THE AGRARIAN REFORM OF 1903. 149 



Nationalists have warned the tenants against 

 haste, in the first instance in order to get lower 

 terms for them, but also from the old tactical 

 ground, to hinder the solution of the land 

 question.^ 



These difliculties are not insuperable. There 

 will, however, always be a number of properties 

 whose owners will decline to sell. These will be 

 precisely those estates whose tenants pay their 

 rents regularly and are not to be led into acts of 

 disorder — that is to say, practically the Ulster 

 tenantry. It may also be said that wherever 

 there is an expectation of the rise of price in 

 agricultural products, and where, therefore, the 

 fear of further rent-reductions has disappeared, 

 there the owner will have no monetary induce- 

 ment to sell. All owners who are followers of 

 the Chamberlain policy and who expect a golden 

 age to dawn as a consequence of its success, 

 would be fools to sell on a basis of reduced 

 rents on the very eve of better times. 



There are also many owners who are by no 

 means inclined to sell their grazing pastures, 

 which bring very high rents, at a price so low as to 

 make it possible under reasonable conditions to 



They even compelled William O'Brien to resign his seat ; 

 he was, however, re-elected. The policy of this Radical section 

 amounts to this, that the price which the tenant is to pay is to 

 be reduced by the amount of the bonus, which would thus be 

 paid, not to the landlord but to the tenant. A very pretty 

 arrangement — but it will not hasten the progress of land 

 purchase. 



