rest. This
large sinking fund, L1 5_s._ instead of 17_s._ 6_d._, was retained after
interest had been reduced to the rate on Consols, 2-3/4 per cent.,
chiefly to avoid a discrepancy in the total of annual instalments as
between purchasers under the Act of 1891 and purchasers under the
Ashbourne Acts. Difficulties were feared if the earlier purchasers were
to pay L4 and the later purchasers only L3 15_s._ for each L100
advanced, so the spare five shillings was put in the sinking fund. This
speculative difficulty was afterwards discounted in order to deal with
one of a more practical character. Under Mr. Gladstone's Land Law Act of
1881, which dealt with rent-fixing, statutory rents were revised every
fifteen years, and the second term rents, beginning in 1896, seemed
certain to reveal considerable reductions on the rents payable during
the first period. It was felt that the security for the earlier advances
would be endangered if rents throughout Ireland fell below the level of
the purchase-instalments, and that purchase would be retarded if the
purchaser did not obtain immediate relief by agreeing to buy. To meet
this practical difficulty Mr. Gerald Balfour, in 1896, permitted the
purchaser to write off the amount repaid by sinking fund during the
first and two successive periods of ten years. These "decadal
reductions" were optional. If the purchaser forewent them he paid L4 per
L100, and extinguished his debt in 42-1/2 years. If he availed himself
of them he paid L3 8_s. 7d._ per L100 after the first ten years, and
continued to pay, with two further reductions in prospect, till the debt
was extinguished in a period undefined, but estimated at about 72-1/2
years. But this privilege was made retrospective, so that purchasers
under the Ashbourne Acts could also reduce their instalments of L4 to L3
11_s. 10d._

The salient features in the procedure of the Acts of 1891 and 1896 were
that, (1) the landlord was paid in stock instead of cash. But owing to
the rise in the value of gilt-edged securities, Irish Land Stock, with a
face value of L100, became at one moment worth as much as L114; (2) the
purchaser's interest was at 2-3/4 per cent. _i.e._ the existing rate on
Consols; but (3) his instalment, prospectively fined down by decadal
reductions, enabled him to offer an acceptable price and yet pay far
less to the State, by way of instalment, after purchase than was due to
his landlord, by way of rent, before purchase. The o