MORTGAGES AND RENTS 14! 



thereby enhanced. "Taking it for granted that rents 

 would not fall, and that values would gradually rise, 

 large sums were borrowed on the security of the high 

 rentals. Mansions were enlarged or castles built, 

 dowagers, wives, sons, and daughters were left annuitants, 

 and all these payments formed deep and lasting drains 

 upon the income of the landlord." 1 The margin which, 

 if preserved, might in most cases have been ample to 

 meet emergencies, was thus given away, and the net 

 income, after paying mortgage interests and charges, 

 became insufficient to admit of adequate reduction of 

 rents, or of the full provision of essential improvements 

 and works upon estates. 



In this situation, it was not unnatural that most owners 

 were tempted to regulate "the. amount of a remission 

 or reduction of rent more by the ability of the owner to 

 give than by the right of the tenant to receive," and to 

 absolutely forget that the balance of net income has 

 nothing to do with the economic value of the land for 

 letting purposes. 



Again, both owner and mortgagee are interested in 

 preventing permanent reductions in rent. The margin 

 on which the selling value of the interests of either party 

 rests would be diminished, and there is, therefore, the 

 strongest inducement to keep up rents so far as possible. 



In some cases where depression has cut deepest into 

 values, as in Suffolk and Essex, the mortgagees would 

 lose by foreclosing and selling under present circum- 

 stances, and there has been a disinclination to precipitate 

 matters, and this may in some sense be helping to tide 

 over, and even to reduce slightly the interest. 



The extent to which the action even of liberally inten- 

 tioned owners is paralysed by the fact that his mortgage 

 interest "and other charges remain a fixed quantity, while 

 his gross receipts have been steadily lessening, is recog- 

 nised as a serious hindrance to relief. 



Mr Biddell says : " I do not think that he has been 

 able to support the farmer out of his own pocket ; he 

 has had children to keep, and jointures to pay, and 

 ' Pringle, Beds, Hunts, Northants, p. 58. 



