A report on landlord-tenant relations written by poor law inspectors in 1869 for the Chief Secretary for Ireland drew attention to the hardships inflicted on tenants under the new landlords.

[4] The Liberal Party under the leadership of William Ewart Gladstone had been elected in 1868 promising to bring justice for Ireland, including land reform.

The President of the Board of Trade, John Bright, believed that the solution to Irish land question was to transform the tenants into owners.

[5]Gladstone replied, doubting to the wisdom of the government embarking on a very large involvement in Irish land, purchasing estates from landlords to resell them to the tenants.

As I do not mean to fail through want of perseverance, so neither will I wilfully err through precipitancy, or through want of care and desire at least to meet all apprehensions which are warranted by even the show of reason".

[8] In a letter to Lord Granville on 15 January 1870, Gladstone claimed: "To this great country the state of Ireland after seven hundred years of our tutelage is in my opinion so long as it continues, an intolerable disgrace, and a danger so absolutely transcending all others, that I call it the only real danger of the noble empire of the Queen".

The Conservative leader Benjamin Disraeli moved an amendment intended to limit compensation to unexhausted improvements by tenants and the government majority against it fell to 76.

The 'John Bright Clauses', which Gladstone accepted reluctantly, allowed tenants to borrow from the government two thirds of the cost of buying their holding, at 5% interest repayable over 35 years if the landlord was willing to sell (no compulsory powers).