charges are valued by agreement, or in
case of disagreement, by the Land Commission; a certain minimum number
of years' purchase being assigned by the Bill to any permanent
rent-charge which amounts only to one-fifth part of the rental of the
estate on which it is charged, this provision being made to prevent
injustice being done to the holders of rent-charges which are amply
secured.

It remains to notice certain other points of some importance. The
landlord entitled to require the State to purchase his property is the
immediate landlord, that is to say, the person entitled to the receipt
of the rent of the estate; no encumbrancer can avail himself of the
privilege, the reason being that the Bill is intended to assist solvent
landlords, and not to create a new Encumbered Estates Court. The
landlord may sell this privilege, and possibly by means of this power of
sale may be able to put pressure on his encumbrancers to reduce their
claims in order to obtain immediate payment. The Land Commission, in
their character of quasi-arbitrators between the landlord and the Irish
State Authority, have ample powers given to enable them to do justice.
If the statutory price, as settled according to the Act, is too low,
they may raise it to twenty-two years' purchase instead of twenty years'
purchase. If it is too high, they may refuse to buy unless the landlord
will reduce it to a proper price. In the congested districts scheduled
in the Bill the land, on a sale, passes to the Irish State Authority, as
landlords, and not to the tenants; the reason being that it is
considered that the tenants would be worsened, rather than bettered, by
having their small plots vested in them in fee simple. For the same
cause it is provided that in any part of Ireland tenants of holdings
under L4 a year may object to become the owners of their holdings, which
will thereupon vest, on a sale, in the Irish State Authority. Lastly,
the opportunity is taken of establishing a registry of title in respect
of all property dealt with under the Bill. The result of such a registry
would be that any property entered therein would ever thereafter be
capable of being transferred with the same facility, and at as little
expense, as stock in the public funds.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 14: Any charge in excess of one million was to be borne by
Imperial Exchequer.]

THE "UNIONIST" POSITION.

BY CANON MACCOLL

Is it not time that the opponents of Home Rule