revolting to my mind to see a wealthy Irish farmer bribed into the ownership of his farm by an Act of the State, without having paid a shilling of the price. I commend this spectacle to the hard-pressed general taxpayer. I need hardly say that, under the scheme I propose, existing interests of tenants should remain intact, and statutory leases should be allowed to come to an end, before a change should be made by law in the position they hold. The question of compensating the Irish landlords would remain; a very few words on this will suffice. I must remind the reader, as I have already shown, that the Land Act of 1881 was passed on the condition that, should experience prove that real injury had been done to this order of men, their right to indemnity would be plain; Mr. Gladstone's language was unequivocal; the House of Commons approved. Nor can any reasonable doubt exist that the course of legislation from 1881 to 1896 has confiscated the property of the class to an immense extent; the simple fact that the value in Ireland of the fee simple in land has been reduced by a third at least, and that the value of the tenant right has been increased in about the same proportion, points to a conclusion evident to impartial minds. I am satisfied as to what would be the report on this subject of the Commission I should wish to see appointed; it could not avoid drawing an inference that cannot be resisted. The question, therefore, will have to be faced; the good faith of Parliament is virtually at stake; and if a pledge made in the name of the State is not to be broken, the right of the Irish landlords to compensation is complete. Independently, too, of considerations of this kind, it is a recognised principle that should a policy have caused loss to a class, the State is morally bound to make the loss up; a violation of this principle is unjust and dangerous alike. I quote from John Stuart Mill on this very question: 'The principle of property gives the landowners no right to the land, but only a right to compensation for whatever portion of their interest in the land it may be the policy of the State to deprive them of. To that their claim is indefeasible. It is due to landowners and to owners of any property whatever, recognised as such by the State, that they should not be dispossessed of it without receiving its pecuniary value, or an annual income equal to what they have derived from it. If the land was bought with the produce of the labour of themselves or their ancestors, compensation is due to them on that ground; even if otherwise, it is still due on the ground of prescription. Nor can it ever be necessary for accomplishing an object by which the community altogether will gain, that a particular portion of the community should be immolated. When the property is of a kind to which peculiar affections attach themselves, the compensation ought to exceed a bare pecuniary equivalent.... The