104 THE IRISH AGRARIAN PROBLEM. 



land purchase legislation was for a while some- 

 what neutralized by the fact that since 1891 the 

 landlord was paid off in Land Stock. This 

 payment in State bonds implied a bonus not 

 visible on the surface of the arrangement. The 

 vendor received nominally ;^ioo, while the prices 

 on Exchange gave him ;^i07, ;^io8, or even ^i 14. 

 In days when stock was at 114 the vendor 

 obtained in this way a bonus of 14 per cent. 

 The fall of Consols (to 85) of course transformed 

 this premium into a loss and was one of the 

 main reasons why land purchase came to a stand- 

 still in recent years. To this must however be 

 added a multitude of bureaucratic obstacles 

 originating with the Land Commission. 



Thus Ireland, taken broadly, exhibits to-day 

 two main types of tillers of the soil — those who 

 pay a judicial fair rent for fifteen year terms 

 and those who through the operation of the 

 Purchase Acts are on the way to become owners 

 of their farms. As the first Ashbourne Act 

 became law in 1885, it follows that the first pro- 

 prietors will have paid off all their instalments 

 in from twenty to thirty years. These prospec- 

 tive owners are paying, according to the varying 

 terms of their purchase, instalments of interest 

 and sinking fund less by 20 per cent, and over 

 than the rents of their less favoured fellows, who 

 console themselves with the silent hope that the 

 time will some day come when the Irish tenant 

 will have his land for nothing. 



