Note.—This Table is based on the assumption that all the land in Ireland valued as agricultural land will come under the operations of the Land Purchase Acts.
Table IV
Table giving Rates of Annuity (distinguishing amounts for Interest and Sinking Fund) and number of years payable under the various Land Purchase Acts:
| Purchase Act. | Rate of Annuity. | Rate of Interest comprised in Annuity. | Rate of Sinking Fund comprised in Annuity. | Number of years payable. |
| 1881 | 5 | 3-½ | 1-½ | 35 |
| 1885 | 4 | 3-1/8 | 7/8 | 49 |
| 1891 | 4 | 2-¾ | 1-¼ | 49 |
| 1896 | As in Act of 1891, subject to decadal reduction. | 73 | ||
| 1903 | 3-¼ | 2-¾ | ½ | 68-½ |
| 1909 | 3-½ | 3 | ½ | 65-½ |
Part II. The Statutes Relating to the Relief of Congestion in Ireland.
Two Classes of Occupiers in Ireland—Establishment of the Congested Districts Board
Most of the earlier Statutes which have been summarised in the first part of this chapter deal with the rights and obligations of Irish Tenants without any attempt at Economic discrimination. No distinction was drawn between the occupiers of uneconomic holdings and those who were able to make a living and pay a rent out of their farms. Some slight recognition of the fact that the smaller tenants had a special claim to protection was shown by the Compensation for Disturbance Clause (Section 3) of the Act of 1870, which enacted that a tenant of a holding valued at £10 or under might be awarded a sum not exceeding seven years' rent, while a tenant above £100 Valuation could [pg 200] not in any case receive more than one year's rent. Beyond that, however, nothing was done. It took many years to get the Irish Administration to understand that something more than “Fixity of Tenure” was necessary if the periodical famines and endemic misery of the poorer occupiers of the West and South of Ireland were to be fought successfully. It was, however, finally recognised that, in many parts of the country, the average character of the holdings was below the level which is necessary in order to make a reasonable standard of living possible, and it was then resolved to adopt special means to meet the evil. The establishment of the Congested Districts Board in 1891 was the outcome of this resolve. It was the first attempt made to discriminate by legislation between the two great classes of Irish occupiers, namely, those whose holdings were capable of affording a means of livelihood and of paying a rent; and those who were so impoverished as to be incapable of supporting themselves without assistance from outside.
The word “Congestion,” as applied to land, has acquired a special and peculiar meaning in Ireland. It has become a term of art, and, like many another word of the kind, has travelled far from its original meaning. It does not mean, as might be supposed, “pressure of population.” The definition of a “Congested District” given in the Act of 1891, is a district in which more than 20 per cent. of the population live in electoral divisions of which the total rateable value, when divided by the number of the population, gives a sum of less than 30s. for each person. This definition is, of course, arbitrary, and in fact includes many districts through which a man might drive for miles without seeing a human habitation, and excludes districts in which the population is in truth “Congested.”
The word connotes not the over-population of particular localities, but rather the condition of the people in those localities. Owing to various reasons, mainly historical, a population which, having regard to the means of subsistence, may be called excessive, is to be found on the large area of poor land that extends along the western seaboard of Ireland from Donegal to Cork. In some regions it is really “congested” and, as in such places the poverty of the people is most pronounced and obtrusive, the problem was supposed to be one of “congestion,” and so the word came to be used. The true area of congestion is, of course, the western part of the Island, but it must not be supposed that the same problem does not arise in other parts of Ireland—(even in the province of Leinster)—in an acute form. This was recognised by the framers of the Land Act of 1909, and now the Estates Commissioners are empowered to purchase compulsorily, not only any congested estate, but also, in the case of any estate which does not as a whole come within the definition of a “Congested Estate,” any townlands forming part of the Estate which are themselves “Congested.” The definition of a “Congested Estate” is “an Estate not less than half the area of which consists of holdings not exceeding seven pounds in rateable value or of mountain or bog land or not less than a quarter of the area of which is held in rundale or intermixed plots.” There is a further power given to the Commissioners to acquire compulsorily untenanted lands. Under these powers the Estates Commissioners will be able to do for the rest of Ireland what the Board is doing for the Congested Districts, namely: to turn the present uneconomic holdings into economic ones by the addition thereto of other lands; and further, by the consolidation of holdings held in rundale [pg 202] or in intermixed plots, to put an end to the waste of effort inherent in such a system.