CHAPTER II. 



INSUFFICIENCY OF THE LAND PURCHASE ACTS. 



Upon the legislation relating to the sale and 

 purchase of land, a much more favourable judg- 

 ment must be pronounced. None of the gloomy 

 prophecies about the working of a system of 

 peasant proprietorship have been fulfilled. The 

 purchasing tenants have punctually discharged 

 their yearly instalments. Nothing in the nature 

 of a strike against the payment of these instal- 

 ments has ever been heard of. In 1897 there 

 were only about 100 tenants in arrears.^ The 

 purchasers have not shown themselves to be 

 irresponsible and careless managers, they are 

 not more heavily in debt, nor are they worse 

 cultivators than the non-purchasers ; politically 

 they may probably be reckoned among the more 

 conservative elements of Irish life.^ They have 

 unquestionably shown the practicability of estab- 

 lishing a peasant proprietary in Ireland. They 

 have cut the ground not only from under the 



^ Fry Commission, App., pp. 6 and 7. 



- Report by Mr. W. F. Bailey, Legal Assistant Commissioner, 

 of an Inquiry into the present conditions of Tenant-purchasers 

 under the Land Purchase Act, 1903. 



