ON AGRICULTURE TO IRELAND 



57 



placed at the disposal of the Board the Irish Eeproductive Loan 

 Fund, amountincT to £66,000, and a portion of the Sea and Coast 

 Fisheries Fund, amounting to £18,000. In addition, the Board 

 was allowed to accept gifts for the purposes of the Act. 



Thus equipped the Board began its work, roughly outlined 

 nearly half a century before by W. T. Thornton in his book, "A 

 Plea for Peasant Proprietors." The work was hindered by limita- 

 tions of the Act constituting the Board, but these limitations were 

 removed as the years passed by. The Congested Districts Board 

 Act of 1894 dispensed with the guarantee deposit demanded by 

 the Land Commission in other cases till 1896. Thus, the Board 

 when purchasing estates received the whole of the purchase money 



FRANCISCAN MISSIONARIES OF MARY AT WORK PAINTING RAILINGS 



a,t once from the Land Commission. Till 1896, if it bought estates 

 at all, it had to pay them out of its own income. The Land Act 

 of that year sanctioned advances to the Board to enable them to 

 buy estates, but section 43, sub-section 6, of the Act provided that 

 the Land Commission could not make an advance to enable the 

 tenant of a holding of a rateable value of less than £10 to purchase 

 his holding from the Board. Most of the holdings in the congested 

 districts were of a rateable value of less than £10, and the result 

 was that the Board was little able to avail itself of the provisions 

 of the 1896 Act. This difficulty was removed by the Congested 

 Districts Board Act of 1899, and the Parliamentary grant to tiie 

 Board was increased from £6500 to £25,000. The Land Act of 

 1901 gave the Board power to deal with tenants who obstructfd 

 their plans for the rearrangement of holdings, and enlarged the 



