79

CHAPTER VI.

RENTS, PROFITS, AND WAGES.

To give the finishing touch to this picture, we have now to inquire how the gross production, previously to 1848, was distributed; that is to say, after deducting taxes and accessory expenses, what portion of this five milliards (£200,000,000) of nominal value came to the proprietors of the land, constituting the rent; what remuneration the farmer got for his trouble and use of capital, or, in other words, the profit; and how much of it was paid for manual labour, properly so called, or wages. When we have completed a similar inquiry for France, our comparison between the two agricultures will be complete.

First of all, the portion contributed to the general expenses of the country, or taxes.

Many errors have been diffused, and are still credited in France, respecting the system of taxation which exists in England. It is commonly believed that land in England is almost free of imposts, and that the whole public revenue is composed of indirect taxes. This is a great mistake, for nowhere does land bear such heavy burdens as in England. Only it is not the State which collects what the land pays directly; at least land contributed hardly anything to the public treasury before the imposition of the income-tax. The only impost paid directly to the State was a trifling tax, which proprietors

for the most part have redeemed—the land-tax; but if indirect taxes constitute nearly the whole revenue of the State, there are direct imposts which no less exist under the form of local taxes.

These burdens are three in number: the poor's rates, the parish and county rates-equivalent to our communal and departmental revenues-and Church tithes. Taxation for the poor, in spite of all endeavours to reduce it, amounted previously to 1848 to six millions sterling for England alone. Parish and county rates, for roads, bridges, police, prisons, &c., exceed, still for England alone, four millions sterling-together ten millions, of which more than two-thirds is paid by rural property. Add to this the unredeemed portion of the land-tax, amounting to one million sterling for England; and, finally, the third charge-namely, tithes at one time variable and arbitrary in their rating, but now commuted to almost a fixed charge, amounting to at least seven millions sterling; and we have altogether a sum of fifteen millions, which, for England and Wales, containing fifteen millions of hectares, makes an average of 25 francs per hectare, or 8s. per acre.

This average gives but an imperfect idea of the burdens upon certain parts of the soil in England, for a portion of the tithes having been redeemed, as well as a portion of the land-tax, and the poor's rate being very unequally distributed-since, not being centralised, it varies with the fluctuations of pauperism in different localities-the consequence is, that certain districts are much below, and others much above the average. It is no uncommon thing to find lands in England paying as much as 50 francs per hectare (16s. per acre) for all kinds of taxes.

Ireland and Scotland are less burdened, particularly

Scotland; most of the English taxes are unknown there. Scotland pays about £500,000, and Ireland £1,500,000 of direct taxes.*

In France the assessment on land, exclusive of house property, amounts in principal and additional per-centages, and including payments in kind for roads, to a total of two hundred and fifty millions, or 5 francs per hectare; this impost, therefore, is one-fifth in nominal value, and in reduced value one-fourth, of what it is in England.

To these figures must be added the income-tax, which resembles our personal and movable property contribution, and absorbs about three per cent more out of the net income of the proprietors, and one and a half per cent of that of the farmers. The tax upon house property, of which the landed proprietors bear their share, is proportionate to that chargeable upon the land properly so called. Lastly, the indirect taxes: these, besides that they materially reduce the proprietors' revenue by increasing the price of all commodities, bear heavily upon certain agricultural products, especially barley, used in the manufacture of beer, which pays an excise of no less than five millions sterling: the question of reducing this (the malt) tax has been recently agitated, but nothing is yet decided. Our impost upon beverages produces, as is well known, four millions sterling.

Landed property in England, to be sure, is partly free from a charge which greatly affects the land in France; this is the tax upon successions, transferences, and mortgages. But this exemption, which applies only to land that is freehold, and lands subject to manorial rights, or

*This, however, seems exclusive of tithes or taxes for the support of the Church in both countries. We are not aware that there are very many local taxes exigible in England which are not well known in Scotland, though the rate may not be so high.-T.

F

copyholds, has just been considerably reduced by recent legislation it loses, besides, much of its importance when we consider the expenses of all kinds to which English property is exposed owing to the want of a good system of registration.

Here, then, is a first result of the great amount of produce obtained from the land in England-the possibility of increasing taxation. I shall not stop to point out the great benefit resulting from it to the country in general, and to agriculture itself, which is the first to reap advantage from the outlay of its own money. It is evident that, if French landed property could pay much more in taxes, the aspect of our fields would soon change; they would be covered with roads, bridges, aqueducts, and works of enterprise and skill, which as yet they are without, for lack of those funds which are abundant with our neighbours.

After taxes come the expenses accessory to cultivation; such as the cost of artificial manures, the keeping up of implements of husbandry, renewals of seed, breedingstock, &c. it is as much as a French farmer can do to devote to these remunerating expenditures 4 or 5 francs per hectare, whereas in the United Kingdom they cannot, even previous to 1848, be estimated at less on an average than 25 francs per hectare, and for England proper 50 francs at least. This, we may remark, is eight or ten times more than in France, even making the reduction of twenty per cent. Such is the second effect of this superior production-the more that is produced, the greater the resources available for increasing the production; and wealth multiplies of its own accord.

Notwithstanding this portion set apart for taxes and accessory expenses, the remainder of the gross proceeds, when divided among those who, by their capital, intelli

gence, and labour, have co-operated to realise it, is found to be greater for each in England than it is in France.

In the first place, we take the rent paid to the proprietor of the land, or the return upon capital invested. The notion of rent is not so clearly defined in France as it is in England; it is confounded with the farmer's profit and return for working capital when the proprietor directs the cultivation himself, and even with wages properly so called, when he cultivates his property with his own hands. The average rent of land in France may, however, be reckoned at 30 francs per hectare-that is to say, the net return on capital sunk, after deducting all return for working capital, wages, and profit; say a total of fifteen hundred millions on our fifty millions of hectares, cultivated and uncultivated together.

Owing to the system of cultivation carried on in England, which almost always discriminates between proprietorship and tenancy, it is more correctly known what, previously to 1848, was the rent from landed property in the different parts of the United Kingdom.

We find the minimum rent in the extreme north of Scotland-Sutherlandshire and the adjacent islands— where it is as low as 1.25 francs per hectare of nominal, or 1 franc of comparative value (4d. per acre). The whole of the Highlands, containing, as we have seen, nearly four millions of hectares, do not yield on an average more than 3 francs per hectare to the proprietors (1s. per acre). The maximum is obtained from meadow-lands in the environs of London and Edinburgh, which let as high as £30 per acre; rents of £8, £5, and £3 per acre are not uncommon in the Lothians, and in the neighbourhood of large towns in England. All the centre of the island, including Leicestershire and the counties surrounding it, gives an average of 30s. per acre (100 francs