The policy of the Bill as tersely explained by Mr. Gladstone in a letter to Manning was “to prevent the landlord from using the terrible weapon of undue and unjust eviction by so framing the handle that it shall cut his hands with the sharp edge of pecuniary damages. The man evicted without any fault, and suffering the usual loss by it, will receive whatever the custom of the country gives, and where there is no custom, according to a scale, besides whatever he can claim for permanent buildings or reclamation of land. Wanton eviction will, as I hope, be extinguished by provisions like these. And if they extinguish wanton eviction, they will also extinguish those demands for _unjust_ augmentations of rent, which are only formidable to the occupier, because the power of wanton or arbitrary eviction is behind them.” What seems so simple, and what was so necessary, marked in truth a vast revolutionary stride. It transferred to the tenant a portion of the absolute ownership, and gave him something like an estate in his holding. The statute contained a whole code of minor provisions, including the extension of Mr. Bright’s clauses for peasant proprietorship in the Church Act; but this transfer was what gave the Act its place in solid legal form. The second reading was carried by 442 to 11, the minority being composed of eight Irish members of advanced type and three English Tories. The Bill was at no point fought high by the Opposition. Mr. Disraeli moved an amendment, limiting compensation to unexhausted improvements. The Government majority fell to 76, “a result to be expected,” Mr. Gladstone reports, “considering the natural leanings of English and Scotch members to discount in Ireland what they would not apply in Great Britain. They are not very familiar with land tenures.” One fact of much significance he notes in these historic proceedings. “Disraeli,” he writes to the Duke of Argyll (April 21, 1870), “has not spoken one word against valuation of rents or perpetuity of tenure.” It was from the House of his friends that danger came. _April 4._--H. of C. Spoke on Disraeli’s amendment. A majority of 76, but the navigation is at present extremely critical. _April 7._--H. of C. A most ominous day from end to end. Early in the evening I gave a review of the state of the Bill, and later another menace of overturn if the motion of Mr. W. Fowler [a Liberal banker] should be carried. We had a majority of only 32. To Lord Russell he writes (April 12): “I am in the hurry-scurry of preparation for a run into the country, but I must not omit to thank you for your kind and welcome letter. We have had a most anxious time in regard to the Irish Land Bill. The fear that our Land Bill may cross the water creates a sensitive state of mind among all Tories, many Whigs, and a few Radicals.” Phillimore records a visit in these critical days: