94 THE IRISH AGRARIAN PROBLEM. 



criticised the Act of 1881 in a sense hostile to 

 the Government of the day, proposed on these 

 grounds that the Government should in future 

 lend the whole of the purchase money. The 

 interest was to be 3 per cent., and thus the 

 amortization of the whole sum could be carried 

 through in sixty-six years, if the tenant paid 3^ 

 per cent, per annum, or in forty-six years if he 

 paid 4 per cent.^ When a proposal so very 

 advantageous came from the Upper House, it 

 naturally did not tend to promote the success 

 of the less advantageous proposals of the Act of 

 1881. 



The Irish Nationalist Party, speaking broadly, 

 set up a peasant proprietary as their aim. The 

 idea originally championed by Davitt of a 

 nationalization of the land found little response 

 in the party. In England on the other hand 

 opinion was very much divided as to the desira- 

 bility of setting up a peasant proprietary. 

 When the Conservative Party, whose members 

 controlled the above-named Committee of the 

 Upper House, stood forward on behalf of such a 

 policy, it was mainly with the idea of discrediting 

 the land tenure policy of the Liberal Govern- 

 ment. It did not mean that the prejudice 

 against establishing small holdings had died 

 out in England. It was feared, and not indeed 

 without reason, that the Irish peasant pro- 

 prietors whom it was proposed to create would 



^ Shaw-Lefevre, " Agrarian Tenures," pp. 127-9. 



