IRISH x\GRARIAN TENURE. loi 



marked, a tenant who took advantage of the 

 decadal reductions had to pay his instalments 

 for a longer term.^ 



However it must not be overlooked that land 

 purchase has certain drawbacks. The tenant 

 becomes a debtor to the Government which 

 requires under all circumstances punctual pay- 

 ment and which proceeds with uncompromis- 

 ing severity against all the little devices and 

 pretexts which were usual in dealing with the 

 landlord. It grants none of the assistance which 

 a benevolent landlord will from time to time 

 afford to his tenant, nor does it take a parti- 

 cularly bad harvest into consideration. But the 

 original rents which were capitalized by the 

 tenants who acquired their farms since 1885 

 amounted to about i -2 millions sterling; the 

 amount advanced was 21 millions ; 4 per cent, 

 on these 21 millions amounts to^84o,ooo. The 

 tenants have thus saved ^^360, 000 a year ; nor 

 must it be forgotten that more than one-third 

 of each yearly instalment is to be credited to 

 sinking fund. 



Under these circumstances the purchase policy 

 became naturally an extremel}^ popular one. 

 This popularity however does not imply that 

 the Irish tenant felt within himself the irresis- 

 tible impulse to become a proprietor — it only 

 proves that he found himself moved by a keen 

 aspiration towards paying 30 per cent, less rent 



^ House of Commons Papers, 1902, No. 186. 



