It was felt that the security for the earlier advances
would be endangered if rents throughout Ireland fell below the level of
the purchase-instalments, and that purchase would be retarded if the
purchaser did not obtain immediate relief by agreeing to buy. To meet
this practical difficulty Mr. Gerald Balfour, in 1896, permitted the
purchaser to write off the amount repaid by sinking fund during the
first and two successive periods of ten years. These "decadal
reductions" were optional. If the purchaser forewent them he paid L4 per
L100, and extinguished his debt in 42-1/2 years. If he availed himself
of them he paid L3 8_s. 7d._ per L100 after the first ten years, and
continued to pay, with two further reductions in prospect, till the debt
was extinguished in a period undefined, but estimated at about 72-1/2
years. But this privilege was made retrospective, so that purchasers
under the Ashbourne Acts could also reduce their instalments of L4 to L3
11_s. 10d._
The salient features in the procedure of the Acts of 1891 and 1896 were
that, (1) the landlord was paid in stock instead of cash.
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