peration of purchase
was still confined, almost wholly, to single bargains. But in Mr. Arthur
Balfour's Act of 1891 a new departure was authorised which, after
development in Mr. Gerald Balfour's Act of 1896, has led to important
and far-reaching consequences. The Congested Districts Board was
established to deal with scheduled areas in the West of Ireland that
comprised a large number of holdings at once too limited in area, and
too poor in soil, for any one of them to support a family by farming or
to afford security to the State, under existing facilities for purchase,
in the event of the occupier wishing to become the owner. A select
committee of the House of Commons, so long ago as in 1878 (No. 249, pp.
4 and 5), when Disraeli was Prime Minister, had recommended that a
properly constituted body should be empowered to purchase, not single
farms, but whole estates, and to re-sell them after amalgamating,
enlarging, and re-distributing what are now called "uneconomic"
holdings. Provisions to this end had been inserted in earlier Acts, but,
in the absence of administrative machinery and financial resources, they
remained abortive. It had for long been evident that the small,
impoverished holdings, which had supported a dense population before the
famine, stood in need of fundamental remodelling if they were to support
even a largely reduced population. The efforts made by wealthy Irish
landlords in this direction were arrested by the Land Law Act of 1870
and rendered impossible by the Land Law Act of 1881. With the Purchase
Acts of 1891 and 1896 a beginning was made.

Another feature must be noted. In addition to the value of any one
holding, as a security against individual failure, a further security
was provided against the risk of a combined refusal to repay. The
Exchequer was empowered to retain grants due for various purposes in
Ireland and to recoup itself in proportion to the defalcation in any
county. It should be added that individual failures have been rare to
the point of insignificance, and that no combined refusal has been
attempted, or advocated, even during periods of agricultural unrest.

Under the Acts of 1891 and 1896 in the course of just over twelve years
more than 44,000 tenants became owners by virtue of advances which
amounted to over L13,000,000. Here we must note that the success of
these Acts coincided with, and depended on, a rise in the price of
gilt-edged securities. The number of applica