MR. RHODES ON ELDEST SONS.
THE oddest division of Mr. Rhodes's will is that in which he tries to limit the succession to his estate of Dalham Hall by clauses intended to exclude idle men, or " loafers" as he calls them, from the inheritance. He insists that each successive heir shall lose his claim unless be has worked for ten years in some busi- ness or some profession, or unless, if he has already inherited as a minor, he enters upon one of those careers at twenty-one, and adheres to it for ten years. This decree, though very absolute in form, is, as Mr. Rhodes must have known, effective only as an expression of opinion, possibly acting upon the consciences of suc- cessive heirs. Our laws do not now allow of entail except for a life or lives in being and twenty-one years, and the reluctance of the Courts to deprive a man of his inherited property because he prefers the life of a country gentle- man to any other will be so strong as to favour almost any attempt at evasion. As far as we see, the expectant heir will only have to declare himself a land agent, and decline business unconnected with the Dalham Hall Estate, to comply strictly with the conditions of the will, and yet completely evade its object. Still, so strong an expression of opinion from so considerable a man may have an effect not only on successive owners of Dalham Hall, but on the new generation of eldest sons generally, and it is worth while to inquire for a moment whether the opinion has any solid basis.
We think it has a little, but only a little. The position of the heir-apparent to a great estate, like the position of the heir-apparent to a throne, is in many respects a painful one.. He is always waiting, waiting, probably through many years, with the certainty of being rich some day, and meanwhile with nothing definite to do. If he is keenly interested in politics or science or art he can get along very well, or if he is one of those intended by nature to be country gentlemen, for in any of these cases he has occupations which fill his mind and give him an interest in living. He can go into Parliament, or take office, or work hard as a Magistrate, or study Nature, or try energetically to enrich his father's tenantry and the country at large by improvements in stock-breeding, agri- cultural machines, or the kinds of things to cultivate. But if he has no instinct for any of these things, he is apt to become an idler with money at command, rather flattered by the women around him because of the position he can offer, and living the life of cities rather than of the country- side because of its superior distractions. Very often it is difficult for him to raise the income without which he dreads marriage, and then he is pretty sure either to lead the aimless life of drawing-rooms, or to fall into some one of the " entanglements " which almost invariably spell ruin. He becomes, in short, the character Mr. Rhodes most dreads, the polished loafer, something of a burden to him- self, and of use to the community chiefly as a contributor to the revenue. It is not, we think, true that eldest sons are usually stupid, for the Peers have shown considerable ability in many directions, though they have never produced a great artist, and only one great poet ; but it is true that younger sons show more energy and dash, and more dis- position, if they have ability, to cultivate it to the utmost. Mr. Rhodes, who, like most men of his strenuous t7pe, had a great contempt for passive people, seeing clearly .the utility of the winds but not that of the ether, has tried to make sure that the heir of Dalham Hall shall be like the usual younger son in character and attainments. He has failed in his design, and on the whole it is well that he should have failed.
He is so desperately illogical in the matter. If he had held, as so many Radicals of the cities hold, that no man should own more land than he can cultivate with his own hands, his view, though foolish, for it renders sound drainage and large irrigation imuossible except to a despotic Government, would be at least intelligible. The greater part of the culturable area of the world is distri- buted upon that plan, and though it usually stereotypes the people, still it allows them to become numerous, if that is a good, and to be to a somewhat singular degree content. But Mr. Rhodes thinks great and wealthy land- lords a positive blessing. He says :—" My experience is that one of the things making for the strength of England is the ownership of country estates which could maintain the dignity and comfort of the -head of- the family." So clear and deep-seated is his conviction, that with a contempt for natural feeling unusual in a man so kindly, he bars provision being made out of the estate, not only for younger sons, which is just enough as they are expected to work, but for the widow and daughters, who may have nothing of their own, who have been prob- ably bred in ease, and who practically can earn nothing. They are to be dependent on the generosity, it may be the caprice, of the eldest son, who, again, though he cannot create dowers or appanages, is not prevented, and cannot be prevented, from crippling himself with debts. Well, we should agree with Mr. Rhodes that large owners of land are a gain to the community, because they provide a leisured class which cannot be maintained in any other way, and the only 'substitute for whom would be a French or German bureaucracy, and because they rescue the people from the sordid ideal which always exists where everybody works. The real objection, made in America, to Mr. Rhodes's grand gift of scholar- ships is that it will make an ideal of " classicism " instead of money-making. But then, we are compelled to ask, if that is admitted, where is the logic of denouncing the natural training for the position ? Mr. Rhodes seems to believe that wise ownership needs no special training, that the man who has devoted the most receptive years of his life to banking, or shipbuilding, or the Stock Exchange will be more competent to govern an estate than the man who has been dependent on it all his life, who knows every special quality of the land and those who till it, and who has the sympathy with the workers which too often the city manufacturers do not betray. We cannot see how it should be otherwise, or see how Mr. Rhodes reasoned himself into the belief that a young barrister, or engineer, or doctor, or manufac- turer would govern an inherited estate so much better than an eldest son who has been hopefully studying its affairs all his life. That a young Colonist might govern better we are prepared to admit, but the reason for that is that the Colonist learns in a rough-and-ready way precisely the lessons essential to the owner of land, and has, in fact, training in his proper profession under new circumstances. We shall be condemned as old-fashioned, but we cannot help thinking that Tennyson was more far-seeing, as well as more poetic, than Mr. Rhodes :— "Yon, my Leonard, use and not abuse your day,
Move among the people, know them, follow him who led the way,
Strove for sixty widowed years to help his homelier brother men,
Served the poor and built the cottage, raised the school and drained the fen."
Previous page
