The year 1878 was a wet year and yielded a bad harvest; 1879 was worse.
The prosperity of Ireland depends on its harvest, and starvation is the
opportunity of the lying agitator.

On July 8, 1880, I gave evidence before the Royal Commission on
Agriculture, being mainly examined by the president, the Duke of
Richmond and Gordon, others on the board being Lord Carlingford, Mr.
Stansfeld, afterwards Lord, Mr. Joseph Cowen, and Mr. Mitchell Henry.

Here are some of my statements on a then experience of thirty-one
years:--

'The expenditure by landlords on farm buildings is as great in Ireland
as in Scotland.'

'In the exceptional state of things I strongly disapprove of
tenant-right in Ireland, which, as Lord Palmerston said, is landlord
wrong.'

'Small holdings are a very bad thing in Ireland where they are not mixed
with large holdings.'

'The distress in Kerry is considerable, but has been considerably
exaggerated.'

'Every tenant in Ireland has six months to redeem after he is evicted.'

'I have never known a man leave a farm unless compelled.'

'I contradict the statement that tenants make improvements which tend to
increase the letting value of the land.'

'You pay four times as much for spade tillage as for ploughing by
horse.'

'Bad farming in Ireland is due to want of education and to the enhanced
subdivision of the land. When the farmer gets higher up the social scale
he will have more sense than to make beggars of his children by
subdivision.'

'Distress has not produced the discontent.'

'Almost more land has been sold in Kerry than in any county in Ireland.'

Three months later, in my evidence before the Irish Land Act Commission,
in answer to the Chairman, I stated that in my opinion it was simply
impossible to arbitrate on rent. I had two tenants of my own whose
yearly rent was L20 and whose valuation was L20. One of them in 1880
sold L135 worth of pigs and butter, and the other man's children were
assisted in charity from my house, though both had equal means of
success.

I also pointed out that there were then 300,000 occupiers of land in
Ireland, whose holdings were under L8 Poor Law valuation, and these
occupiers when their potatoes failed had nothing but relief works,
starvation, or emigration. To give them their whole rent would not meet
the difficulty.

I submitted a scheme of purchase, in which Baron Dowse was greatly
interested, and I suggested that all holdings under L4 a ye