I TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR." J
SIR,—Mr. J. Ellis Barker in his doleful letter tells us that -• "the Royal Commission on Agriculture estimated in 1896 that the decay of our rural industries had caused a loss of £1,000,000,000 of agricultural capital " ; that "Mr. Palgrave estimated that loss in 1905 at £1,700,000,000, and it should now amount to an even larger sum." May I ask whether the Royal Commissioners and Mr. Palgrave said that there bad been a " loss of agricultural capital," or only that the price of agricultural land had fallen ? Apparently Mr. Barker does not know that the two things are not the same. The great fall in the price of land which has taken place in the last forty years is chiefly an indication of the enormous advantage enjoyed by the mass of the population to-day in respect of cheapness of food. If Mr. Barker and his Protectionist friends succeed in getting high duties placed on corn, all other kinds of food, wool, and all other articles which compete with the products of British soil, the price of land will soon rise very greatly; but that will not be an increase of "agricultural capital," and, while it will be a pecuniary gain to British landowners, it will be a dire misfortune for all the rest of the British people. Mr. Barker, who writes much on subjects connected with German life, must know that speculators are engaged in adding rapidly to what, I suppose, he would call German " capital" with a degree of success which is filling all patriotic Germans with dismay. Taking advantage of ill-conceived regulations respecting the width of streets and the height and methods of construction of houses which are now in force in many of the large German cities, these speculators have raised the prices of land within and round the cities by many hundreds, in some cases by several thousands, per cent. This process adds enormously to the nominal value of German land, but it greatly lessens German capital, and, by adding very much to the cost of constructing dwellings, it is forcing thousands of families to live in a single room for each family, and is in every way a great misfortune for the nation.—I am, Sir, &c., T. C. HOW:WALL. Swanscoe Park, near Macclesfield.
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