386 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



statistics, arrived at the conclusion that "with scarcely any 

 exception, the revenue drawn in the form of rent has been at 

 least doubled in every part of Great Britain since 1790." In 

 the period which has since elapsed the same causes have con- 

 tinued to operate with still greater activity. It was stated in a 

 report issued by Mr. Goschen, as president of the Poor-Law 

 Board, that the annual value of lands, houses, railways, and other 

 property in the United Kingdom assessed to the income tax, 

 under Schedule A, rose from ^53,495,375 to ^143,872,588 

 between 18 14 and 1868; and this must be exclusive of the 

 immense sums (estimated by Mr. A. Arnold at ,100,000,000) 

 received by the landed interest from railway companies over and 

 above the market price of the land thus sold. From the last 

 report of the Inland Revenue Office it appears that the assess- 

 ment of the United Kingdom, under Schedule A, amounted to 

 more than ,150,000,000, and that of England and Wales alone 

 to ,122,599,255, in the year 1 873-1 874, and the commission- 

 ers give reasons for believing the real advance in the value of 

 landed property to have been much greater. But it is the less 

 needful to enter minutely into any such calculations, inasmuch as 

 it is not disputed that for many years past the rental of England 

 has been constantly on the increase ; while the fact that persons 

 are willing to invest in land at a low present rate of interest is 

 the best proof either that a further increase in its annual value is 

 expected, or that its annual value is no measure of its real worth 

 to a purchaser. In short, the man who buys land buys not only 

 what may pay him so much per cent, but what may give him 

 social position, and power over his tenants and neighbours. It is 

 precisely this which renders the undue concentration of landed 

 property so detrimental to public interest in quiet times and so 

 perilous to its possessors in times of revolution. We have seen 

 that, whether the aggregate number of English landowners be 

 stated at more than 900,000, or less than 50,000, a few hundreds 

 of them possess more land than all the rest together, having 

 dominion, moreover, over the greater part of London itself, and 

 many of our provincial capitals. Had the legal rights actually 

 possessed by such proprietors as the Marquis of Westminster 



