The Moral of this Nai^^ative. 



3^7 



quite untenable. But not so if the contention of modern 

 economists be valid. Even Ricardo admitted that the rent 

 which paid for the equipment and improvement of the land 

 is part of the cost of production. AVhat if it could now be 

 proved that rents entirely represent the income, such as it is, 

 derived from capital sunk in the soil ? Unfortunately for the 

 laridlords evidence on this head is not very easily obtained. 

 Most capitalists dislike to publish abroad their income and 

 expenditure. Many landed proprietors have not preserved 

 sufficient data for such a purpose. But the present Earl of 

 Leicester, with exemplary public spirit, has shown us that his 

 income now amounts to barely 2 per cent, on a capital of 

 £1,095,000 expended by himself and his predecessor on the 

 Holkham Estate.^ Perhaps it is as well for the farmers and 

 labourers that such evidences as these are not as yet very 

 plentiful. Very probably if other landlords were to search 

 the archives of the estate office for similar records they would 

 realise that they would be considerably more afHuent if they 

 allowed the margin of cultivation to contract, and desisted 

 from their efforts to make the inferior soils on their estates 

 profitable. Be this as it may, which should Lord Leicester's 

 income be called, rent or profit? Such a question as this Mill 

 sought to solve by differentiating the capital sunk by the 

 landlord in the soil under two headings, viz., that requiring 

 periodical renewal, the returns from which he recognized as 

 profits^ and that spent once for all, the returns from which he 

 contended were rent.'^ This distinction underlies, no doubt, 

 the fundamental policy of the Settled-Land Acts. Capital 

 sunk once and for all in the land becomes realty^ and is there- 

 fore part of the settled estates ; whereas, capital expended in 

 temporary advantages must be found out of the personalty of 

 the tenant-for-life. But this apparent corroboration of Mill's 

 distinction between rents and profits is due merely to the 

 accident that permanent improvements (viz., capital sunk in 

 the land once and for all) are likely to benefit the remaindt-r- 



* Vide the Speech of the Right Hon. H. Chaplin at the National Agri- 

 cultural Conference held in London at the beginning of 1893. 



* rrinciplcs of I'olitical Economy, vol. i. bk. ii. ch. xvi. p. 505. 



