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We rise to three higher regions, and here we find the home of the souls themselves, freed from all garments of illusion, face to face with Truth. To this high dwelling rises the consciousness of every child of man ere he reincarnates on earth; the vast majority touch its lowest level but for a moment, for the undeveloped soul is but faintly, dreamily self-conscious at that height, almost as the unborn babe in its mother's womb. None the less is that embryonic creature the soul itself, and into it, as into an undying receptacle, passes everything that is pure and valuable gathered by means of its lower bodies or vehicles during its earthly, astral, and devachanic lives. By these experiences alone it grows, develops, becomes mature, and in that third heaven we may study myriads upon myriads of souls, some temporarily connected with physical bodies, but the great majority without them. They are at all stages of development, from the embryonic to the comparatively mature. The latter spend part of their heavenly life fully self-conscious in that region, seeing life as it really is, things in their essence, not in their illusory phenomenal aspects.

In the succeeding region are souls highly developed in intellect. and in moral character, rapidly maturing towards human perfection. They remember all their past and can see the causes working towards future results; they are in full and close communion with souls of development similar to their own, helping and being helped; during the brief periods of incarnation on earth they are able to guide their physical vehicles and manifest a high, noble, and strong character ; self-consciousness has been evolved, never again to be lost, and they are nearly ready for the step which shall unite the higher and lowerminds, and make full and free communication possible between the soul and its physical, astral, and mental bodies. This accomplished,. the memory of the past can enter the waking physical brain, and the man remembers the long series of his past incarnations.

It skills not to speak of the highest of the heavens, where the souls of masters and initiates have their home. Enough that from that region are poured down upon earth streams of intellectual force and energy of the loftiest kinds. The intellectual life of the world has there its root; thence genius receives its purest inspirations, and blessed are the embodied souls on whom its radiance falls.

Such, poorly and feebly told, are some of the conditions of the life after death as observed and studied by some amongst us who are training themselves for such investigations. Nothing has here been said which may not at a certain stage of development be seen without leaving the physical body, without losing touch of the waking consciousness. Needless also to add that to all such observers-and indeed to many also who are immediately around them-death

becomes a mere incident of small importance, a mere change, that men call death.' Death is but a birth into a wider life, a return from brief exile to the soul's true home, a passing from a prison into the freedom of the outer air. There are states of consciousness in which, to quote Lord Tennyson, 'Death seems a ludicrous impossibility,' and when these have been experienced, no doubt as to 'life after death' can ever again arise. For life is then seen to be unbroken, unbreakable, and death is swallowed up of life.'

1896

LAND PURCHASE IN IRELAND

LAND Purchase in Ireland began its career in the year 1870.
that time it did not form an article of the creed of either of the
political parties of the State. Mr. Bright had advocated the creation
of a peasant proprietary in Ireland by means of State aid, just as
Mr. John Stuart Mill had advocated the adequate representation of
minorities in Parliament. Both suggestions had been listened to
somewhat languidly. They were regarded as the hobbies of two
distinguished men who ought perhaps to be humoured, if the humour-
ing did not cost too much; and so Birmingham was formed into a
three-cornered constituency, the Bright clauses, as they were called,
were tacked on to Mr. Gladstone's Land Bill in 1870, and a million
sterling was voted by Parliament to work them. The clauses proved
a complete failure. At the end of ten years less than one half of the
million voted had been utilised, or, in other words, the capital sum
employed in carrying out land purchase in an entire decade was not
more than a twentieth or thirtieth part of a single year's rental of
agricultural Ireland.

The purchase sections of Mr. Gladstone's Irish Land Act of 1881 were scarcely more successful. In the four years which succeeded the passing of that measure the advances made under it to tenants for the purchase of their holdings amounted to little more than a quarter of a million sterling.

The plan on which land sales to tenants in Ireland are conducted is this. The tenant agrees to buy and the landlord to sell; the purchase money (or part of it, as the case may be) is advanced to the landlord by the State; the tenant becomes liable to the State for the repayment of it, not in a bulk sum, but by instalments spread over a number of years, which instalments comprise both interest on the sum advanced and a sinking fund in discharge of the principal.

By the Bright clauses of 1870 the State advance was limited to two-thirds, and by the Land Act of 1881 to three-fourths of the purchase money of the holding, and it was repayable by instalments at the rate of 5 per cent. per annum on the amount advanced, which instalments would in thirty-five years pay off both principal and interest.

