100 THE IRISH AGRARIAN PROBLEM. 



considerable one for the non-purchasing tenant 

 to come best out of the transaction. 



Let us assume that of two tenants whose 

 judicial rent has still ten years to run, one pur- 

 chases his holding. He gets thereupon a reduc- 

 tion of 28 per cent. If his rent was ^100 he will 

 have saved in ten years (not reckoning compound 

 interest) a sum of £2'^o. If after this term a 

 period of fifteen bad years should succeed, then 

 the tenant who did not buy would have to get a 

 reduction not only of 28 per cent, but another of 

 18 per cent, in order to be on even terms with 

 the other. The purchaser will have paid 

 £j2 a year for twenty-five years, or ;^i8oo alto- 

 gether, a good quarter of which belongs to sink- 

 ing fund. The non-purchaser has paid ;;/^ioo 

 a year for ten years, or ^1000 in all. If for the 

 next fifteen years he is to pay no more than a 

 total sum of ;^8oo, then his rent must be reduced 

 to ^"52 a year. 



Moreover under the system of decadal reduc- 

 tions there was the option of altering the instal- 

 ments every ten years so as to correspond with 

 possibly falling prices. When the purchaser 

 paid 2|per cent, interest and 1^ per cent, to the 

 sinking fund he would have paid off his debt in 

 42g- years. If he paid £j2 in the first year he 

 would in the case of the decadal reductions be 

 paying at the end of 2oyearsa sum of ^^52 17s. 6^. 

 a year, so that he would then be as well off as 

 the tenant under rent if the latter got a reduc- 

 tion of 47 per cent. Of course, as already re- 



