9 S THE IRISH AGRARIAN PROBLEM. 



to form a fund for erecting labourers' cottages. 

 The landlord was henceforth to be paid not in 

 cash but in scrip, which ranked with Consols, 

 and was called 4 land stock.' 



So complicated was this Act that for many 

 causes, some of them being of a political nature, 

 it was not a success. 1 It was amended in i 

 Act of 1896. According to this the landlord, 

 before, was paid in scrip. The instalments 

 amounted to 4 per cent. ; 2f interest, and i 

 sinking fund ; the term for paying off the debt 

 being shortened to forty-two years. Every ten 

 years however there was a reduction in the in- 

 stalments, the sum already paid being withdrawn 

 from the capital and the 4 per cent, for the next 

 ten years being only payable on the reduced 

 capital. This was the so-called " decadal re- 

 duction " which it must be added had the efi 

 of prolonging the period of the repayment from 

 forty-two to seventy years. 2 



The results of all this legislation up to March 

 31, 1902, are shown in the following table : 

 Under the Ashbourne Act 



1 Fottrell, "The Irish Land Act of 1903 Explained," pp. 4-6. 



2 Fottreil, pp. 7, 8. 



* Land Commission Report, p. 116. The figures refer to 

 loans issued, that is, advances actually made. In 1903 t he- 

 number of purchasers under the Acts of 1891 and 1896 had 

 risen to 42,436, and the amount of the loans to ^12,366,000. 



