| Expenditure. | £ |
| Salaries and allowances, permanent staff, etc. | 9,329 |
| Office, library, and school | 220 |
| Buildings and furniture | 2,400 |
| Maintenance and clothing | 23,254 |
| Colonists' earnings | 11,720 |
| Canteen (goods purchased) | 1,960 |
| Workshops (tools, raw materials, etc.) | 14,181 |
| Farm and estate (plants, seeds, manures, live stock, straw and fodder, etc.) | 2,047 |
| Miscellaneous | 1,020 |
| Total | £66,131 |
It will be seen that a credit balance of £9,494 is shown, but this is obviously a paper balance, inasmuch as no allowance is made for rent, interest on capital, or depreciation. On the other hand, in any full balance sheet a large accretion of capital value through improvements would be shown.
On this subject Monsieur Stroobant writes to me:—
"The property of Merxplas belongs to the State, and its value increases every year because of the new buildings erected, the plantations, and the improvements made to the land. In 1870, there were only several small farms, heath and fir woods. The land had an area of about 650 hectares, and as the land was poor, its value was probably £12 per hectare."[56] The present value has never been accurately appraised, but I place it at £200,000. The increased value of the estate has been produced entirely by the labour of the detainees, Parliament having made no further grant for new buildings. The whole of the buildings were progressively erected between 1870 and 1895, according to the resources at disposal, but after a fixed plan conceived in a large spirit by the architect, Monsieur Besme."
Taking the accounts as published, the cost of the inmates during the years 1901 to 1906 was as follows:—
| 1901. | 1902. | 1903. | 1904. | 1905. | 1906. | |||||||
| Number of able-bodied detainees | 3,702 | 3,799 | 3,842 | 3,716 | 3,645 | 3,440 | ||||||
| Number of infirm detainees | 987 | 1,052 | 1,172 | 1,394 | 1,647 | 1,672 | ||||||
| Number of days' maintenance | 1,505,393 | 1,619,176 | 1,685,076 | 1,714,064 | 1,825,798 | 1,801,170 | ||||||
| Cost of maintenance | 1,253,029 fr. | 1,367,005 fr. | 1,427,771 fr. | 1,508,178 fr. | 1,669,169 fr. | 1,689,778 fr. | ||||||
| Average per head per day | 83 c. | 84 c. | 85 c. | 88 c. | 91 c. | 94 c. | ||||||
Grouping the infirm with the able-bodied, therefore, the cost ranged from 8d. to 9d. per day during these years.
The cost of all inmates together, in 1905, worked out to £14 13s. 11d. per head, but the value of work done was equal to £5 7s. 5d., reducing the cost of the 3,500 able-bodied to £9 6s. 6d., or about 6d. per day. Of this, £3 7s. or 2½d. per day was paid in wages. By way of comparison it may be stated that, according to the Prison Commissioners, the cost of maintenance in English local prisons, after deducting the value of work done, is £22 11s., and that in convict prisons £28, but in these amounts no charge for buildings is included.
Perhaps the most remarkable feature of Merxplas is the facility of escape offered to the inmates and the frequency with which this facility is used. The escapes during the ten years 1898 to 1907 were as follows:—