THE VALUE OF IRISH ESTATES.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."] IR,—Your correspondent, " An Irish Trustee," says, last week, " So far, indeed, is rent alone from being the measure of value, that the prices of freehold land sold in the Court have in ordinary times varied within such extremely wide limits as from ten years' to twenty-five years' purchase on the annual net rental." If we take " freehold " literally, there is nothing very notable in this fact, for an estate for one life is a freehold; but in order to be of the slightest value for the purpose of his argument, "An Irish Trustee" must have in view estates either held in perpetuity, or for such long terms as to be equivalent to perpetuity. I may also observe that where there is a large head-rent to pay, this is a drawback which always diminishes the value (counted in years' purchase of the net rental) con-
siderably. But if your correspondent can produce an instance where a fee-simple estate sold in the Landed Estates Court even as low as fifteen years' purchase, he will very much sur- prise any one as long intimately acquainted with the working of that Court as I am, viz., sixteen years; and I challenge him to produce one solitary instance at the lower figure, ten years'
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