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 operation of purchase was still confined, almost wholly, to single bargains. But in Mr. Arthur Balfour's Act of 1891 a new departure was authorised which, after development in Mr. Gerald Balfour's Act of 1896, has led to important and far-reaching consequences. The Congested Districts Board was established to deal with scheduled areas in the West of Ireland that comprised a large number of holdings at once too limited in area, and too poor in soil, for any one of them to support a family by farming or to afford security to the State, under existing facilities for purchase, in the event of the occupier wishing to become the owner. A select committee of the House of Commons, so long ago as in 1878 (No. 249, pp. 4 and 5), when Disraeli was Prime Minister, had recommended that a properly constituted body should be empowered to purchase, not single farms, but whole estates, and to re-sell them after amalgamating, enlarging, and re-distributing what are now called "uneconomic" holdings. Provisions to this end had been inserted in earlier Acts, but, in the absence of administrative machinery and financial resources, they remained abortive. It had for long been evident that the small, impoverished holdings, which had supported a dense population before the famine, stood in need of fundamental remodelling if they were to support even a largely reduced population. The efforts made by wealthy Irish landlords in this direction were arrested by the Land Law Act of 1870 and rendered impossible by the Land Law Act of 1881. With the Purchase Acts of 1891 and 1896 a beginning was made. Another feature must be noted. In addition to the value of any one holding, as a security against individual failure, a further security was provided against the risk of a combined refusal to repay. The Exchequer was empowered to retain grants due for various purposes in Ireland and to recoup itself in proportion to the defalcation in any county. It should be added that individual failures have been rare to the point of insignificance, and that no combined refusal has been attempted, or advocated, even during periods of agricultural unrest.