nly to separate holdings and not to estates as a whole; but their
success can be estimated by the fact that under them twenty-seven
thousand tenants became owners by virtue of advances which amounted to
over ten million pounds. Under Mr. Balfour's Acts of 1891 and 1896, the
landlord was paid in stock instead of cash, and the tenants still paid 4
per cent., the interest being reduced to the then rate on Consols--2-3/4
per cent.--and the Sinking Fund being proportionately increased. It will
be noticed that these Acts began the practise of paying the landlord in
stock, though at that time Irish Land Stock with a face value of L100
became worth as much as L114. The exchequer was, moreover, permitted to
retain grants due for various purposes in Ireland and to recoup itself
out of them in case of any combined refusal to repay on the part of
tenants.

The Irish Land Act of 1903 was the product of the experience gained
during eighteen years of the operation of the preceding Purchase Acts.
It was founded upon an agreement made in 1902 between representatives of
Irish landlords and tenants. Cash payments were resumed to the
landlords, the tenants' instalments were reduced to 3-1/4 per cent., and
a bonus, as it was called, of twelve millions of money was made
available to bridge the gap between the landlords and the tenants at the
rate of 12 per cent, on the amount advanced. That Act possessed the
additional advantage of dealing with the estates as a whole instead of
with individual holdings, and it substituted the principle of speedy
purchase for that of dilatory litigation. This remarkable and generous
measure initiated a great and beneficent revolution, but every popular
and useful feature of the Act of 1903 was distorted or destroyed in the
Land Act which the present Government passed at the instigation of the
Irish Nationalist Party in 1909. In Mr. Wyndham's words "a solemn treaty
framed in the interest of Ireland was torn up to deck with its tatters
the triumph of Mr. Dillon's unholy alliance with the British Treasury."
Under the Act of 1909, landlords, instead of cash payments, are to
receive stock at 3 per cent. issued on a falling market. This stock
cannot possibly appreciate because owing to the embarrassment of Irish
estates a large proportion of each issue is thrown back upon the market
at the redemption of mortgages. The tenant's annuity is raised from
3-1/4 per cent, to 3-1/2 per cent., a precedent not to be found in