Such being the state of legislation, and such the circumstances of the land question in Ireland in the year 1886, the Irish Government Bill afforded Mr. Gladstone the means and the opportunity of bringing in a Land Bill which would secure to the Irish landlord the certainty of selling his land at a fair price, without imposing any practical liability on the English Exchequer, and would, at the same time, diminish the annual sums payable by the tenant; while it also conferred a benefit on the Irish Exchequer.  These advantages were, as will be seen, gained, firstly, by the pledge of English credit on good security, instead of advancing money on a mere mortgage on Irish holdings, made directly to the English Government; and, secondly, by the interposition of the Irish Government, as the immediate creditor of the Irish tenant.  The scheme of the Land Purchase Bill is as follows:—­The landlord of an agricultural estate occupied by tenants may apply to a department of the new Irish Government to purchase his estate.  The tenants need not be consulted, as the purchase, if completed, will necessarily better their condition, and thus at the very outset the difficulty of procuring the assent of the tenants, which has hitherto proved so formidable an obstacle to all Irish land schemes, disappears.  The landlord may require the department to which he applies (called in the Bill the State Authority) to pay him the statutory price of his estate, not in cash, but in consols valued at par.  This price, except in certain unusual cases of great goodness or of great badness of the land, is twenty years’ purchase of the net rental.  The net rental is the gross rental after deducting from that rent tithe rent-charge, the average percentage for expenses in respect of bad debts, any rates paid by the landlord, and any like outgoings.  The gross rental of an estate is the gross rent of all the holdings on the estate, payable in the year ending in November, 1885.  Where a judicial rent has been fixed, it is the judicial rent; where no judicial rent has been fixed, it is the rent to be determined in the manner provided by the Bill.

To state this shortly, the Bill provides that an Irish landlord may require the State Authority to pay him for his estate, in consols valued at par, a capital sum equal to twenty times the amount of the annual sum which he has actually put into his pocket out of the proceeds of the estate.  The determination of the statutory price is, so far as the landlord is concerned, the cardinal point of the Bill, and in order that no injustice may be done the landlord, an Imperial Commission—­called the Land Commission—­is appointed by the Bill, whose duty it is to fix the statutory price, and, where there is no judicial rent, to determine the amount of rent which, in the character of gross rental, is to form the basis of the statutory price.  The Commission also pay the purchase-money to the landlord, or distribute