This was the ordinary form of Government as conducted by the Nationalists; and any attempt to interfere with it and to enforce the milder laws of England, is now denounced as "coercion." In 1881 Gladstone carried another and a more far-reaching Land Act. To put it shortly, it may be said that all agricultural land (except that held by leaseholders, who were brought in under the Act of 1887) was handed over to the occupiers for ever (with free power of sale), subject only to the payment of rent--the rent not being that which the tenants had agreed to pay, but that which a Land Court decided to Be a "fair rent." This was to last for fifteen years, at the end of which time the tenant might again claim to have a fair rent fixed, and so _ad infinitum_. The Land Court in most cases cut down the rent by about 20 or 25 per cent.; and at the end of fifteen years did the same again. As tithes (which had been secularized but not abolished), mortgages and family charges remained unchanged, the result was that a large proportion of landlords were absolutely ruined; in very many cases those who appear as owners now have no beneficial interest in their estates. In examining the Act calmly, one must observe in the first place that it was a wholesale confiscation of property. Not of course one that involved the cruelty of confiscations of previous ages, but a confiscation all the same. For if A. bought a farm in the Incumbered Estates Court, with a Parliamentary title, and let it to B. for twenty years at a rent of £100; and the Act gave B. the right of occupying it for ever subject to the payment of £50 a year, and selling it for any price he liked, that can only mean the transfer of property from A. to B. Secondly, the Act encouraged bad farming; for a tenant knew that if his land got into a slovenly state--with drains stopped up, fences broken down, and weeds growing everywhere--the result would be that the rent would be reduced by the Commissioners at the end of the fifteen years; as the Commissioners did not go into the question of whose the fault was, but merely took estimates as to what should be the rent of the land in its actual condition. That farms were in many instances intentionally allowed to go to decay with this object, has been proved; and this pressed hard on the labouring class, as less employment was given. Thirdly, although the remission of debt may bring prosperity for a time, it may be doubted whether it will permanently benefit the country; for it will be noticed that the attempt to fix prices arbitrarily applied only to the letting and hiring and not to other transactions. To give a typical instance of what has occurred in many cases: a tenant held land at a rent of £1. 15s. 0d. per acre; he took the landlord into Court, swore that the land could not bear such a rent, and had it reduced to £1. 5s. 0d.; thereupon he sold it for £20 an acre; and so the present occupier had to pay £1. 5s. 0d.