274 OUR ENGLISH LAND MUDDLE. 



In the 1910 Report of the Income Tax Com- 

 missioners it was shown that out of a gross 

 national income of £1,011,100,345, only 

 £17,392,308 could be ascribed to farmers' profits 

 from the occupation of land, and that this was 

 the only department of the national income 

 which was dwindling. Whilst in 1900 the tax- 

 able income of the nation (representing some- 

 thing more than half the gross income) was 

 £594,106,253, and the profits from the oc- 

 cupation of the land were £17,608,766, by 

 1910 the former figures had increased to 

 £686,812,104, and the latter figures had dwindled 

 to £17,392,508. National income had increased 

 by 15 per cent. ; farmers' income had decreased 

 by 1*2 per cent. ; and the decrease was of a 

 share which represented at the best but a tiny 

 fraction of the whole — a fraction paltry and 

 contemptible in comparison with that of any 

 other civilized country. We have thus far less 

 local food supply, far less arable land, far less 

 agricultural population, and a lower profit from 



came from the land. If profits followed the line of production, 

 about 60 per cent, of the national profits are farmers' and graziers' 

 profits in Australia ; in Great Britain the farmers' profits are less 

 than 2 per cent, of the total national income. 



