On Monday Mr. Gerald Balfour, in a speech of three
hours, introduced his new Irish Land Bill. It is a vast measure, but unless we greatly mistake the omens, it will pass, for, though fair to the landlords, it offers boons to the tenants of which the Nationalist leaders dare not deprive them. We have explained elsewhere the able and ingenious purchase clauses under which the Irish tenant will get the annuity he pays for the freehold reduced every ten years for the next thirty years, how the estates that are lying rotting in the En- cumbered Estates Court are to be made to feel the revivifying effects of purchase, bow a quasi-automatic readjustment of rents every five years is to be introduced if both sides are willing, and how the tenants are to have the value of their improvements secured to them. In addition, the Bill includes a good many cases which were formerly excluded from the Land Courts, retains the landlord's right of ' pre-emption, allows the evicted tenants a door of escape by re-enacting Clause 13, and makes a considerable number of minor im- provements in procedure. Mr. Morley was, of course, not satisfied with the Bill, nor was Mr. Dillon ; but the attitude of neither was very hostile, and the Bill appears to have made a distinctly favourable impression in Ireland on both sides.
