870 
Gross Rent v. Net Rent. 
throwing together which the economic causes now under considera- 
tion led to in the past, but which the results have shown to have 
been mistaken policy ; the greater attention paid to the provision of 
comfortable and convenient cottages ; and the growing requirements 
of sanitary authorities in the matters of sewerage and wholesome 
water-supplies, and so on. 
All these, to say nothing of sundry drainage and other improve- 
ments from time to time necessary to maintain rents, have con- 
tributed to the lessening of the proportion of gross rents which 
landlords have had available for their own housekeeping and other 
expenditures. Nor is this demand for outlay on the landlord's part 
likely to lessen in the near future ; for the margin of profit from 
the occupation of land is too small, and the means of the working 
farmer tenant now so much sought after are often too limited, to 
enable the occupier either to do the improvements himself, or to go 
without them without unduly limiting his powers of doing justice 
to the land. Also the transfer of control and of the right of in- 
spection to the Board of Agriculture in the case of outbreaks of 
cattle-disease, and the casting of the payment of compensation upon 
the national exchequer, will doubtless be shortly followed by com- 
pulsory provisions for more space and ventilation in cattle-sheds and 
improvement of water-supplies, which will not unfrequently lead to 
their entire remodelling. But of the amount of this expenditure 
little or nothing is ever heard, because our landowners, even if 
they notice it very closely, seldom care to mention it ; and so the 
would-be land reformers, if they give thought to the matter at all, 
have to resort to guess-work, with its consequent very inadequate 
conclusions, or else, as is more generally the case, they find a con- 
venience and encouragement in altogether ignoring it. Hence, 
agitators for the redistribution of land, and advocates for the re- 
establishment of small holdings, plod on in happy unconcern of 
that one great practical difficulty in the way of the success of their 
schemes. 
A recent return to Parliament in the Report of the Select Com- 
mittee on "Woods and Forests and the Land Revenues of the Crown, 
however, lets in a little light upon the point under consideration, 
and shows tolerably clearly what the cost of keeping an estate in 
order and up to modern requirements means to an improving and 
considerate landlord. 
The statement on pages 872 and 873, submitted by Col. Sir Jsigel 
Kingscote, K.C.B., and compiled by him from figures supplied by 
sundry private landowners, gives the actual figures connected with 
eleven estates in as many different parts of the kingdom, selected 
M typical instances of reputable and judicious management. 
It will be noticed that, with the exception of No. 3 — ns to which 
the figures are extraordinary and quite abnormal — there is much 
uniformity in most of the percentages of outlay, and that the aver- 
ages of the figures given show that, inclusive of fixed charges and 
donations to schools (to avoid permanent rates, ifcc.) about one-third 
of the gross rents is absorbed in the maintenance and improvement 
