Mr. Gladstone said very explicitly on Monday that the Govern-
ment have no intention of amending the Irish Land Act by ex- tending the limit of rental under which a tenant is not allowed to contract himself out of the benefit of the Act, and still less, apparently, of acceding to the proposal made in the Lords to allow all tenants, whether under £50 rental or not, to contract themselves out of the Act if they choose. Mr. Gladstone inti- mated that the Government adhered strictly to the policy of the Act, which draws a distinction between the tenants of £50 and under who have not sufficient independence to be trusted for really wishing and intending to contract themselves out of the benefit of the Act, and the tenants of a higher rental who are credited with sufficient independence to do what they choose to tlo. And Mr. Gladstone stated that what the Duke of Leinster had done had been done in relation to tenants paying a higher rental than £50, and that it was therefore within both the letter and the spirit of the Act. No doubt the Government are right in not proposing to begin tinkering again so soon at a work so recently completed, but we still hold that the lowering of the limit from £100 to £50 was a fatal mistake, which has affected greatly for the worse the salutary results of this great measure.
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