of course, those of
Ireland. It amounted in 1909-10, as I showed in the last chapter, to
L414,500, and for 1911 the estimate is L544,395. This sum includes the
administrative cost of the Land Commission and Estates Commissioners,
the temporary losses on flotation caused in financing, under the Act of
1909, the balance of agreements made under the Act of 1903, and the
bonus to landlords.

The Treasury, in their returns estimating the revenue and expenditure of
various parts of the United Kingdom, debit the whole of this sum against
Ireland, and, moral responsibility apart, I regard it as necessary that,
under Home Rule, Ireland should assume both the cost and the management
of Purchase.

Apart from the annual vote I have mentioned, Land Purchase pays for
itself. The security for the individual holders of the Guaranteed Land
Stock by means of which the purchase money is raised is the Consolidated
Fund of the United Kingdom, but the Consolidated Fund has never been
called upon for a penny, either for interest or capital, and never will
be.

At present the initial security of the Government which controls the
Consolidated Fund--in other words, the initial security of the United
Kingdom taxpayers--is the Irish rates; for the grants in aid of Irish
local taxation still form a guarantee fund chargeable with the unpaid
annuities of defaulting tenants, though they have escaped the liability
for losses on the notation of stock at a discount. The ultimate security
is the purchased land itself; for, in the last resort, a defaulting
tenant who, it must be remembered, is a State tenant, can be sold up.
But the really important security is the tenant himself. The Irish
tenants, treated properly, pay their debts as honestly and punctually as
any other class of men in the world. Annuities in arrear are negligible.
The last Report of the Land Commission shows that out of two million
pounds of annuities due from 165,133 purchasing tenants, and close upon
another two millions of interest (in lieu of rent) upon holdings agreed
to be purchased by 150,490 tenants--a total of nearly four million
pounds--only L28,084 were uncollected on March 31 last. The cases of
hopeless default, leading to a sale of the land, were only fifty-four.
Not a penny has actually been lost.

The State, then, or, if we choose so to put it, the United Kingdom
taxpayers, are safe from loss, and make a good investment. There has
never been the faintest symptom of