82 THE IRISH AGRARIAN PROBLEM. 



The Irish landlords however mistook the 

 situation. They believed that the bad years 

 would pass away, that the fall in prices hardly 

 existed, that the whole land agitation was 

 an artificial creation. Through their influence 

 the Government proposals respecting arrears of 

 rent were rejected by the Upper House and 

 the political crisis was thereby much intensified. 

 It was not so much the ability shown by the 

 League in conducting the agitation which 

 rendered necessary the legislation of 1881, as 

 three bad harvests and the continuous fall in 

 prices in the world-market combined with the 

 lack of economic insight on the part of the 

 owners of the soil. 



The legislation which rested on the report 

 of the Bessborough Commission followed that 

 of the year 1870 in so far as it addressed itself 

 to a reform of the system of tenure, and only 

 incidentally contemplated the creation of a 

 peasant ownership. Its most important features 

 are as follows : — 



The Act empowers both landlord and yearly 

 tenant to go before a Court and to demand 

 to have a rent fixed by it. This Court may 

 either be the County Court or the newly 

 created Court of the Land Commission. It 

 fixes a ' fair rent ' which is to stand as the 

 judicial rent for fifteen years. Landlord and 

 tenant can also agree voluntarily on a fair rent 

 and submit it to the Court, by which process 

 it then becomes a judicial rent valid for fifteen 



