Page:History of the Anti corn law league.pdf/281

Rh cent, in less than fifty years, the total rental of those parishes in the period 1791-1796, being £287,139, and in the latter period, 1832-1840, £744,273. It had been estimated by Sir John, and his estimate was confirmed by many of the parochial clergy, that the rental of estates increased at least from two to three fold from 1660 to 1750. This was doubled previous to 1770, and was again doubled in the next twenty years. Thus the land rental had increased from the period of the Restoration, in 1660, some twenty or thirty fold, or more than two thousand per cent.!

Mr. Scott gave the following instance of the increase of value in particular estates:—"In 1615, an estate in the parish of Langforgan, Perthshire, was purchased by Lord Strathmore for £2,222 in 1777 it was re-sold at £44,000; and now the annual rental is more than the purchase money in 1615. Nearly the whole parish of Craig, Forfarshire, was purchased about 1690 for £10,000, and resold about 1782 for £64,000 and the present rental is £9,500, which, at twenty-five years' purchase, would give the value at £237,000.

How differently has the much abused fund-holder been placed! Had the 10,000 been invested in the funds, his descendants would, perhaps, have received six per cent, until the five per cents, were reduced, and then, if it had been re-invested, less than four per cent, would have been the interest returned,—but the descendants of the purchaser of the parish of Craig are now enjoying ninety-five per cent., and yet protection to land is demanded." In a subsequent edition of his useful pamphlet, Mr. Scott exposed the disproportion of the land tax to what it was when originally imposed. In Scotland, that "exclusive burthen" is charged upon an official valuation of 1650, and although rents in general had advanced at least twenty fold, the exclusive burthen remained the same.

By the return to the "Statistical Account," for the parish of Fordun, Kincardineshire, by Dr. Leslie, corrected to 1837, it was shown that while the real rental was