CHAPTER II 



INSUFFICIENCY IE LAND PURCHASE ACTS. 



UPON the legislation relating to the sale and 

 purchase of land, a much more favourable judg- 

 ment must be pronounced. None of the gloomy 

 prophecies about the working of a system of 

 peasant proprietorship have been fulfilled. The 

 pur ts have punctually discharged 



r yrariy instalments. Nothing in the nature 

 of a strike against the payment of these instal- 

 ments has ever been heard of. In 1897 there 

 were only about 100 tenants in arrears. 1 The 

 purchasers have not shown themselves to be 



sponsible and careless managers, they are 

 not more heavily in debt, nor are they worse 

 cultivators than the non-purchasers; politically 

 they may probably be reckoned among the more 

 conservative elements of Irish life. 1 They have 

 unquestionably shown the practicability of estab- 

 lishing a peasant proprietary in Ireland. They 

 have cut the ground not only from under the 



ry Commission, App., pp. 6 and 7. 



' Report by M liailcy, Legal Assistant Commissioner, 



of an Inquiry into the present conditions of Tenant-purchasers 

 under the Land Purchase Act, 1903. 



