326 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP. 



pensation for the net incomes they derived from the land, 

 and that the amount of government land-bonds given 

 them in payment, at 20 or 25 years' purchase, was to be 

 estimated on this net income, not on the judicial rental 

 payable by the tenants. The difference between these 

 consists of cost of agency, law expenses, and bad debts, 

 and is estimated at from 20 to 30 per cent, of the judicial 

 rents. It was this large margin which enabled Mr. 

 Gladstone to offer the tenants the means of purchasing 

 their farms by means of terminable rentals actually lower 

 than the present judicial rents, which should yet leave a 

 considerable surplus after paying the interest on the land- 

 lord's bonds, by means of which these bonds might be 

 extinguished before the terminable rentals came to an end. 

 This same principle is applicable in Great Britain, for the 

 recent reports of the Agricultural Commission show that 

 large English Estates cost from 15 to 30 per cent, for 

 management, while as much more is often laid out for 

 improvements. The net revenue will therefore be, in 

 every case, very much below the gross rental of the farms. 

 But according to our proposals, all these costs of 

 management will be saved when the State takes the lands, 

 because we insist that the tenants must always become 

 the owners of the buildings, fences, roads, drains, &c. all 

 in fact which can be destroyed, removed, or deteriorated, 

 while he remains a tenant of the State for the bare land. 

 This bare unimproved land will want no " management ; " 

 the tenant will be left perfectly free to do what he likes 

 with it, so long as he pays the rent punctually into the 

 proper office : and he will be sure to do this because, if he 

 fails he will he liable to ejectment, and to have the house 

 and improvements, which are his own property, sold. The 

 improvements will therefore be a security for the payment 

 of the rent, just as the house and premises in a town are 

 a security for the payment of the ground rent. It is thus 

 clear that, even in the case of agricultural land, the State 

 could safely pay the landlord a fair price for his bare land 

 (the tenants paying the landlord for any improvements 

 made by him) and could still, with the surplus rent 

 received from the tenant, redeem a number of the land- 



