88 THE IRISH AGRARIAN PROBLKM. 



reduced to 75,440,000, or by 20*8 per cent. 

 Thus more than half the surface of Ireland 1 

 been subjected to a first term judicial rei 

 Moreover, many tenants who never went bef< 

 the courts have felt the benefit of their decisions ; 

 the possibility of applying for a reduction has 

 brought down the rents in corresponding pro- 

 portior 



In 1896, after expiry of the first fifteen years 

 term, the revision of the judicial rents began. 

 The result was that by March 3ist, 1903, seco 

 term judicial rents were fixed for 90,839 tenants. 

 The original rents, which had been reduced by 

 the first decisions from 1,859,000 to 1,512,000, 

 were now brought down to 1,192,000. The 

 majority of the Irish tenants enjoy to-day, 

 directly or indirectly, fair rents for fifteen year 

 terms with the right of free sale of their interest. 



Even to-day however the following classes 

 are shut out from the benefits of this legis- 

 lation : 



i. Tenants living on demesne lands, 

 occupiers of grazing farms of over 100 

 rental and those of non-agricultural or 

 wholly urban districts. 



1 [It must be remembered that of the 20 million acres in 

 Ireland, 5 millions are reckoned as water, waste land, bog, etc. 

 There are only about 1 5 millions of productive land. Trans/.] 



2 By March 3151, 1903, the number of tenants whose rents 

 had been fixed for a first term had risen to 343,370. (Land 

 Commission Report, 1903.) 



* Act of 1896, sections 5 and 6. 



