; I . ... I • "... RETURN OWNERS OF LAND IN IRELAND. THIS Return is intended to show for each County in Ireland :— ( 1.) The number and names of owners of land of one acre and upwards, whether built upon or not; including lessees for terms exceeding 99 years, or with a right of perpetual renewal, with the acreage and net annual value of the property belonging to each owner as shown in the valuation lists. ( 2.) The number of owners of land, whether built upon or not, of less than one acre, with the aggregate area and net annual value of such property. ( 3.) The estimated area of " Waste Land. The directions for preparing the Return originated, as stated in the introductory remarks to the Return of Owners of Land in England and Wales which has been prepared by the Local Government Board in England, in a discussion which took place in the House of Lords in February, 1872, on a question asked by the Earl of Derby whether it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to take any steps for ascertaining accurately the number of pro- prietors of land and houses in the United Kingdom, with the quantity of land owned by each proprietor. The preparation of the Return for England and Wales appears to have commenced in September, 1872, and in the following January the Local Government Board in Ireland received the directions of His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant to prepare a similar Return for Ireland ; with directions that it should be, as far as possible, identical with the English Return, substituting, however, the rateable value for the gross estimated rental. It should be observed that in a correspondence which the Local Government Board had with the Irish Government before receiving the final instructions for the preparation of the Return, the Board deemed it their duty to draw attention to the circumstance that in the instructions issued for the preparation of the Return for England and Wales " the gross estimated rental of the property belonging to each owner as shown in the valuation lists" was required to be given; but that neither the valuation lists nor the rate books in Ireland contain any column from which the gross estimated rental of any tenement could be directly derived, while at the same time it must be of material importance to have the Return made on the same basis of computation as to value in Ireland as in England. To a 2 I