formed a Cork Advisory Committee in September 1904, to mediate between landlords and tenants in their negotiations. They thereby achieved purchase terms with low interest annuities which produced an exceptionally high take-up of land purchase. Munster tenants availed of land purchase in higher numbers than in any other province, whereby in county Cork alone there were 16,159 tenant land purchases, the highest numbers of any single county. The Act effectively fulfilled the first important demand of the ILLA, the abolition of "landlordism", replaced by land purchase, to finally resolve the Land Question. The result was the formation of a new proud farming proprietorship and the steady extinction of the dominant Anglo-Irish landed gentry. Whereas in 1870 only 3% of Irish farmers owned their land, by 1908, this jumped to nearly 50%. By the early 1920s, the figure was at 70%, the process being later completed. Despite some deficiencies of the Land Act, O'Brien could take some pride in its working since its passage. The social effects of the Act were immediate The year 1903 alone saw a 33% drop in reports of intimidation, a 70% decline in boycotting cases, 60% fewer people needing police protection, and a 50% decrease in the number and acreage of grazing farms unlet or unstocked because of agitation. In the period 1903 to 1909 over 200,000 small peasant tenant-farmers became "owneroccupiers" of their holdings under the Acts. By 1914 75% of occupiers were buying out their landlords under the 1903 Act and the later Birrell Land Purchase (Ireland) Act (1909) which extended the 1903 Act by allowing for the compulsory purchase of tenanted farmland by the Land Commission. In all, under these pre-1921 Land Acts over 316,000 tenants purchased their holdings amounting to out of a total of 20 million in the country. Cottage ownership In November 1903 O'Brien left the Irish Party when his policy of "conciliation" with landowners was rejected by the party leaders John Redmond and John Dillon, who feared O’Brien’s course and popularity would drive a wedge between the farming and labouring community allegiance to the Irish party. O'Brien then joined forces a year later with Sheehan's ILLA organisation, identifying himself with Sheehan's demand for agricultural labourers' housing, who up to then were dependent on limited provision of cottages by local County Councils or landowners at unfavourable terms. A breakthrough occurred when a scheme was made public at "the largest labour