The new Irish Land Act seems to be working very
satisfactorily in every respect except costs. The judges find no difficulty in applying it, assessing damages for eviction by a flexible rule of common-sense, with a distinct leaning towards the tenant. A holder, for instance, of a farm of 3a. lr. 8p., at a rent of £6 10s., who has been evicted without cause, claimed 145 compensation under the Act, and was awarded £39, or the maximum award minus the year's rent due. Fines like this check capricious eviction, while they do not annoy good landlords so much as was expected. One of them, just fined more than £500, openly states that he is neither annoyed nor hurt, the additional security increasing his rental from the next tenant in a quite equivalent proportion. Just so, and if they had consented to fixity, with power of revising rentals, the Irish landlords would in twenty years have been among the wealthiest of mankind.
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