New and Improved Methods 



Continental landowners get far more net 

 profit out of their estates than do English 

 landowners, chiefly because they farm the 

 greater part of their estates themselves, and 

 so make not only rental but the tenant's 

 profit as well. In the good old days it was 

 generally assumed that a 10,000 acre estate 

 gave the landowner an income of ^10,000 

 a year to live on, but even then estates were 

 mortgaged, and the accuracy of this estimate 

 is doubtful. It is certainly very far from 

 true to-day, and the net income the land- 

 owner now receives is so much reduced, that 

 in the majority of cases it only represents a 

 poor interest on the capital expended on the 

 estate during the past fifty years. It does 

 not represent rental for the land at all. 

 This is a fact that urban socialists should 

 realize if they wish to understand the prob- 

 lem of the land.* 



* Attention is often drawn to the fact that to 

 a comparatively small portion of the population 

 ;^2 5 0,000,000 a year is paid in the form of rental from 

 land, but no distinction is made between urban and rural 

 landowners. 



The agricultural landowners of Great Britain receive 

 as gross rental under ^40,000,000 a year, or a net rental 

 of about ;^23, 000,000. 



66 



