(2) Land and Capital Stock within the United Kingdom owned by private individuals, and

(3) Property in foreign countries and British Possessions owned by persons in the United Kingdom.

ACCUMULATED WEALTH OF THE UNITED KINGDOM: 1908
[This table should not be quoted without the context]

(1)Public Property (Imperial and Local)
(a)Imperial Property£550,000,000
(b)Local Property1,370,000,000
£1,920,000,000
Subtract (1) National Debt (£762,000,000) and (2) Local Loans (£600,000,000)1,362,000,000
£558,000,000
(2)Property in the United Kingdom owned by Private Individuals:—
(c)Agricultural Lands and the Farmhouses, Buildings, Fences, Roads, Ditches, etc., thereof. Profits under Schedule A of Income Tax (1908-9) £52,000,000 capitalized at 20 years' purchase£1,040,000,000
(d)Houses, Business Premises, etc., and their Lands. Profits under Schedule A of Income Tax (1908-9) £217,000,000 capitalized at 15 years' purchase3,255,000,000
(e)Other Profits from Land under Schedule A of Income Tax (1908-9) £1,300,000 capitalized at 25 years' purchase32,000,000
(f)Farmers' Capital. Estimated at £6 per acre for 47,000,000 acres under cultivation282,000,000
(g)The National Debt (neglecting the small amount held abroad)762,000,000
(h)Local Debts600,000,000
(i)Capital of Miscellaneous Trades:—
(1)Profits of Miscellaneous Businesses, Professions, etc., taxed under Schedule D of Income Tax in 1908-9 (allowing for profits assumed to escape taxation £60,000,000, see p. 16), and deducting for profits from abroad (£25,000,000, see p. 16), were £444,000,000. One-half of this sum (£222,000,000) assumed to be from capital and capitalized at 10 years' purchase2,220,000,000
(2)Profits of small traders who are not Income Tax payers are in part derived from capital100,000,000
(j)Railways. Profits taxed under Schedule D 1908-9 = £43,000,000 capitalized at 25 years' purchase1,075,000,000
(k)Mines and Quarries. Profits taxed under Schedule D 1908-9 = £18,000,000 capitalized at 5 years' purchase90,000,000
(l)Gasworks. Profits taxed under Schedule D 1908-9 = £7,800,000 capitalized at 20 years' purchase156,000,000
(m)Ironworks. Profits taxed under Schedule D 1908-9 = £5,100,000 capitalized at 5 years' purchase25,000,000
(n)Waterworks. Profits taxed under Schedule D 1908-9 = £6,200,000 capitalised at 20 years' purchase124,000,000
(o)Canals. Profits taxed under Schedule D 1908-9 = £4,200,000 capitalized at 20 years' purchase84,000,000
(p)Markets, Tolls, Fishings, Cemeteries, etc. Profits taxed under Schedule D 1908-9 = £1,400,000 capitalized at 20 years' purchase28,000,000
(q)Other Interests and Profits taxed under Schedule D 1908-9 = £7,700,000 capitalized at 20 years' purchase154,000,000
(r)Furniture, Works of Art, etc., in Private Houses. Assumed to be one-sixth of the value of "Houses" in Schedule A (see item d)540,000,000
£10,567,000,000
(3)Property in Places Abroad Owned by Persons in the United Kingdom
(s)Interest from Indian, Colonial and Foreign Government Securities taxed under Schedule C 1908-9 = £32,200,000 capitalized at 25 years' purchase805,000,000
(t)Interest from Indian, Colonial and Foreign Securities, including Railways, taxed under Schedule D 1908-9 = £56,600,000 capitalized at 20 years' purchase1,132,000,000
(u)Other Profits from abroad derived from property assumed to have a capital value of about700,000,000
£2,637,000,000
Summary
(1)Public Property£558,000,000
(2)Property in the United Kingdom owned by Private Individuals10,567,000,000
(3)Property in places abroad owned by persons in the United Kingdom2,637,000,000
£13,762,000,000

To the explanations given in the table itself some further notes may be added. For the greater part, the estimates are based, it will be seen, upon Income Tax statistics. The items thus arrived at are near approximations to the truth. The table also contains some necessarily rough estimates of uncertain items.

The matter of public property is an exceedingly difficult one to deal with. In item a I have estimated that our warships and stores of naval and military material, Imperial shipyards, dockyards and arsenals, public offices, galleries, museums and their contents, government factories and workshops and their plant, post office, telegraph and telephone capital, etc., are worth £550,000,000 at a conservative estimate. The capital value of all our ships, allowing for depreciation, cannot be less than £150,000,000, and naval works and material must be worth fully £80,000,000. Army material and military works are of less value, but can scarcely be estimated at less than £120,000,000. The value of the post office, telegraph and telephone businesses at only 15 years' purchase of the profits would be £60,000,000. The Suez Canal shares are worth £28,000,000. Thus £550,000,000 as an estimate of the total value of all Imperial property is not an excessive figure.[16]

The public property in the care of local authorities, as trustees for the nation, is exceedingly great. It is convenient to consider common lands in this connexion. Probably there are some 2,000,000 acres of common lands in England and Wales—all that remains unfilched of full many times that area.[17] If we value these commons at an average of £25 per acre—some of the commons, as in Surrey, are worth from £200 to £2,000 an acre, valued at present market rates—we get £50,000,000.

Roads are an important item in the national valuation—they are almost all that is left to the nation of the nation's area. There are about 22,000 miles of main roads and about 97,000 miles of minor roads. These have value as land and value as highways, but if we value land and construction together at an average of only £5,000 per mile we arrive at about £600,000,000 as a conservative estimate of the value of the roads of the United Kingdom.

There remain to consider the values of the parks and other land, buildings (including offices, houses, schools, markets, asylums and workhouses), bridges, sewers, lighting systems, gasworks, electric light and power undertakings, tramways, waterworks, reservoirs, etc.