The entire system of Irish local government has thus been placed on an extremely democratic basis, subject, however, to partial control by the Central Government. This revolution, for it has been nothing less, was obviously liable to be attended by the many mischiefs inseparable from a sudden transfer of enormous powers to local assemblies of the most popular type, to maladministration, waste, and extravagance, and, as especially would be the case in Ireland, to violent or insidious attacks on the landed gentry. The late measure has provided against these evils, if not completely or adequately, with ingenuity and skill. The relief of Irish agriculture was its first financial object; to effect this the county cess and the poor rate have been consolidated into a single charge; and half of this is to be defrayed by the State and appropriated to the relief of agricultural lands, towns and lands, within municipal limits, being excepted. The subvention is not to extend to sums payable in respect of criminal injuries, nor to sums payable in respect of extra police in disturbed districts; these charges are properly to be borne by local areas as before. The relief afforded is an annual sum of about £700,000; it is divided in tolerably equal shares between the owners and the occupiers of the soil, that is, between the landlords and tenants of Ireland; it is characteristic of Radical clamour, that a boon, the justice of which could not be disputed, was denounced as an 'infamous job' for the behoof of the Irish landed gentry. A powerful check has been placed on extravagance and waste, and on attempts to injure property in land, exposed, we have seen, to undoubted dangers. The relief afforded was calculated on the local expenditure for 1897, in the words of the law, 'the standard year;' it was regularly to be one-half of this sum. Should the local expenditure, therefore, in subsequent years, be in excess of that of the standard year, the proportionate value of the relief would fall; should it be a lesser amount, the value would rise. A strong restraint was thus imposed on attempts recklessly to job and waste local funds, and notably to plunder Irish landlords; but this restriction only applies to agricultural lands; it does not extend to property in towns; and it is difficult to say that it will always prove effective against democratic sentiment, passion, and greed. The extent of the relief afforded to Irish landlords differs widely as between landlords of different classes of tenants; landlords of mere cottars will get very little; landlords of farmers of substance will get much more; but it is unnecessary here to enlarge on this special subject.[183]