126 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



Agriculture as to expenditures under the various Drain- 

 age and Improvement Acts since 1847, which have 

 enabled owners to make the cost of improvements a 

 charge upon the land, show that in forty-seven years 

 the sum of ;^i6,52 1,277 was so spent and charged, 

 ;^8,978,73i being for drainage, ^^4,702,361 for farm 

 buildings, i^i, 067,336 for cottages, ;^432,988 for fencing 

 and embanking, and £s^^^?)S7 ^o^ mansion houses, the 

 last item beginning in 1872, after the passing of the 

 Limited Owners Residences Act, 1871. Four millions 

 was advanced by the Exchequer under the first Drainage 

 Acts (nearly all repaid) — the remainder by the Land 

 Improvement Companies and by landowners them- 

 selves, under the Improvement of Land Act, 1864, 

 and the Limited Owners Residences Act. It is not 

 possible to ascertain what has been expended and 

 charged under the Settled Land Act, 1882, but the 

 estimates submitted to the Board of Agriculture, 

 where the Board approves the surveyor, have amounted, 

 in 1893 and 1894, to about ^200,000 each year.^ 



Since 1873, the heaviest outlay appears to have been 

 for drainage in the six years succeeding 1879, and for 

 farm buildings. There was also a heavy but steadily 

 decreasing outlay on buildings between 1876 and 1888. 

 But the expenditure since 1888 does not confirm the 

 statements of several witnesses that outlay has been 

 increasing with the depression, but rather tends to show 

 that the opinion of Mr Squarey, Sir Michael Hicks 

 Beach, and others, that in the last few years outlay has 

 been very much less, owing to straitened means. ^ 



Mr Elliott thinks this and the smaller prospect of 

 profit from improvements are the main causes of the 

 smaller amount in last six or seven years, though it is 

 also suggested that under the Settled Land Act, some 

 portion of this expenditure escapes public attention. 



It would appear probable from the evidence that the 

 largest application of gross rents to improvements have 

 taken place on the best managed and on the whole most 



'Vol. Ill, Appendices XXVII to XXXI. 

 ^Appendix XXIX. 



