currency early in 1880, that the Bessborough Commission would report in
their favour, was stigmatised by Mr. Gladstone as incredible, and the
adoption of the principle enunciated by the Commissioners resulted in
the resignation from the Cabinet of the Duke of Argyll. The demands
which had been made in 1850 by the Tenant League, the first concerted
action of North and South since the Union, were repeated. They included
a fair valuation of rent, the right of a tenant to sell his interest at
the highest market value, and security from eviction so long as he paid
his rent. Their claims were scouted in 1870, and it was not till eleven
years had passed that in 1881 these "three F.s"--fair rent, free sale,
and fixity of tenure, the notion of which had so recently been
repudiated by Mr. Gladstone--were secured by the Land Act of that year,
which recognised to the full the dual ownership of Irish land by
occupier and landlord. Under this Act also was created a Court to fix
fair rents for judicial periods of fifteen years.

Mr. Gladstone himself had admitted that the Land Act of 1870, which a
Conservative member, destined to be a future Chief Secretary--Mr. James
Lowther--described as "pure Communism," together with the Church Act of
1869, was the outcome of the Fenian agitation of the sixties, which drew
the attention of English statesmen to the Irish question. In the same
way the passing of the Act of 1881, which made a far more active assault
upon their prerogatives, secured from a house of landlords through fear
that which they denied on grounds of equity. "In view of the prevailing
agitation in Ireland," said Lord Salisbury of this measure which
assailed every Tory principle as to the sacredness of property, "I
cannot recommend my followers to vote against the second reading of the
Bill." What Fenianism had effected in 1870 the Land League secured in
1881. "I must record my firm opinion," said Mr. Gladstone ten years
later, "that the Land Act of 1881 would not have become the law of the
land if it had not been for the agitation with which Irish society was
convulsed."

The Bill was denounced by the Tories as one of the most unquestionable
and, indeed, extreme violations of the rights of property in the whole
history of English legislation.[4] Lord Salisbury declared that it would
not bring peace, and that henceforth the Irish landowner would look upon
Parliament and the Imperial Government as their worst enemies. The Earl