If the Government, by conferring a judicial status on the Estate
Commissioners, surrendered their control over the amounts of single
advances; and again, if the Government, at the dictation of Mr. Dillon,
embarked on a new policy of creating tenancies in grass land and selling
them to new men, they are debarred from increasing the estimate to cover
their own misfeasance. In tendering the speculative estimate of 1903, it
was clearly laid down that the amount of one advance was only to be
increased in rare cases, and the sub-division of permanent pasture was
denounced as a "form of economic insanity." It was also explained that
deductions must be made from the 490,000 holdings in respect of small
town plots, accommodation plots, and market gardens; nor are these
insignificant, for to the 80,000 holdings not exceeding one acre we must
add 62,000 of from 1 to 5 acres. In the face of these facts, the
assumption that "all agricultural land"--as defined in the Return--will
be sold, is not only unsound but preposterous.
The second assumption, that the average price of future transactions
will equal that of past transactions is opposed to the presumption that
better, and therefore dearer farms, came into the market before worse
and therefore cheaper farms.
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