T1IK AGRARIAN REFORM OF 1903. 121 



prietors. Almost all the estates whose owners 

 c, under the existing conditions, inclined to 

 d by this time changed han The 



remaining landlords declined to sell, and thereby 

 condemned their tenants, who desired to buy, to 

 the payment of some 25 per cent, a year more 

 n their neighbours. 1 Those who resented this 

 e of things most bitterly were the Protestant 

 farmers of Ulster, the very men whose qualities 

 were best calculated to ensure their success as 

 peasant owners. But, because they had never 

 taken part in the agrarian agitation against their 

 landlords, and because the latter were mostly in 

 vent and easy circumstances, it was just in these 

 quarters that the outlook for further transactions 

 in land purchase seemed particularly slight. The 

 political leaders of the Ulster farmers, especially 

 I, therefore, caught up the cry for 

 compulsory expropriation with enthusiasm, a 

 procee hich powerfully influenced public 



opinion, for Ulster, Unionist in sentiment, had 

 demanded agrarian reform for its own 

 :iot with any object of stirring up the 

 < kening agitation for the national indepen- 

 dence of Ireland. 



1 (To put this quite accur. hould be said that they 



declined to sell at any prices which the existing Land Courts 

 would sanction, or which the existing purchase-system would 

 enable the tenant to pay off at any appreciable reduction on 

 his rent. The Courts demanded an extravagant margin of 

 :y for advances. Trans/,} 



