the funds of the Disestablished Church have been put under contribution for the preservation of ecclesiastical ruins, the Parliamentary grant in the present financial year for the preservation of ancient monuments was £301! Contrast this with the liberality of our French neighbours, who, with smaller means and heavier burdens' than ourselves, place some £50,000 yearly at the disposal of the Minister of Public Education for the protection of the historic monuments of the country !
This country, indeed, is niggardly throughout in its expen- diture for the acquisition of beautiful and interesting things. With a total income and expenditure approaching £110 000,000, it spends little over £40,000 a year in enrich- ing the national collections. It may well be asked whether the time has not come when this small outlay should be sup- plemented, for the purpose of acquiring those greater objects of interest which must be preserved in situ, and which are, on that account, endowed with a singular charm and educational power. The existence of some fund for such a purpose would have important results. It would not enable Tintern and Stonehenge to be bought at the, prices their owners now ask. But there are inter- esting memorials of the history of the country—and par- ticularly of its social and domestic history—which are often to be acquired at no great cost, if only somebody were in a position to purchase for the benefit of the nation. In the many antiquarian societies, and in such an organisation as the National Trust, the public have agents which could be trusted to lay out money judiciously, and which, if in funds, could effect many purchases before undue notoriety had run up the price. At present, all that can be done is to raise a fond by voluntary subscription for each specific object; and the steps necessary for this purpose tend in themselves to make the desired acquisition difficult. The National Trust is constantly asked to make arrangements which would secure interesting buildings from destruction on terms involving ultimately, very slight, if any, pecuniary burden ; but, for want of funds in hand, it is powerless. Unless such funds are forthcoming by some means, the growing activity in defence of the country's endowment of striking beauty and historic association will to a large extent fail of its purpose, and may even in some cases increase the danger of destruction.
Bat the provision el funds for the judicious acquisition of places of interest would not alone save the nation from the risk of unfair treatment at the hands of a grasping or unreasonable landowner. In France the Minister of Education may buy compulsorily any historic monument. To deal with excep- tional cases, some power of this kind is needed in England. A Government Department can already, without the sanction of Parliament, authorise the taking of land for light railways, and for allotments and other rural requirements. The pre- servation of Stoneheoge seems at least as adequate a ground
for the exercise of compulsory powers as the formation of a tram-line between Little Pedlington and its market-town. But if it be thought too startling an innovation to give a Minister an open warrant to expropriate land in the interests of history and natural beauty, the same objection can hardly be made to a power of suspending destruction, and giving Parliament the opportunity of decreeing compulsory acquisi- tion in the particular case. Why should not the Falls of Foyers have been maintained intact until an opportunity bad been offered to the State, to local authorities, or to public- spirited individuals to find the means of averting per- manent destruction ? Stonehenge is probably in no danger, but if that American who is credited by the popular imagi- nation with the desire to freight a fleet with the historic stones of the Mother-country, were actually to appear in the 'flesh, it would surely be no more than reasonable that the Executive Government should have power to suspend his operations till the possibility of a purchase by or for the nation could be fully considered. It would be easy to protect the individual landowner against any hardship from the exercise of such a suspensory power. But that a great and rich'country should have no means of preventing the spolia- tion of possessions which it prizes beyond words, seems to be a. reduction of the principle of private property to an absurdity. If the attempt of a few landowners to make.a market in places of interest leads to the early consideration of the means of averting further disaster, the public will have reason to be grateful to their enterprise.—I am, Sir,
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