amounted to just that sum. Here no cash at all was received during the financial year. In the case of a third farm 100l. represented the cash receipt on a rental of 450l. Again, then, it seems that it was in no sense an exaggeration for Mr. Bear to declare that in 1879 "veritable disaster" was experienced in English agriculture. Nor, it must be remembered, can the true net receipts of an estate be determined without taking into account the outlay on rates and taxes, on repairs and maintenance, on insurance and management, and on donations and subscriptions, such as are expected from a landlord, for educational and othc: objects. It will be interesting to endeavour to ascertain these expenses, as far as may prove to be possible, for the year 1879-80, on the largest agricultural estate in the possession of the college. Detailed particulars of the rental, the abatements, and the arrears, of the rack-rented farming tenancies on this estate have been furnished in previous tables. XIII.-The Expenses of an Estate. The total rental for the whole estate, including cottages and allotments, amounted in 1879-80 to 3.9071. (omitting shillings and pence). The total abatements amounted to 5447., leaving a balance of 3,363. From this a sum of 1,074., required to be deducted on account of the increase in the arrears during the year; and in this way an apparent net receipt of 2,289l. is reached. The rates, taxes, and tithe for the estate amounted to 473l., of which 71. were paid in drainage rates, 667. in property tax, and the remainder (400l.) in tithe. The repairs of an ordinary character involved an expenditure of 124., and those of a less ordinary nature an outlay of 2337., making a total sum of 3571. Thus an eighth of the gross receipts was absorbed in the payment of taxes and tithe, and an eleventh in the execution of repairs. The expenses of insurance of the farm buildings amounted to some 251., and the cost of the management of the property, so far as it was possible to assign that cost specifically to any one estate, to some 581., while 32l. were devoted to subscriptions and donations of a customary character. The total expenditure ander these various items amounted to 9451., and this, deducted from 2,289l., left a net receipt of 1,344., out of a gross rental of 3,9071., or about a third. As much as two-thirds, therefore, of the rental of this estate were intercepted on its way from the tenant to the landlord, and in this deduction no account is taken of the share of the general expenses of managing the college property with which this one estate should be credited, if it were possible to do so. Nor again has account been taken of expenditure of a capital nature on permanent improvements, which was undertaken in VOL. LV. PART I. D previous years by means of borrowed money. It is difficult to determine the amount of interest, and of repayment of principal, which should be charged to each separate estate under this head. But it would seem to be well within the margin to reckon upon at least 900l., and the deduction of this further sum would leave the net receipt at some 450l., were it not that in that year of 1879-80, in addition to a receipt of 10l. for stone and gravel of an ordinary character, a fine of 700l. was paid on the renewal of the lease of the beneficial leasehold mentioned in an earlier part of this paper. Reckoning this payment as a receipt of the year, although it is strictly of the nature of a capital receipt, and the year ought perhaps to be credited with no more than a seventh part, and including, on the other hand, amongst the expenses the charge for the debt, the net receipt would still be some 1,150l. on a rental of 4.617., or less than a fourth. I have taken out the figures for the other years of the period in a similar way; but they are not, I think, of sufficient instructiveness to be given in a table. I will therefore content myself with a comparison of the three years 1877-78, 1879 80, and 1889. The first of these years is the second, and the other the last but one of those comprised in the period under review; and I have selected these years because they seem to be of a more ordinary and representative character than either the first or the last. Total 374 13 81,533 3 91,168 19 2 1,454 I 4 1,462 19 10 Total 1,475 10 11 1,665 16 41,235 13 2 1,101 16 4 813 12 10 Table XVIII shows that, while rates, taxes, and tithe have diminished with the decrease of rental, the outlay upon repairs has not; and in fact it is the case that on the college estates generally the depression has brought with it no relief, but rather additional pressure, on the score of repairs. As the beneficial leasehold system came to an end, considerable expenditure was necessitated in order to bring the farms into order, and to maintain and improve the buildings. Before this task had been accomplished the depression came; and partly for this reason, and partly in consequence of changes in the system of cultivation, and amongst other things the conversion of arable into pasture, the years of depression have been years of varying but considerable outlay. Table XIX will show