LANDOWNERS' IMPROVEMENTS.
[To THE Minos OP vu " SPECTATOR:] Sni,—The article in the Spectator of November 13th called" An Unmarked Cause of the Depression" is fall of important truth. But I am struck by the fact that, in the writer's enumeration of the " investments " made in the country during the last ten years, no mention is made of the sums laid out by landowners in the improvement of land. This is, perhaps, an unknown quantity. But it must be enormous, and the total omission of it confirms me in the impression that the ignorance on this subject is amazing, due partly to the fact that many kinds of agricultural outlay make no impression on the eye. Every one sees mills, chimneys, rows of new streets, &c., but nobody can see drains. Nor do they notice new farm buildings, or almost any other kind of agricultural outlay.
This is the secret of a great deal of the nonsense now talked on platforms about " Landlordism," which I suspect has been the source of outlays and investments more enormous than the public has any conception of.—I am, Sir, &c.,
[We did not specially mention the land, but we fully intended to include it in the sentence about the "immense sum annually laid out in renewals and improvements."—En. Spectator.]
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