the result of high rents. As a matter of fact, in
Orkney the rents advanced 194 per cent., and during the same period in
Kerry they dwindled. He also asserted that the Irish tenants'
improvements had been confiscated by the landlords as the tenant
improved.

Certainly the law did not prevent them increasing the rent; but,
unfortunately for the reasoning of Mr. Laing, and his taking for granted
imaginary 'confiscations,' figures most decidedly prove that the
landlords did not use any such power. The rentals have steadily
decreased while the landlords were borrowing and expending nearly half a
million in my own county.

This fact is conclusively demonstrated by the Government returns.

As to the National League--with all its paraphernalia of boycotting,
shooting from behind a hedge, merciless beating, shooting in the legs,
and other similar variations of Irish Home Rule, on which I shall dwell
in a later chapter--being only a protector of the weak tenant against
the hard landlord, I think one fact will prove more forcibly than any
argument the fallacy of such an assertion.

There were two estates in Kerry let at a much lower rate than any others
in the county--those of Lord Cork and Colonel Oliver.

Colonel Oliver's agent was the only one fired at in Kerry in 1886, and
Lord Cork's agent was the only one obliged to employ over two hundred
police to protect him in endeavouring to recover in 1887 rent which was
due in 1884. This rent was due on land let at considerably under the
Poor Law valuation, and the rents were only half what was paid in 1860.

These cases afford a decided proof that the Land or National League
carries on its government irrespective of high or low rents, and the
'Plan of Campaign' is worked according as the local branches of the
League have disciplined or terrorised the inhabitants of a district, the
orders from 'headquarters' depending on the probability of success.

I should like to retort on Mr. Laing that, while the evidence before the
Land Commissioner proved the rental of Ireland was diminishing, that of
the country where his own property lay increased to an unusual degree. I
do not say the landlords confiscated the tenants' improvements, possibly
they made none. But figures are hard facts, and they prove three
things:--

First, that Kerry landlords spent L453,539 on improvements. Secondly,
that the rental of Kerry was lower in 1880 than in 1840. Thirdly, that
the rental of Orkney increa