LETTERS Powerless aristocrats
Sir: I have been working this year on a book with a similar theme to John Martin Robinson's (`Still the top class', 16 November), although only in the capacity of 'research assistant'. Much of the evi- dence he supplies to contradict David Cannadine's thesis is used by Cannadine to support his. Cannadine makes the same point that the 9th Duke of Devonshire was richer than his predecessor, but he was nevertheless a less powerful beast. The Duke of Buccleuch may still lord it over 250,000 acres, but that is only half what it was 100 years ago, and does not compare to those 19th-century 'leviathans of wealth', the Dukes of Sutherland, who owned one and a half million. The reason that there are such strong links between the City and the aristocracy is because they can no longer live off their estates, and have to support them by working in the highest paid jobs they can find. The stockbroking peer is a sign of decline, not of a clever adaptation to the modern world.
It is true that most court positions and county lieutenancies are held by members of the aristocracy but, as Robinson points out, these are essentially honorific. JPs may still be drawn disproportionately from the ranks of the gentry, but they are no longer in charge of the administration of their counties. For a governing class to govern, it must wield political power, and for it to be a class, it must wield it as of right, and not through the ballot box. The creation of county councils towards the end of the last century ensured, for better or for worse, that local power ceased to flow from the Crown to its natural support, the aristocra- cy (and back again), and instead flowed from the electors in the region. The gradual extension of the franchise from the great Reform Act onwards did for aristocratic power on a national level what the county councils did on a local one. The House of Lords only survives now because it is staffed overwhelmingly by noblemen (and women) who are not aristocrats or even necessarily particularly rich.
The aristocracy may have some extremely rich people among their number, but they are no longer set apart from anyone else who is rich. The erosion of the connection between wealth, land ownership and politi- cal power was bound to kill aristocratic power. Those Tories who opposed the repeal of the Corn Laws were not the stupid party at all. They knew exactly how their bread was buttered and why it was they had someone to butter it for them.
Today, the aristocrat in politics is there in spite of his class and not because of it. A peer who is serious about winning political power will have to renounce his ambition or his honours, or go and work in Brussels. The Marquesses of Salisbury and Lans- downe and Winston Churchill all refused dukedoms in this century. No non-royal has accepted one. It is extremely unlikely that another hereditary peerage will ever be cre- ated. The present Duke of Devonshire has remarked that 'the problem with being a duke is that everyone thinks you're a twit'.
The aristocracy, like (increasingly) the working class, are irrelevant as a political force because they do not exist in sufficient numbers, and that is what counts. Their plumage may still be glorious to behold, but over the last century or so they have been gutted of the power that had been their birthright since time out of mind. That, as I understood it, was the basic thrust of Can- nadine's book and nothing John Martin Robinson said in his article contradicted it. The National Trust is the instrument with which the rest of the nation has stuffed these rare birds so we can gawp at them. That so many have agreed to be stuffed is merely a measure of their essential decrepi- tude.
If the hereditary element of the House of Lords were to be abolished, it would be an action no more significant than Napoleon's abolition of the Venetian Republic: merely the shadow of that which was once great passing away. Still, in comparison to their Continental cousins they have put up an extremely spirited rear-guard action. That much is true.
Benedict King
60 Abingdon Road, Oxford
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