The House of Commons resumed business on Thursday, and Mr.
Balfour moved new clauses in the Land-purchase Bill the object of which is to give tenants paying less than £30 a year, a share in the money advanced to purchasers, fairly proportioned to their numbers. Without such a provision, big tenants, who are - only 8 per cent. of the whole body, will get M per cent. of the total sum ad- vanced. It is clear that the proviso is entirely in ac- cordance with the intention of the Bill, which is to change small occupiers into freeholders, and is, until the House sanctions a wider plan covering the whole country, indispensable. Mr. Parnell cordially coincides, and Mr. Sexton only resists on the ground that the innovation changes the Bill too much; but the landlords are opposed, because, they say, their estates will be bought piecemeal; and the Ulster tenantry, who seldom hold very small patches, are afraid of having to wait. On a division, the clause was carried by 111 to 26, but it will take trouble to steer it through the Lords. Probably on this account Mr. Balfour at last accepted an amendment, not, in our judgment, required, extending the limit to £50. The change, however, does not matter much, as the new tenure must in the end be made universal.
