ona fide_
farmers, but whom the Land Commission inspectors reported had in many
cases allowed the land to get into a bad and dirty state, should, on
dispossession, be generously compensated or given their choice of other
lands. It was originally thought that one thousand would be the limit of
the number of applications which would be made for reinstatement, but,
in the event, out of ten thousand tenants evicted in the last quarter of
a century, such applications were made in 6,700 cases, and some notion
of the poverty of these peasants who were turned out upon the roadside
may be inferred from the fact that nearly one-half paid a rental of less
than L10 a year.

At the beginning of the session of 1907, out of the total number of
applicants 1,300 had been rejected as not coming within the scope of the
provisions relating to them, and 650, or less than 10 per cent. of the
whole number who applied, had been reinstated. In the case of more than
half the total number of applicants no report had been made, and in more
than 450 cases, including, of course, those on the Clanricarde and Lewis
estates, inspection of the property had been, as it is still, refused by
the landlords. At this juncture Mr. Birrell declared that further
legislation was imperatively needed, and to this announcement Mr. Walter
Long replied that he accepted the view of his predecessor, Mr. Wyndham,
as to the bargain which had been come to in regard to this question, and
he went on to say:--[9]

"There can be no doubt whatever that in the interest not merely of these
unfortunate people, whatever their past history may have been, but in
the interest of the successful working of the Land Purchase Act, their
reinstatement is looked upon as an essential element and a thing
promised by Parliament."

The voluntary system, to which a tentative agreement was given under the
Act of 1903, having broken down, the Evicted Tenants Bill was designed
as a tardy act of justice to remove the cause for disaffection on the
part of a tenantry to which Mr. T.W. Russell paid a notable tribute the
other day as being not naturally lawless, but in point of fact the most
God-fearing, purest-minded, and simplest peasantry on the face of the
earth. That his diagnosis, that unrest is merely the product of
suffering under cruel circumstances, is valid, is illustrated by the
complete restoration of peace on the Massereene estate, when, on the
death of the late peer, the planters were