markets, etc., cannot perhaps be so well estimated by the foot frontage, but we may perhaps safely assume that an average employer would willingly pay £2 in respect of each employee. It is, of course, not suggested that the rate-rent levied should be a poll-tax; it would, as has been said, be raised by competition among the tenants; but this way of estimating rate-rent to be paid will perhaps give a ready means by which manufacturers or other employers, co-operative societies, or individuals working on their own account, would be able to judge whether they would be lightly rated and rented as compared with their present position. It must be, however, distinctly borne in mind that we are dealing with averages; and if the figure should seem high to a large employer, it will seem ridiculously low to a small shopkeeper.
Now, in a town with a population of 30,000, there would be about twenty thousand persons between the ages of 16 and 65; and if it is assumed that 10,625 of these would be employed in factories, shops, warehouses, markets, etc., or in any way which involved the use of a site, other than a home-building site, to be leased from the municipality, there would be a revenue from this source of £21,250.
The gross revenue of the entire estate would therefore be:—
| Rate-rent | from agricultural estate (see p. 36), - | £9,750 |
| " | 5,500 home building lots at £6 per lot, | 33,000 |
| " | from business premises 10,625 persons employed at an average of £2 a head, |
21,250 |
| £64,000 |
Or £2 per head of population for rates and rent.
