The Duke of Marlborough is ill at ease with himself.
As our readers will remember, his agent issued a circular, stat- ing that as the labourers were "putting forward question- able demands," he should place his cottages in the hands of his farmers, who also would have the right of granting or withholding all allotments. The entire Press cried shame ! and the Duke, though too dignified to acknowledge an error, seems to have been impressed, for on the Attorney- General recapitulating the facts, he comes forward in the Times to defend himself. His letter is of the foggiest kind, but it does contain a statement that he will not give up the control of his cottages—that is, that he surrenders the point at issue—and an admission that labourers have a right to combine if they like, and a half promise that the farmers' right to grant allotments shall be an addition to his own practice of grant- ing them. It is, we are willing to believe, a well-meant apology for a mistake which has produced most serious mischief, and which the Duke would have done better to acknowledge frankly. It is not for Dukes to join the middle-class in bearing-down the poor.
