The plan actually adopted in a
succession of Land Acts passed by Unionist Governments, beginning with
the Ashbourne Act of 1885, and ending with the Wyndham Act of 1903, is
broadly speaking as follows:--The State purchases the interest of the
landlord outright and vests the ownership in the occupying tenant
subject to a fixed payment for a definite term of years. These annual
payments are not in the nature of rent: they represent a low rate of
interest on the purchase money, plus such contribution to a sinking fund
as will repay the principal in the term of years for which the annual
payments are to run. The practical effect of this arrangement is that
the occupier becomes the owner of his holding, subject to a terminable
annual payment to the State of a sum less in amount than the rent he has
had to pay heretofore.
The successful working of the scheme obviously depends on the credit of
the State, in other words, its power of borrowing at a low rate of
interest. In this respect the Imperial Government has an immense
advantage over any possible Home Rule Government: indeed, it is doubtful
whether any Home Rule Government could have attempted this great reform
without wholesale confiscation of the landlords' property.
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