132 AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION 



at all. Thus, in the case of Lord Ancaster's estate, the 

 outlay of a million sterling since 1872 includes tithe, 

 land-tax, local rates paid by owner, management, and 

 miscellaneous outgoings, none of which can be an interest- 

 bearing investment ; and in the case of the Holkham 

 estate, a large proportion of the enormous expenditure 

 of two generations is quite out of date as an element 

 upon which the rent of to-day could reasonably be 

 calculated in the light of so much dividend upon an 

 investment. 



Mr Albert Pell, in his interesting article on " The 

 Making of the Land in England," and in his evidence 

 before the Commission, argues that agricultural land has 

 really been made available by the expenditure of the 

 landowners, and that this expenditure has been so 

 enormous that it is probable that present rents only 

 represent about i per cent, upon the total outlay. If 

 owners had gone on from year to year investing the 

 same amounts in consols or other securities, they would 

 have had a large return. Sir Massey Lopes, in his 

 evidence, advances the same contention. 



But such reasoning is obviously fallacious. The 

 landlords could only ex hypothesi have had these sums 

 to expend on improvements, or to invest elsewhere from 

 year to year, if their rents continued to be paid ; or, if 

 these sums were invested elsewhere, in a very few years 

 the rents would have gone down to nothing, with the 

 result that the landlord would be poorer, not richer, 

 from this change of his arrangements. In fact, Mr Pell 

 admits that the money was invested in making the land 

 " lettable " — without it, it would, therefore, have not 

 been lettable, but would speedily have reverted to 

 waste. 



The fallacy is threefold. In the first place, most of 

 such expenditure is not truly of the nature of an invest- 

 ment. It is to some extent merely the essential pre- 

 liminary to any rent being earned at all. And, in the 

 second place, a very large portion has long since lapsed. 

 Mr Pell himself holds that " no landlord would in 

 fixing his rent take into consideration such expenditure 



