With regard to the main object which had been frequently proposed by a large portion of the inhabitants, namely, that some means might be provided by which a tenant holding under a lease could arrive at the position of a fee-simple proprietor, he was anxious to facilitate such a change, provided it could be effected without injustice to the proprietors. Two ways suggested themselves: first, the usual and natural one of purchase and sale between the tenant and the owner; and, secondly, that the government of the island should treat with such of the landowners as might be willing to sell, and that the state, thus becoming possessed of the fee-simple of such lands as might thus be sold, should be enabled to afford greater facilities for converting the tenants into freeholders. Such an arrangement could not probably be made without a loan, to be raised by the island government, the interest of which would be charged upon the revenues of the island. Mr. Labouchere intimated that the government would not be indisposed to take into consideration any plan of this kind which might be submitted to them, showing in what way the interest of such loan could locally be provided for, and what arrangements would be proposed as to the manner of disposing of the lands of which the fee-simple was intended to be bought. In 1856 the legislature presented an address to the Queen, suggesting the guaranty of a loan for the purchase of township lands, with a view to the more speedy and general conversion of leaseholds into freehold tenures. In answering this address, the colonial secretary intimated that the documents sent to him appeared to Her Majesty’s government to afford a sufficient guaranty for the due payment of the interest, and for the formation of a sinking-fund for the payment of the principal of the loan; and that they were prepared to authorise a loan of one hundred thousand pounds, sterling, to be appropriated, on certain specified conditions, to the purchase of the rights of landed proprietors in the island. It will be afterwards seen that good faith was not kept with the people of the island in this matter.