Note 196-5 — Chapter V

According to Sinclair, Grundgesetze des Ackerbaues, 1821, the profit on capital of English farmers was wont to be from 10 to 18 per cent. Only in very remarkable cases, by persons in very favorable circumstances, was from 15 to 20 per cent. earned; that is, on the whole, less than in commerce and industry. In the case of farmers of meadow land, 15 per cent. and even more was not unusual; because there is a need of less outlay here, but more mercantile speculation, especially in the fattening of live stock.

At the end of the last century English farmers expected 10 per cent. profit on their capital. (A. Young, View of the Agriculture of Suffolk, 1797, 25.) And so Senior is of opinion that, in the England of to-day, industrial enterprises of £100,000 yield a profit of less than 10 per cent. a year; those of £40,000, at least 12½ per cent.; those of from £10,000 to £20,000, 15 per cent.; smaller ones 20 per cent. and even more. He makes mention of fruit hucksters who earned over 20 per cent. a day; that is, over 7,000 per cent. a year! (Outlines, 203 seq.) In Manchester, manufacturers, according to the same authority, turned over their capital twice a year at 5 per cent.; retail dealers, three times a year at 3½ per cent. (Ibid, 143.) Torrens, The Budget (1844), 108, designates 7 per cent. as the minimum profit which would induce an English capitalist to engage in an enterprise of his own. According to v. Viebahn, Statistik des Regierungsbezirks Düsseldorf, 836, I, 180, the undertaker's profit, i. e., the surplus money of the value of the manufactured articles, after deduction made of the raw material and wages, in the Berg country, amounted to, in 81 iron factories, 146,400 thalers; in 6 cotton factories, to 21,200 thalers; in 15 cloth factories, to 14,725 thalers; in 4 worsted factories, to 1,700 thalers; in 4 brush factories, to 800 thalers; in 2 tobacco factories to 10,220 thalers; in 2 paper factories, to 7,400 thalers; on an average, 1,924 thalers; although many undertakers earned only from 200 to 400 thalers, and some few from 5,000 to 10,000 thalers.