(,Ki:\T I5UITAIN AND IKKLA.ND. 



887 



-f tin-in were passed, legislating for fiir- 

 unl work-hop>, tin- public hi-allli of L..II- 

 ci i"ii.- to county councils, the gold eoin- 



:illil other matters. 



Tin- tit In- I'ill wa* MTV different from what the 

 :>lr de-in-d ; luit. since il ninili- the 



-. in-trad of tin- truant farmers, responsi- 

 ble for the rent-charge ami deprived tin- tithe 

 owner of tin 1 ivmed\ .if distraint, leaving him to 



i 1 1\- proce*- in the county court, the ab- 

 Mirdilie* of the original bill proposed lv the; 



iniient two year- lie fun- were corrected, and 

 pa ed "ii Feb. 12 by a majority of 250 

 against KM. The claim of the Welsh people to 

 on the uses ol' the til lies paid by them 

 Was not con>idered. nor was tin- proposition to 

 rommute the ta\. so as to bring it into harmony 

 with the altered conditions of agriculture. In 

 the inteiv.-t of the hind owners, who would hence- 

 forth have to pay the tithes, C. Gray, a Conserva- 

 tive county memlier, offered an amendment to 

 remit the lithe rent-charge when in excess of 

 half the annual value, instead of two thirds, as in 

 the bill: but many of the country gentlemen 

 .siiM.il by the Government, and the amendment 



jected by a majority of 54. More opposi- 

 tion was manifested in the House of Lords, but 

 the bill passed in almost the original form, and 

 received the royal assent on March 25. 



The land-purchase bill, though in point of 

 magnitude and complexity the most important 

 measure of the session, was not as long nor did 

 it pre.-ent so many points of difficulty as the 

 one presented by Mr. lialfour in 1890, which was 

 in fad divided into two bills, the section relating 

 to the Land Department being embodied in a 

 separate measure, and this was advanced to the 

 committee stage before Christmas. Afterward 

 some of the provisions were incorporated in the 

 land-purchase bill, and the rest were dropped 

 until the working of the act should show whether 

 they should be necessary. A fertile source of 

 discussion and difficulty was avoided by omit- 

 ting the proposals for new machinery of tran.-tcr 

 and adopting that which had worked, on the 

 whole, well under the Ashbourne acts. In other 

 respects the plan was substantially that of 1890. 

 It was based on voluntary agreement between the 

 selling landlord and the purchasing tenant, sub- 

 ject to the approval of the commissioners; the 

 whole sum was to be advanced, the limit of twenty 

 years' purchase being removed ; the landlord was 

 to be paid off in 2f percent, stock, charged upon 

 the holding as an annuity for forty-nine years at 4 

 per cent., and thus covering principal and interest. 

 I'he iruarantee- for repayment, besides the power 

 of selling the holding, were elaborate, including 

 primarily the exchequer contribution of 1'4().0<M) 

 a \.-ar to be capitalized as a reserve, the Irish 

 proportion of the probate duty granted when 

 th" Knglish local government scheme was adopt- 

 ed, and per 1 cent, set aside out of the purchase 

 annuities by way of insurance. In ease of tin- 

 fail u re of these guarantees, the state had for 

 further security one fifth of the landlord's pur- 

 cha-e money kept back for live years, the dilTer- 

 ence between the tenant's normal annuity and 

 that of 80 percent, of the net rental, which he 

 was to pay for a limited time. and. ultimately, 

 tin- Brants for various public purposes in Ireland 

 out of the imperial exchequer. The total ad- 

 TOL. xxxt. 22 A 



vane.--, were limited, in the Hrt instance, to t| 1( . 

 eapitali/.ed value of the guarantee-., immediate 

 and oiitingent, which may be computed at -m- 

 iMIt.lMMUMM), but tin-re wen- provision- f..i 

 vaiicing a jtortion of this, under tin- ame limita- 

 tions, in case no default was made. 'I'he portion 

 of the bill dealing with the congested di-tri. -I - 

 supplemented these guarantees in the case of 

 counties rcqnirim: special relief by an appropria- 

 tion of 1,500,! MM) charged <,n the capital of the 

 Church fund, while a board was const it uted with 

 power to buy and sell lands, to develop local in- 

 du-lrie-. io amalgamate small farms, and to as- 

 sist emigration. Mr. Morh-y's amendment pro- 

 posing to delegate the [towers under the act of 

 the county councils yet to be created was re- 

 jected by a majority of 77. Mr. Sexton's pro- 

 posal to reinstate the evicted tenant*, the means 

 being supplied from the Iri-h Church siirplu*. 

 ousting tne tenantsnow occupying evi -ted farms. 

 was supported bv the pleadings of Sir (. 

 Trevelyan and the full Gladstonian vote. The 

 Land Commission was made permanent. The 

 most important change resulting from the dis- 

 cussion was a concession made by Mr. Balfour to 

 Mr. Parnell, by which in the case of holding of 

 less than 50 annual value the Government ad- 

 vance in each county should be in proportion to 

 the number, not the valuation, of such farm-. 

 Another amendment granted a right of appeal 

 from the Purchase Commissioners. The bill wa> 

 read a third time on June 15. The Hou-e of 

 Lords added an amendment restricting the lim- 

 itation of advances in the case of the larger ten- 

 ants to the first year, assuming that the smaller 

 tenants did not take up their allotted portion ; 

 and in respect to a provision giving special priv- 

 ileges to tenants furnishing a part of the pur- 

 chase money, the rate of annuity was fixed at 3J 

 instead of 3 per cent. 



The length of the session depended on whether 

 the Government would bring in a free educa- 

 tion bill, and this they were unwilling to de- 

 clare until they wore sure of the passage of the 

 land-purchase bill, and could count on a surplus 

 sufficient to meet the extra charges on the treas- 

 ury. No outline of the proposed measure was 

 forthcoming till after the introduction of the 

 budget on April 23. The bill was explained in 

 detail by Sir William Hart Dyke. Vice- 1 'resi- 

 dent of the Council, on June 8. when he moved 

 a resolution authorizing a grant of public money 

 to elementary schools in lieu of fees paid by 

 parents. The Radicals have always coupled the 

 demand for free education with the system of 

 popular schools and secular education that pre- 

 vails in the I'nited States and in nearly all civil- 

 i/ed countries. Jf the Government proposed to 

 abolish fees in the board schools alone, that would 

 have l>cen a long stride in this direction. When 

 the same aid was to be given to the voluntary 

 school-, the advanced section of the Lilw-ral 

 party demanded that it should be made condi- 

 tional on some form of popular control over 

 those schools. The party, as a whole, was not 

 opposed to the Government scheme. In-causc all 

 religious liodies the nonconformists ami Ro- 

 man Catholics, as well as the Church of Kngland 

 people were concerned in defending the equal 

 participation in Government grants that was a 

 vital necessity for the preservation of their de- 



