LANDLORDS LMPROVEMENTS AND RENTS I3I 



many witnesses, who have come before us, that they are 

 entitled to expect a full interest on the whole of this out- 

 lay, exactly in the same sense as from any ordinary 

 commercial investment. 



This view has naturally arisen from the fact that, with 

 the exception of some large estates, interest has almost 

 invariably been paid by tenants on such outlay, till 

 margins having become too narrow, it became no longer 

 possible to charge interest, and in the case of new tenan- 

 cies, improvements have been insisted on as a condition 

 of taking a farm at all. 



Thus the enormous outlay for a long number of years 

 on the estates of Lord Leicester in Norfolk and the Earl 

 of Ancaster in Lincolnshire are compared with existing 

 rents. 



On the Holkham estate, the expenditure of two gen- 

 erations, by two successive Earls of Leicester, ranging 

 from 1777 to 1892, amounts to the very large sum of 

 ^1,1 12,090. The rental in 1894, which was likely to sink 

 still lower, was ;^28,700. If, as is assumed, the expendi- 

 ture of two generations for a century back ought to be a 

 sort of first charge on the land, the rents paid would only 

 give an interest of 2^ per cent. 



On Lord Ancaster's estate, since 1872 the sum of 

 >^I)039j55i in 11 was spent, and of this ^689,197 was 

 for improvements, repairs, etc. 



The gross rent received (not the rent-roll), in 1893 

 was £S3,^9^- This represents 5 per cent, on the total 

 outgoings of the twenty-two years, if the whole of them 

 are to be treated as interest-bearing investments, or 7J 

 per cent, on the outlay on improvements and repairs 

 taken apart from the other outgoings. If the ex- 

 penditure of 1893 on improvements and repairs, ;^ 15,0 15, 

 is deducted from the gross rent, the remaining income 

 for that year, ;{^38,i8i, represents 3f per cent, on the 

 whole outlay for the twenty-two years, and 5 J per cent, 

 on the improvements and repairs outlay. 



But it is plain that in such calculations many essential 

 considerations are unconsciously ignored. In the first 

 place, in these accounts some items are not investments 



