The Bill contained other provisions, all in the same direction, that is, for the advantage of the Irish tenant, and to his landlord's loss, especially one relaxing the law as to the subdivision and subletting of farms, an inveterate and very pernicious practice. It introduced, also, a new principle, on which I shall say some words afterwards, with respect to another experiment on the Irish land, that is, what is called Land Purchase, under conditions, not thought of before, until they were laid down by a Conservative Government. The measure was hustled through the House of Commons with such indecorous haste, that Sir Edward Carson, now a law-officer of the Crown, walked out of that Assembly to express his disgust; it narrowly escaped defeat in the House of Lords, loyal as the Peers to Lord Salisbury are; indeed, though hardly debated, its vices were soon made manifest. It is unnecessary to point out what the general character of the Act is; it enlarged very considerably the sphere of the 'Three F's,' greatly increasing the wrong done to the Irish landlord, by doing away with the restrictions, placed by Mr. Gladstone, in 1870, on illegitimate claims in respect of improvements; its direct tendency was to reduce rents wholesale, and to promote more litigation between landlord and tenant; and if it encouraged tenants to make improvements on their farms, its plain effect, I will not say its purpose, was to 'improve the Irish landlords out of their estates,' the contemptuous phrase of a great master of Equity. Its mischief, however, went a great deal further; tenants making improvements are only exempted from rent, in respect of these, by this Act; they are not within the protection of the Act of 1870, if improvements of any kind are excluded by it; if a tenant, therefore, makes an improvement on his farm, which is not 'suitable' to it in a real sense, say, builds a mansion upon a petty holding, he will not be entitled to compensation, should he quit it, even though dispossessed for non-payment of his rent. But tenants, in these circumstances, like those I have referred to before, would assuredly proclaim that they had here a great and real grievance; and they would be relieved from it, doubtless, by another law, giving them compensation, perhaps, to their landlord's ruin. A dangerous principle is thus hidden within the Act; this will probably be asserted against the owners of ground rents, not only in Ireland, but in England and Scotland; and the law, taken as a whole, has strengthened the claim of the Irish landed gentry to be indemnified, as was solemnly promised, for what they have suffered from the legislation begun in 1881.