912 READINGS IN RURAL ECONOMICS 



be higher, unless there is some serious depression in agriculture. 

 Should stock-exchange securities not recover from their present 

 relatively low price, the advantage of sale to the landlords, owing 

 to the favorable opportunity for investment, will bring more sell- 

 ers forward. But the main influences will be rather the general 

 political condition and the desire to carry out the transformation 

 in property. 



That there is a general disposition on the part of landlords to 

 sell and of tenants to buy is beyond dispute, and each completed 

 transaction will lead to others. The advantages to the occupier 

 of a reduction in his yearly payments with the security that his 

 new position gives will tell powerfully in favor of purchase. To 

 the resident landlord the prospect of getting what is substantially 

 a loan on easy terms, and receiving a reasonable price for his 

 rights over the land held by tenants, is not unsatisfactory. The 

 encumbered landlord, who gets the power of clearing off mort- 

 gages and other charges, bearing a comparatively high rate of 

 interest and thereby relieving himself of a heavy drain, will cer- 

 tainly try to come to terms. On these grounds there is reason 

 to believe that the act will have a large measure of success, 

 though at times there may be some slowing down in its operations. 



It is, however, when a great number of estates have been sold 

 and when, as is possible, the remaining landlords decline to sell, 

 that the old troubles may reappear. Under such conditions the 

 cry for compulsory sale will, it is said, be revived, and Parliament 

 will not hesitate to expropriate a small minority that obstructs the 

 settled policy of the country. On the other hand, it must be 

 borne in mind that the very system of land purchase creates an 

 ever-increasing body of proprietors (for the tenant purchasers are 

 virtually such), deeply interested in the maintenance of social 

 order. How far this moderating influence will be effective remains 

 to be seen. It ought to prove a powerful restraint on any extreme 

 movement. 



Quite distinct from the question of transfer of land ownership 

 from one class to another is that of the possible changes that 

 the act will bring about in Irish agriculture. One undoubted 

 result of the act of 1881 was the discouragement to investment of 