It may be asked why was it that these provisions were so little

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availed of. The Bright clauses of 1870 were doomed from the first. The landlords in 1870 and for several years afterwards were not anxious to sell to their tenants. There was a brisk market at that time for their properties. The outside public were ready and eager to buy up at high prices whatever land was offered for sale. It more troublesome to sell an estate piecemeal to individual tenants than to sell it en bloc to a capitalist, and naturally the vendors selected the course which gave them less trouble and not less profit.

By the year 1881 the condition of Ireland had greatly changed. She had gone through the bad years of 1877, 1878, and the disastrous year of 1879. All people interested in land had become scared. Mortgagees had ceased to lend on land, banks were calling in what they had already lent, rents were falling into arrear, outsiders would not bid for landed properties. The only possible purchasers were now the tenants, and to them many landlords were willing to sell on terms which by comparison with the prices of land in 1870 were cheap indeed. The tenants did not avail themselves of the landlords' willingness to sell. The Land Act of 1881 had just given to them for the first time the right of going into court to get a fair rent fixed on their holdings, and from this operation they hoped to gain a substantial reduction in their rents. They argued that, the lower their rent might be, the lower would be the purchase money which the landlord was likely to accept for his interest in the land, and therefore the tenants were not anxious to buy until they had first got their rents fixed. But even had both landlords and tenants been able to agree upon the price, there still remained an almost insuperable difficulty in carrying out the sales. The Land Commission could not advance more than three-fourths of the purchase money. Where was the remaining one-fourth to come from? The majority of the tenants had not the means of making it up. The banks were not disposed to lend it, and the landlord, who would have been willing to sell if the transaction was to be a sale out-and-out might be pardoned for thinking that he would not increase either his wealth or his comfort by ceasing to be a landlord in order that he might become a puisne mortgagee of his tenant. As such mortgagee, he would have as much trouble in collecting his interest as he had hitherto experienced in collecting his rent, while his remedies in the event of default would be less speedy and effectual.

It was plain to practical men in Ireland that no substantial progress could be made towards creating a peasant proprietary until the Land Commission was empowered to advance the entire of the purchase money, and until, by some means or other, the annual instalments in repayment of it were reduced below 5 per cent.

In June 1885 Mr. Gladstone's Government resigned, and a Conservative Government came into office, Lord Ashbourne being their

Lord Chancellor for Ireland and a member of the Cabinet. By 1885 a substantial number of Irish tenants had got their rents reduced and fixed by the Land Commission. Mr. Parnell saw that the time had come when a workable scheme of Land Purchase would probably be of service to the tenants. The landlords were anxious for such a scheme, because there were still no outside purchasers in the land markets. Both Liberals and Conservatives were pledged to the principle of advancing the entire purchase money. The moment was opportune for dealing with the question. Within one month after their acceptance of office, Lord Ashbourne, on behalf of his Government, introduced in the House of Lords his Land Purchase Bill, which has ever since been popularly known as 'Lord Ashbourne's Act.'

Possibly the best fortune which a Bill can meet with is that it should be very fully discussed; the next best is that it should not be discussed at all. The latter was the fate of Lord Ashbourne's Bill. The discussion in both Houses was perfunctory. In neither House did the Committee stage occupy more than one sitting.

The scheme of purchase provided by the Ashbourne Bill was that the Land Commission, on the part of the State, should advance the entire purchase money of the holding, and that the tenant should repay the amount by instalments at the rate of 4 per cent. on the purchase money, which instalments would in forty-nine years extinguish the principal as well as pay the interest accruing meanwhile. This scheme had one great merit-simplicity. A tenant agreed to buy his holding for 1,000l. He had not to produce any of this sum out of his own stores. It was all advanced for him, and he could see at a glance that in exchange for escaping from his rent, whatever it might be, he became liable for a definite annual sum, 40l.-i.e. 4 per cent. on 1,000l. for forty-nine years.

Compared with previous Land Purchase Acts, the Ashbourne Act was a distinct success. In two years more land was sold to tenants by one firm of solicitors alone than had been sold over all Ireland during the whole career of the Bright clauses of 1870 and the Land Act of 1881.

In no year did the advances under the Bright clauses reach 90,000l., while in some years they were well below 20,000l. In only one year did the advances under the Land Act of 1881 reach 100,000l., while in the year immediately preceding the passing of the Ashbourne Act they had shrunk to less than 22,000l. Five years' working of the Ashbourne Act showed that the advances under it had averaged over one million and a quarter sterling per annum.

By 1887 the advances made, together with those applied for, but not actually paid out, had practically exhausted the 5,000,000l. voted by the Ashbourne Act, and Parliament thereupon voted another five millions sterling for land purchase in Ireland. This second sum was