Under the Irish Land Act (1903) the number of purchase agreements lodged in respect of direct sales by landlords to tenants was 217,299 in the course of less than six years from November 1, 1903, to September 15, 1909.  To these should be added proposed purchasers in other categories, viz. in respect of estates sold to the Land Commission for subsequent re-sale, or to the Congested Districts Board, or in the Court of the Land Judge, or in respect of offers to evicted tenants.  These bring the total of potential purchasers up to 248,109.  Under the Act of 1909, in two years from December 3, 1909, to December 1, 1911, the number of applications in respect of direct sales stands at 8,992.  In the other categories the number of potential purchasers amounted to 373 up to March 31, 1911.  Since then tentative negotiations have been essayed, under the threat of compulsion and the menace of Home Rule, which suggest a far larger figure.  But these transactions—­to which I shall return—­are of an eminently dubious character.  We are on safe ground if we compare the number of tenants who were ready under the two Acts to acquire their holdings.  After discounting whatever may be claimed on the score that the operation of the Act of 1903 was expedited by the fear of its destruction, a comparision of 217,299 would-be purchasers in six years with 8,992 in two years demonstrates that the abolition of dual ownership has been thrown back to the conditions which called for the Treaty of 1903.  Furthermore, it is proper to discount, in turn, even the meagre total of 8,992.  For it includes the remainders of estates, other parts of which had been sold under the Act of 1903 and the spurt of applications expedited, in this case, by the revolution of last August.  To the over-sanguine and the over-timid this seemed to foreshadow the rapid passage of Home Rule, and, bad as are the terms of the Act of 1909, they are estimated to be better than any obtainable after the Union has been thrown on the scrap-heap of the Constitution.  One other comparison may be noted.  It was part of the Treaty of 1903 that landlords should be encouraged to remain in their native land by assistance in the repurchase of their demesnes—­that is, homes—­after selling their properties.  Under the Act of 1903 the advances on resale to owners sanctioned by the Land Commission numbered 205.  Under the Act of 1909 they number two.

It will readily be inferred, even by those unacquainted with Ireland; that a process for healing ancient wounds has been turned into a process for exasperating future conflicts.  A blister has been substituted for a poultice on the sores of centuries.  Existing agreements are blocked.  Future agreements—­for this is their appropriate, if cynical—­designation, are relegated to a future which few can foresee.  Landlords who have contracted to sell are threatened with bankruptcy by the foreclosure of mortgages.  Tenants who have contracted to buy see their hopes