r bill of this country has ever encountered, difficulties
of politics and difficulties of law, difficulties of principle and
difficulties of detail, difficulties of party and difficulties of
personnel, difficulties of race and difficulties of class, and he has
never once failed, or even seemed to fail, in his clear command of the
question, in his dignity and authority of demeanour, in his impartiality
in accepting amending suggestions, in his firmness in resisting
destructive suggestions, in his clear perception of his aim, and his
strong grasp of the fitting means. And yet it is hardly possible to
appreciate adequately the embarrassments of the situation."

Enough has already been said of the legislation of 1870, and its
establishment of the principle that Irish land is not the subject of an
undivided ownership, but a partnership.(39) The act of 1870 failed because
it had too many exceptions and limitations; because in administration the
compensation to the tenant for disturbance was inadequate; and because it
did not fix the cultivator in his holding. Things had now ripened. The
Richmond Commission shortly before had pointed to a court for fixing
rents; that is, for settling the terms of the partnership. A commission
nominated by Mr. Gladstone and presided over by Lord Bessborough had
reported early in 1881 in favour not only of fair rents to be settled by a
tribunal, but of fixity of tenure or the right of (M23) the tenant to
remain in his holding if he paid his rent, and of free sale; that is, his
right to part with his interest. These "three F's" were the substance of
the legislation of 1881.

Rents could not be paid, and landlords either would not or could not
reduce them. In the deepest interests of social order, and in confirmation
of the tenant's equitable and customary ownership, the only course open to
the imperial legislature was to erect machinery for fixing fair rents. The
alternative to what became matter of much objurgation as dual ownership,
was a single ownership that was only a short name for allowing the
landlord to deal as he liked with the equitable interest of the tenant.
Without the machinery set up by Mr. Gladstone, there could be no security
for the protection of the cultivator's interest. What is more, even in
view of a wide and general extension of the policy of buying out the
landlord and turning the tenant into single owner, still a process of
valuation for purposes of fair price would have