the expenditure on repairs executed out of revenue during the period under review. In addition to this, the college has expended, or contracted loans with a view to expending, borrowed money to the amount of 7,250l. on the erection and improvement of cottages and farm buildings, and on the execution of draining and fencing operations, during the period under review in this paper. It has also paid interest, and repaid principal, on debt previously incurred for these objects, and has reduced the capital outstanding of the loans for improvements by one-half, from 22.000l. odd to some 11,000l. XIV. Concluding Remarks. In conclusion, two points of interest may be briefly noticed. During the period under review several acres of arable have been laid down to permanent pasture, and the most serious fall in rental has taken place on the estate which contained the largest proportion of arable land. On this estate, numbered 5 in Table X, the reduction in rent has been some 50 per cent., and the proportion of the land in arable was to the whole acreage of the estate as 10 to 13. But on the other hand the proportion of arable on the estate numbered 7, which is the largest piece of property belonging to the college, was less than a half (and this has since been reduced to about a third by the conversion of arable to pasture), and yet the fall in rental has been 42 per cent., or more than that on the third of the three great estates of the college, where, with a fall of only 33 per cent., the quantity of arable was more than three-fourths of the total acreage. On the first estate the rent is about 148. 6d. an acre, and the college now pays the tithe; on the second the average rent is 17., and the college continues its former practice of paying the tithe; on the third there is no tithe at all, and the rent is about 1l. 6s, 6d. an acre. No doubt these facts, coupled with the conversion of several acres of arable into permanent pasture, show that the fall in the price of corn has been a potent factor in the depression; but they also show that other circumstances may affect the result. The other fact, which it may perhaps be of some interest to record, is that, of the tenants of the college included in Table X, eight were tenants in 1876-77, and twelve have become tenants since that year. Of these, however, four belong to the same family as the former tenants, on whose deaths they succeeded to the occupancy of the farms. The college has been fortunate enough to have had no farm thrown upon its hands during the whole continuance of the depression. The AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION and its EFFECTS on a LEADING [Read before the Royal Statistical Society, 16th February, 1892. THE diminished value of arable land consequent on the agricultural depression which has existed with unremitting severity in most parts of the country for the past twelve or fourteen years, has probably been felt less by hospitals for the sick than by any other class of public institutions. This is accounted for by the facts that the vast majority of hospitals are indebted for their existence and maintenance to voluntary contributions, and that they have rarely had opportunities of investing surplus capital in land, while until very recently the disabling clauses of the Statute of Mortmain precluded them from receiving bequests of landed property. In the case of endowed charities of long standing, where a portion, and in some instances nearly the whole of the revenue is derived from arable property, the consequences have been more or less disastrous to the wellbeing of the institutions, and have induced the executive in many instances to adopt measures of a compensatory character to which they had hitherto been strangers. The chief of these expedients is of course an appeal to public generosity, the mainspring of all philanthropic endeavours, and when these wants are sufficiently made known and understood, it has rarely happened that such appeals for help in time of trouble have not been met with an adequate response from an approving public. The institution to which I intend to refer as having suffered materially from the continual agricultural depression is Guy's Hospital, founded in 1724 at the sole costs of the testator, whose property consisting almost entirely of personalty, realized in the year 1732 a sum amounting to 220,000l.2 The proceeds on the completion of the hospital were invested from time to time under the Act of Incorporation in the purchase of real estate in the counties of Essex, Hereford, and Lincoin, and it appears to have been the aim of successive trustees less to extend the area of the property, than to complete the several estates and render them more valuable and convenient for occupation by purchases, sales, and exchanges. The bequest of William Hunt, of Petersham, in 1829, amounting to 193,000l., enabled the trustees still further to improve the property, by an expenditure of upwards of 13,000l., while 24,000l. was spent in the purchase The Mortmain and Charitable Uses Act, 1891. Report of the Commissioners for Inquiring into Charities," 1837. |