Retrospect of the present Irish land system--Position of the Irish landlords--Position of the Irish tenant class--This not as advantageous as might be supposed--The effects of the land code on Irish agriculture injurious--The effects on the general Irish community--Confiscation, violation of contracts, shock given to credit, increased alienation of classes, and demoralisation--The land system considered on the side of ownership--'Voluntary purchase'--Mischief of this policy--It sets up a false standard against rent, and creates unjust distinctions between different classes of tenants--The results it has produced already--An instance of the system--The demand for the compulsory purchase of the Irish land caused by 'voluntary purchase'--Compulsory purchase has some hold on opinion, but is an impossible, and would be a disgraceful and ruinous policy--It would ruin Irish landlords as a class--Instances--It would ultimately bring Ireland into the state in which she was before the Great Famine--Proposed plan for the reform of Irish land tenure--Questions as to the means of compensating Irish landlords, a deeply wronged order of men. Having traced the attempts that have been made to reform Irish land tenure, in the last thirty years, and noticed the administration of the new Irish land code, I must, for the sake of clearness, take a short retrospect, and consider the Irish land system as it exists at this day; I shall review it on the side of occupation first, that is, in the relations of landlord and tenant. The agricultural rental of Ireland, we have seen, has been, or is being, reduced about 40 per cent. since 1881, through the operation of laws carried out by tribunals of the State; this proceeding, unexampled in civilised lands, has been the means, I have proved, of doing gross wrong to the Irish landed gentry. But this, if a signal, is only one of the many acts of injustice perpetrated on a cruelly injured body of men. The fee simple has been wrested from the Irish landlord, where he has been subjected to the legislation of late years; he has been deprived of the ownership which had been his birthright. An estate, nominally for fifteen years, but really capable of being renewed for ever, has been created against him by an unjust law; and this has been vested in his former tenants, subject to the mode of land tenure known as the 'Three F's,' the chief of these being 'fair,' that is, State-settled rents, in the adjustment of which he has no voice. He may, no doubt, retain fragments of his old proprietary rights; parts of his estate may be excluded from the provisions of the law; he may be the lord of 'future tenants;' he is left 'royalties,' such as minerals, mines, and timber; he possesses most of his former legal remedies; and should the holders of the lands, which had been his own, who have obtained the benefits of the