2.  Cost of the working of Land Purchase, and security for the money advanced.  It is just as well to make these points perfectly clear, in view of the legends which obtain circulation about the “giving” of British money for the purchase of Irish land.

The cost of the Land Purchase machinery falls at present on the taxpayers of the whole United Kingdom, including, of course, those of Ireland.  It amounted in 1909-10, as I showed in the last chapter, to L414,500, and for 1911 the estimate is L544,395.  This sum includes the administrative cost of the Land Commission and Estates Commissioners, the temporary losses on flotation caused in financing, under the Act of 1909, the balance of agreements made under the Act of 1903, and the bonus to landlords.

The Treasury, in their returns estimating the revenue and expenditure of various parts of the United Kingdom, debit the whole of this sum against Ireland, and, moral responsibility apart, I regard it as necessary that, under Home Rule, Ireland should assume both the cost and the management of Purchase.

Apart from the annual vote I have mentioned, Land Purchase pays for itself.  The security for the individual holders of the Guaranteed Land Stock by means of which the purchase money is raised is the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, but the Consolidated Fund has never been called upon for a penny, either for interest or capital, and never will be.

At present the initial security of the Government which controls the Consolidated Fund—­in other words, the initial security of the United Kingdom taxpayers—­is the Irish rates; for the grants in aid of Irish local taxation still form a guarantee fund chargeable with the unpaid annuities of defaulting tenants, though they have escaped the liability for losses on the notation of stock at a discount.  The ultimate security is the purchased land itself; for, in the last resort, a defaulting tenant who, it must be remembered, is a State tenant, can be sold up.  But the really important security is the tenant himself.  The Irish tenants, treated properly, pay their debts as honestly and punctually as any other class of men in the world.  Annuities in arrear are negligible.  The last Report of the Land Commission shows that out of two million pounds of annuities due from 165,133 purchasing tenants, and close upon another two millions of interest (in lieu of rent) upon holdings agreed to be purchased by 150,490 tenants—­a total of nearly four million pounds—­only L28,084 were uncollected on March 31 last.  The cases of hopeless default, leading to a sale of the land, were only fifty-four.  Not a penny has actually been lost.

The State, then, or, if we choose so to put it, the United Kingdom taxpayers, are safe from loss, and make a good investment.  There has never been the faintest symptom of a strike against annuities, and the only cause which could conceivably ever suggest such a strike would be the irritation provoked by a persistent refusal to grant Home Rule.  Even that possibility I regard as out of the question, because there is a sanctity attaching to annuities which it would be hard to impair.  Still, to speak broadly, it is true that Home Rule will improve a security already good, and that Home Rule, with financial independence, will make it absolutely impregnable.