ago--the good done by Lord Ashbourne's Act will be a living force in
the national history when the evil wrought by the Plan of Campaign is
dead and done with.

By Lord Ashbourne's Act the Irish tenant can buy his farm at (an
average of) seventeen years' purchase. He borrows the purchase money
from the Government, paying it back on easy terms, so that in
forty-nine years he becomes the absolute owner of the property--paying
meantime in interest and gradual diminution of the principal, less
than the present rent. The landlord has about £68 for every £100 he
used to have in rent. This Act is quietly revolutionizing Ireland,
redeeming it from agrarian anarchy, and saving the farmer from himself
and his friends. Thousands and thousands of acres are being constantly
sold in all parts of the country, and good prices are freely given for
farms whereof the turbulent and discontented tenants professed
themselves unable to pay the most moderate rents. Large holdings and
small alike are bought as gladly as they are sold. Those who buy know
the capabilities of the land when worked with a will; those who sell
prefer a reduced certainty to the greater nominal value, which might
vanish altogether under the fiat of the Campaigners and the visits of
Captain Moonlight.

The Irish loyal papers, which no English Home Ruler ever sees--facts
being so inimical to sentiment--these Irish papers are full of details
respecting these sales. On one estate thirty-seven farmers buy their
holdings at prices varying from £18 to £520, the average being £80. On
another, six farms bring £5,603, one fetching £2,250. In the west,
small farmers are buying where they can. In Sligo the MacDermott,
Q.C., has sold farms to forty-two of his tenants for £3,096, the
prices varying from £32 to £70 and £130; and the O'Connor Don has sold