A Western Estate

New Zealand Tablet, 17 April 1913, Page 45

A Western Estate

Far flung in the Atlantic off the extreme West Coast of Ireland, lies the remote Island of Achill (says the London Daily News). The greater part of the island belongs to the Achill Mission estate, in the hands of which the worst features of land tenure appear to have been obstinately preserved. The Achill peasants' ask for the same treatment as the peasantry elsewhere has got, and theirs is, perhaps,.the clearest case in all Ireland for the exercise of the compulsory powers of purchase with which the Estates Commissioners were endowed by the Land Act of 1909. Now the tenants, Protestant and Catholic alike, are refusing their rents until they receive some assurance that the Act will be put in operation on their behalf, and proceedings for ejectment have been taken by the agent of the trustees. The Congested Districts Board and the Estates Commissioners owe it to themselves, as well as to the islanders, that there should be no more delay.