In the other
categories the number of potential purchasers amounted to 373 up to
March 31, 1911. Since then tentative negotiations have been essayed,
under the threat of compulsion and the menace of Home Rule, which
suggest a far larger figure. But these transactions--to which I shall
return--are of an eminently dubious character. We are on safe ground if
we compare the number of tenants who were ready under the two Acts to
acquire their holdings. After discounting whatever may be claimed on the
score that the operation of the Act of 1903 was expedited by the fear of
its destruction, a comparision of 217,299 would-be purchasers in six
years with 8,992 in two years demonstrates that the abolition of dual
ownership has been thrown back to the conditions which called for the
Treaty of 1903. Furthermore, it is proper to discount, in turn, even the
meagre total of 8,992. For it includes the remainders of estates, other
parts of which had been sold under the Act of 1903 and the spurt of
applications expedited, in this case, by the revolution of last August.
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