ding the
transfer of the land to the new proprietors. Having thus stated the two
principal difficulties attending the Land question in Ireland, it may be
well before entering on the details of the Sale and Purchase of Land
(Ireland) Bill, to mention the efforts which have been made during the
last fifteen years to surmount those difficulties. The Acts having this
object in view are the Land Acts of 1870, 1872, and 1881, brought in by
Mr. Gladstone, and the Land Purchase Act of 1885, brought in by the
Conservative Lord Chancellor of Ireland (Lord Ashbourne). The Act of
1870, as amended by the Act of 1872, provided that the State authority
might advance two-thirds of the purchase-money. An attempt was made to
get over the difficulties of title by providing that the Landed Estates
Court or Board of Works shall undertake the investigation of the title
and the transfer and distribution of the purchase-money at a fixed
price. The Act of 1881 increased the advance to three-quarters, leaving
the same machinery to deal with the title. Both under the Acts of 1870
and 1881 the advance was secured by an annuity of 5 per cent., payable
for the period of thirty-five years, and based on the loan of the money
by the English Exchequer at 3-1/2 per cent. interest. These Acts
produced very little effect. The expense of dealing with the titles in
the Landed Estates Court proved overwhelming, and neither the Board of
Works, under the Act of 1872, nor the Land Commission, under the Act of
1881, found themselves equal to the task of completing inexpensively the
transfer of the land; further, the tenants had no means of providing
even the quarter of the purchase-money required by the Act of 1881. In
1885 Lord Ashbourne determined to remove all obstacles at the expense of
the English Exchequer. By the Land Act of that year he authorized the
whole of the purchase-money to be advanced by the State, with a
guarantee by the landlord, to be carried into effect by his allowing
one-fifth of the purchase-money to remain in the hands of the agents of
the State Authority until one-fifth of the purchase-money had been
repaid by the annual payments of the tenants. The principal was to be
recouped by an annuity of 4 per cent., extending over a period of
forty-nine years, instead of an annuity of 5 per cent. extending over a
period of thirty-five years. The English Exchequer was to advance the
money on the basis of interest at 3-1/8 per cent., instead of at 3-