11
! i
i
Childn
the Br
New ‘dukes’ of England are
insurance, realty, banking firms
“That does it, Leonid... you turkeys just blew your Pepsi
franchise ...”
Opinion
U.S. proud of hockey team
By now, everyone’s probably sick of hearing about the
United States winning a gold medal in ice hockey.
I’m not.
I’m not an outwardly patriotic person. I don’t always sing
the national anthem before football or basketball games. I
don’t even know the second verse to “God Bless America.
I’m not thrilled over the possibility that I might be drafted
and sent to the Middle East.
By GODFREY HOGDSON
A generation ago, much of Britian’s lovely
countryside belonged to aristocratic fami
lies who had inherited large land holdings
and to wealthy businessmen who had
bought vast tracts in hopes of imitating the
aristocrats. But now, huge rural domains
here are being acquired by a breed known
as the “new dukes.”
These modern nobles are neither old
gentry nor rich industrialists, but insurance
companies, real estate syndicates and other
financial institutions.
Among the biggest investors in agricul
tural property are labor union pension
funds. So the leaders of the proletariat,
some quite left-wing in their views, have
ironically become the landlords they regu
larly denounce in their speeches.
In addition to reversing British social his
tory, this trend toward impersonal land ac-
quistion is having another significant effect.
It is driving real estate values up to giddy
heights, and thus contributing to inflation.
An example of soaring prices is illus
trated in a transaction that took place last
year, when the Prudential Assurance Com
pany, the biggest insurance firm in Britain,
bought a 16,000-acre estate in Hereford
shire, a beautiful county of productive
farms set among the rolling hills and valleys
of the border between England and Wales.
Prudential paid the equivalent of $45
million for the estate — more than 10 times
the price paid, in 1961 by its previous own
er, the late Sir Charles Clore, a shipbuild
ing, manufacturing and merchandising
magnate.
This property is only one of Prudential’s
more than 80 estates, each of which once
supported a lord or baronet. These hold
ings, which stretch from the Scottish high
lands to the Romney marshes on he English
channel, consist of 100,000 acres worth at
least $200 million.
Although, the “new dukes” own some
550,000 acres of rural real estate, and they
are adding to these holdings at the rate of
50,000 acres per year. By way of compari
son, they royal family’s properties amount
to little more than 400,000 acres.
The Church of England still possesses
about 170,000 acres, roughly the same
owned by the Oxford and Cambridge col-
legs, whose endowments date back to the
Middle Ages.
It could be argued that the new institu
tional landlords, who represent number of
workers and holders of insurance policies,
are turning the clock back to the days when
Britain was mainly an agricultural society of
small property-owners.
Over the years, land became more and
more concentrated in fewer hands as poor
farmers, forced to sell their holdings, be
came tenants.
By the 19th century, an enormous prop
ortion of Britian’s property belonged to a
few thousand landowners, who rented par
cels to farmers and lived in ease in their
great country houses or London mansions.
At the top of this social and economic pyra
mid were a couple of dozen multimil
lionaire dukes.
Many of these nobles have been wiped
out by high taxes and death duties. But
many survived handsomely by turning to
sophisticated farming methods, smart tax
shelters and other devices.
The Marlboroughs, the family that
spawned Winston Churchill, still run an
Oxford estate worth millions. The Duke of
Bedford started a fun fair and a zoo for
tourists at his country seat at Woburn.
But just as the best of the old aristocrats
felt a responsibility toward their tenants, so
the “new dukes” are behaving conscien
tiously on their properties. Many of their
agents, indeed, are the scions of traditional
landed families.
In general, therefore, tenant fare
here seem to accept their institutional!;:
lods with equanimity. The agridtc
community as a whole, however, is ink
py with the changing pattern ofowneri
Its main complaint is that, by
rural property atalmost any price, tk;
companies and pension funds are spai
an upward spiral in land values,
making it difficult for individual farnif:
buy real estate. Between 1976 and!
according to one government report,al
acre shot up from $2,300 to $4,
Even so, property values here arer!
lower than those in Holland, Denmark
West Germany, where an acreoffani
sells for $6000 or more. Dutch farmer
fact, have been buying rural realeste
Britain.
On balance, though, the shift int
ownership away from the old ariste
and rich businessmen to the large ir
tions is salutory.
The estates are being managed^:
professionals. And besides, the proper
indirectly being returned to the peip
who possess a share of the land tkar
their insurance policies, pension fiinilsi
other investments.
International Writers Service
Still, I can honestly say that I’m proud to he an American.
Maybe it’s for a silly reason — winning a few hockey games
— but I got goose bumps when I saw the awards ceremony
Sunday. I felt a smile forming on my face when the band
played “The Star Spangled Banner’ and the flag was hoisted
high in the Olympic Arena.
I don’t even like ice hockey, but I watched all of the games
religiously.
I get the feeling that I’m not the only one who felt this
way. Ice hockey was the hot topic all over town. There were
people talking hockey strategy who have never understood
the game. One conversation in a supermarket check-out line
went like this:
Old Woman: I just couldn’t believe that icing call in the
third period, could you?
Older Woman: Neither could I.
Old Woman: What is icing’, anyway?
Despite an apparent lack of knowledge about the game,
Americans have stood behind their team.
Winning the gold medal served as a catharsis for America.
After the frustrations of inflation, the Abscam scandal, and
the troubles in Afghanistan and Iran, beating the rest of the
world — and especially the Soviet Union — in ice hockey is
something to be proud of.
