n the soil so
long as the tenant pays his rent and fulfils the conditions of his
tenancy; and that of the tenant, who, subject to the payment of his rent
and performance of the fixed conditions, acts, thinks, and carries
himself as the owner of his holding. A system, then, of agrarian reform
in Ireland resolves itself into an inquiry as to the best mode of
putting an end to this dual ownership--that is to say, of making the
tenant the sole proprietor of his holding, and compensating the landlord
for his interest in the ownership. The problem is further narrowed by
the circumstance that the tenant cannot be expected to advance any
capital or pay an increased rent, so that the means of compensating the
landlord must be found out of the existing rent.

The plan adopted in Mr. Gladstone's Land Bill was to commute the
rent-charges, offering the landlord, as a general rule, twenty years'
purchase on the net rental of the estate (that is to say, the rent
received by him after deducting all outgoings), and paying him the
purchase-money in L3 per cent. stock taken at par. The stock was to be
advanced by the English Government to an Irish State department at 3-1/8
per cent. interest, and the Bill provided that the tenant, instead of
rent, was to pay an annuity of L4 per cent. on a capital sum equal in
amount to twenty times the gross rental.

The notable feature which distinguished this plan from all other schemes
was the security given for the repayment of the purchase-money: hitherto
the English Government has lent the money directly to the landlord or
tenant, and has become the mortgagee of the land--in other words, has
become in effect the landlord of the land sold to the tenant until the
repayment of the loan has been completed. To carry into effect under
such a system any extensive scheme of agrarian reform (and if not
extensive such a reform would be of no value in pacifying Ireland)
presupposes a readiness on the part of the English Government to become
virtually the landlord of a large portion of Ireland, with the attendant
odium of absenteeism and alien domination. Under a land scheme such as
that of 1886, all these difficulties would be overcome. The Irish, not
the English, Government would be the virtual landlord. It would be the
interest of Ireland that the annuities due from the tenants should be
regularly paid, as, subject to the prior charge of the English
Exchequer, they would form part of the Irish revenues. Th