Gross Rent v. Net Rent. 
871 
of the estates. There is little doubt that this table could have been 
considerably extended by the inclusion of other and smaller estates 
without any material alteration of the results. 
With a continuance of such rates of expenditure over only a 
limited number of years, " What," it may be asked, " has or will 
become of the prairie value 1 " The fact is that this prairie value has 
long since disappeared ; and, nowadays, an agricultural estate 
cannot be kept in order and up to modern requirements in respect 
to the provision, maintenance, and repair of its buildings, fences, and 
drainage, and to the execution of the many and various improve- 
ments demanded and necessary to command good tenants, without a 
large encroachment upon the gross rentals. Indeed, it may be 
safely averred that once at least within a century the fee simple 
value of the land has to be expended by its owner in maintaining 
its rental. 
The returns referred to do not, of course, show how much of the 
respective outlays will be productive of interest in the shape of 
increased rents ; nor is it necessary here to take that matter into 
account, because the point to which this note is directed would not 
be affected by it. The outlays, it is only fair to assume, were under- 
taken because they were considered necessary to secure the most 
profitable occupation of the land, and, whether or not additional rent 
is to be paid in respect of them, the money had all the same to be 
provided, for without them the occupiers would not have been in the 
position to make the best of their farms. The probability, however, 
is that a very small proportion only of the expenditures is being 
followed by increased rents, but that rather the outlays on improve- 
ments were found necessary for the maintenance of the old rentals. 
The point under consideration was strongly impressed upon 
another Committee of the House of Commons — viz., that on Small 
Holdings — and nearly every witness referred to it. The Committee 
in its Report frequently alludes to the difficulty arising from the 
provision and maintenance of buildings, and describes it as "almost 
insuperable under present conditions " in the matter of the re-esta- 
blishment of small occupations. It fell to the lot of the present 
writer to show to the Committee that this very difficulty had been 
one of the chief causes for the regrettable disappearance, since the 
beginning of the present century, of the small " Statesman," or Free- 
holder of the North, and that, coupled with other economic causes 
still applicable to the holding of land, it had led to their voluntarily 
disposing of their patrimonies rather than hold them under circum- 
stances which caused such material reduction in their incomes. 
It is to be feared that the proposal of the Committee to shift the 
burden on to the occupier's shoulders will be found as insuperable to 
the establishment of the proposed occupying but partial owner as 
it has been in the past to the retention or maintenance of small 
occupations. Only large and wealthy proprietors can afford the 
present difference between gross and net rents, without unduly 
limiting the assistance and accommodation afforded to the tenant. 
F. PlJNCHARD. 
