e clause respecting compulsory sale of the estates
mentioned was passed, occupying tenants having in those cases the right
of pre-emption. Under its provisions the period for the repayment of the
money advanced was extended to sixty-eight years. The annuity payable by
the tenant during the first decade was to be calculated and made payable
upon the total purchase-money advanced, but at the end of each of the
first three decennial periods, as the debt was reduced by the
accumulation of sinking fund, the annuity was to be re-calculated and
made payable on the portions of the advance remaining unpaid. Under the
Act every purchaser was to start with a reduction of not less than 25
per cent. on the rent which he had hitherto paid, and this amount was to
be still further reduced by not less than 10 per cent. at the end of
each of the first three periods of ten years. This Act effected the sale
of 37,000 holdings. The applications for sale under it numbered 8,000 in
1898, and in the succeeding years the number steadily diminished, so
that they amounted in 1899 to 6,000, in 1900 to 5,000, and in 1901 to
only 3,000. The reasons for this are not difficult to find. The payment
in Consols was profitable so long as securities stood at a high figure,
but the expenses arising from the South African war resulted in a fall
of Stocks from 112 to 85, and as a result new terms for land purchase
became imperatively needed. In consequence Mr. Wyndham brought in a Bill
in 1902, which was, however, stillborn, but its withdrawal was
accompanied with a promise of legislation in the following session. The
situation in the winter of 1902 was critical. An Irish Land Trust had
been formed by the landlords to oppose the United Irish League, and on
the 1st of September there was issued a Viceregal proclamation, putting
the Coercion Act in force in Dublin and Limerick. By a curious
coincidence, the papers published the same day a letter from Captain
Shaw Taylor, an Irish landlord, inviting representatives of tenants and
landlords to meet in conference in Dublin and discuss a way out of the
agrarian _impasse_. The proposal was scouted by the _Times_, the _Daily
Express_, and the Dublin _Daily Express_, but was favourably received by
the Press in other quarters. A motion by Lord Mayo at the Landowners'
Convention, in favour of the conference, was rejected by 77 votes to 14.
A poll on the question being demanded, 4,000 landlords, each with an
estate of more