ii6 THE IRISH AGRARIAN PROBLEM. 



from arbitrary eviction and from increase of rent, 

 but has not freed him from the obHgation of 

 paying rent, and if he cannot pay it he loses all 

 his rights as a tenant. He need not be evicted, 

 for the Act of 1887 makes it possible to retain a 

 tenant who has not paid his rent as a kind of 

 manager or caretaker ; but his holding goes back 

 into full possession of the landlord, who lets it 

 to him for eleven months at most. In i88g the 

 tenants who lost their holdings in this way 

 numbered 7,238; in 1897 there were 4,019; in 

 1902 there were 2,694. Very few of them were 

 really evicted^ — but all of them lost the privileges 

 which it was the purpose of the land legislation 

 to secure to them. 



Thus the working of this legislation must be 

 pronounced to have been in many respects 

 unjust, ineffective, and incomplete. - 



^ See above, p. 67. 



^ In Ulster the landlords have in many places sought to 

 utilize the Act for the object of getting rid of the Ulster 

 Tenant Right, Russell, " Ireland and the Empire," p. 160. 



