Davitt, became known as the "Land War". The government had to pass a Coercion Act as early as 1881 because of the increase in violence in Ireland; it lost support to the Home Rule Movement, which won nine out of 14 Irish by-elections (1870–4), mainly formerly Liberal-held seats. Friedrich Engels, a contemporary observer, professed not to know "what the Tories could have against this Bill, which is so indulgent with the Irish landlords and finally places their interests in the tested hands of the Irish lawyers". He thought it "very amusing if the brave Gladstone thinks he has settled the Irish question by means of this new prospect of endless lawsuits". The legislation, however, "had a symbolic significance far beyond its immediate effects." The Land Act turned the tide of laissez-faire legislation favouring capitalist landlordism, and in principle, if not in practice, was a defeat for the concept of the absolute right of property. For the first time in Ireland tenants now had a legal interest in their holdings. Bessborough Commission The "Report of her Majesty's Commissioners of Enquiry into the working of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act of 1870 and the acts amending the same", under the chairmanship of the 6th Earl of Bessborough and hence commonly known as the "Bessborough Commission Report," was published in 1881 after lengthy hearings in 1880. It reported that the 1870 Act gave the tenant no real protection because compensation for improvements could be claimed only on giving up the lease and because tenants saw themselves as forced to accept rent increases to avoid sacrificing what they had put into their holdings. It declared, "Freedom of contract, in the case of the majority of Irish tenants, large and small, does not really exist". By a majority of 4 to 1 (Arthur MacMorrough Kavanagh dissenting) the commissioners declared in favour of the "Three Fs" as demanded by the Land League: fair rent, free sale, and fixity of tenure. Agricultural depression From 1873 to 1896, farmers in Britain and Ireland suffered the "Long Depression" with its lower prices. Grain from America was cheaper and better, and was exported to Europe in ever-increasing amounts. Meat could be sent in refrigerated ships from as far as New Zealand and Argentina. For many tenant farmers in Ireland this meant lower net incomes with which to pay the rents they had agreed. This impacted most on the poorer,