therefore, was not a purchase, but a gift, akin to a bribe, another largess bestowed on the tenant class in Ireland, and another injury, as I shall prove, inflicted on the Irish landed gentry. This 'Land Purchase,' as it was falsely called, was to be voluntary on the part of landlord and tenant; it was to be conducted on the footing of free contract, as had been the case under the preceding statutes; the State was to obtain a guarantee from the landlord; and Parliament voted L5,000,000 to carry out this policy. Exactly as had happened in the case of the Encumbered Estates Act, this scheme of 'Land Purchase' was pronounced successful; some scores of landlords sold land, some hundreds of tenants bought it; the real nature of the proceeding and its inevitable results were ignored; it was even boasted that 'dual ownership' would be got rid of, nay, that the Irish Land Question was being finally 'settled.' But when the first sum of L5,000,000 had been expended, and Parliament was asked to vote a second sum, it began to hesitate as to this dealing with the Irish land; the British taxpayer demurred and growled; with a true instinct he disliked the security; it was found very difficult to procure the funds required, large as the majority was of Lord Salisbury's Government. His Ministry, however, adhered to the new policy; and Parliament enacted a measure in 1891, which I have always thought unconstitutional in the highest degree, not to speak of the evils it was certain to produce. By this Act a sum of about L30,000,000 was made forthcoming to facilitate 'Land Purchase,' to abolish 'dual ownership,' and to change Irish tenants into owners of land; this sum was to be secured by the methods before referred to, that is, by terminable annuities less than any equitable rent, and by guarantees on the part of selling landlords; but, furthermore, a whole series of funds, devoted to Ireland, for Irish purposes, and absolutely essential to her most important needs, were appropriated to make good any default on the part of 'purchasing' tenants, in the payment of annuities charged on their farms; and even the Irish counties were rendered liable in the last resort. Should, therefore, tenants in Ireland, who had acquired the ownership of their farms, refuse to pay those annuities on any pretence, say, through an appeal made by a Land League conspiracy--the manifesto against all rent cannot be forgotten--this extraordinary spectacle would then be seen: the State would have a right to seize upon the grants made for National schools and lunatic asylums throughout Ireland; these institutions would be shut up; children and madmen would be let loose through the country; and the owner of an Irish estate would have to pay for the dishonesty perhaps of his former tenants. The late Lord Randolph Churchill severely condemned this scheme; I agree with him it was utterly unjust, and but too characteristic of the contempt of the rights of