— Roy Bragg
m |: * „< \ A
MM II
the small society
by Brickman I New pesticide has vermin squirmin'
Wco-ZoYl THAT
/AY
Af2^
~[0
Washington Star Syndicate. Inc
Insects ‘bugged’ by heart problem
By DICK WEST
United Press International
Mankind’s ceaseless quest for better pest
control may be about to take another quan
tum jump at the U.S. Department of Agri
culture.
The department’s Science and Educa
tion Administration has just announced a
$53,000 research program to develop more
information about chitins.
just no way to explain this in polite com
pany.
Let’s just say point-blank that chitterl
ings are pig intestines prepared as food and
that a recent study found this traditional
Dixie delicacy was more nutritious than pig
ears, pig tails and hog maws. There!
Chitins, on the other hand, you wouldn’t
want to eat no matter how nutritious. Not
even southern fried.
The Battalion
U S P S 045 360
LETTERS POLICY
letters to the editor should not exceed 300 words and an
subject to being cut to that length or less if longer. Tin
editorial staff reserves the right to edit such letters and doe*
nttt guarantee to publish any letter Each letter must In
signed, show the address of the writer and list a telephoru
number for verification.
Address correspondence to letters to the Editor. Tht
Battalion. Room 216, Reed McDonald Building. Collcgt
Station. Texas 77H43.
Represented nationally by National Educational Adv<
tising Services, Inc.. New York City. Chicago and I
Angeles.
The Battalion is published Mondav through Frida> from
ieptember through May except during exam and holiday
x*riods and the summer, when it is published on Tuesday
hrotigh Thursday.
Mail subscriptions are $16.75 per semester. $33.25 per
schcxil year. $35.00 per hill year. Advertising rates furnished
on request. Address: The Battalion. Room 216. Reed
McDonald Building. College Station. Texas 77843.
United Press International is entitled exclusiveb to the
use for reproduction of all news dispatches credited to it
Rights of reproduction of all other matter herein reserved.
Second-Class postage paid at College Station. TX 77843
MEMBER
Texas Press Association
Souths*est Journalism Congress
Editor Roy Bragg
Associate Editor Keith Taylor
News Editor Rusty Cawley
Asst. News Editor Karen Cornelison
Copy Editor. Dillard Stone
Sports Editor Mike Burrichter
Focus Editor Rhonda Watters
City Editor Louie Arthur
Campus Editor Diane Blake
Staff Writers Nancy Andersen,
Tricia Brunhart,Angelique Copeland,
Laura Cortez, Meril Edwards,
Carol Hancock, Kathleen McElroy,
Debbie Nelson, Richard Oliver,
Tim Sager, Steve Sisney,
Becky Swanson, Andy Williams
Chief Photographer Lynn Blanco
Photographers Lee Roy Leschper,
Paul Childress, Ed Cunnius,
Steve Clark
No, honey chile, not chitterlings. Chi
tins. When we southerners pronounce
chitterlings as “chitlins” they may sound
something like chitins, but they definitely
aren’t the same things.
Chitterlings, or chitlins, are dealt with in
another recent Agriculture Department
ill.
press release. It reported that well, there is
Chitin, according to the Agriculture De
partment, is the major component of an
insect’s tough outer covering. Let us ex
amine how it fits in with the epic struggle of
man against bug.
The modern epoch may be said to have
begun with the discovery that many che
mical pesticides, such as DDT, were doing
in man as well as bug. That led to the search
for more, ah, subtle method of insect con
trol.
The modern approach, then, is not to
slay bugs outright, flyswatter-style, but to
set Mother Nature to work against them.
First came sterilization — rendering
bugs impotent by radiation, the theory
being that an insect incapable of reproduc
tion was as good as dead, and maybe better.
Then came “juvabione ” a substance ex
tracted from balsam fir trees. Although not
fatal, juvabione was found to keep oox elder
bugs and certain other insects from de
veloping into adults.
In other words, and in keeping with the
indirct technique, it left insects alive but
stunted their growth.
And so it went. Triumph after triumph.
Which brings us back to chitlins.
In the stdy being underwritten
USDA, scientists will examine the (
covering of insects to see how i
formed. Then they will try to [
synthetically and to develop supprf-
materials.
Thotz
By Doug Grahan
comim
The
ordinal
ing pro
within
ceptior
license
tection
The
of air g
The ci
shootin
bows.
The i
toy gui
propell
viduals
The (
specific
which 1
the Api
tion. M
hoped
days. H
weeks t
The 1
and wal
creatior
provem
dt
B3
Raul B.
Associa
sented
versity
meeting
The :
ment hi
restrict
1959, p
as the “
A&M.”
present
ments,
funding
Dean
said th<
escalate
their p£
with ho
The *
lines foi
graduat
courses,
in physi
In ab
graduat
pleted t
(researc
campus,
quired
semeste
or 692 ( t
tion for
requirec
Starti
The idea is to curtail the develop®
a bug’s protecting covering, thus lei j
exposed to the harsh elements, |
predators and other of life’s rigors
Which brings us back to chitter!
Although more nutritious,
were reported to have muchhigherfi 1 !
tent and about twice as muchcholeS]
pig ears. Tterein, perhaps, lies tie!*
the ultimate indirect pesticide.
It doesn’t kill bugs, but obesityatiij
ged arteries make them prime c#!
for heart attacks.
Opinions expressed in The Battalion are
those of the editor or of the writer of the
article and are not necessarily those of the
University administration or the Board of
Regents. The Battalion is a non-profit, self-
supporting enterprise operated by students
as a university and community newspaper.
Editorial policy is determined by the editor.