tgage of L8000 which involved charges of L400 a year, a jointure
tithes and head rent took L400 more. The Commissioners by so cutting
down the rent by L400 made a clean sweep of what that landlord had to
live on. Fortunately, he had his mother's fortune of L40,000, which his
grandfather had wisely provided should not be invested in Irish lands,
having, in fact, established a contingency in case his grandson should
be dispossessed of the property he had held for generations, by a
Government truckling to blustering 'no-renters.'

Before Lord Cowper's Commission on the same subject, I said much the
same thing over again and realised that Royal Commissions are most
valuable for the purpose of shelving pregnant topics. The only good
derived from these official inquiries is that the witnesses get their
expenses and the Government printers have a lucrative contract.

There is a story told of a witness who was being brought over to London
to give evidence.

'Patrick,' said the priest, 'you'll be having to mind what you're saying
over there. Perjury won't help you no more than I can, my poor fellow.'

'What happens if I get a bit wide of the truth then, father?'

'You won't get your expenses, my son.'

'Holy Mother, to think of that! I'll be so careful that I won't know how
many legs the blessed pig has that's round the cabin all day long.'

Sir Edward Fry's Commission had none of the tinsel of big names nor the
tawdriness of aristocratic apathy. Sir Edward meant to find the truth,
and so did his colleagues--all practical men. What they did was to
strike against the hard rock of party government which was too adamant
to receive the evidence sown by these gardeners. Dr. Anthony Traill, who
was one of the Commissioners, has in this very year of grace been made
Provost of Trinity, and from what I saw of him I am certain he will be
the apostle of fair play between undergraduates and dons.

I answered over five hundred questions and rammed home one or two
points. For instance, I expressed my disapproval of a system by which a
man who is a sub-Commissioner at the hearing on the first term may
become the Court valuer on the next.

In valuation, it is wrong that men from the north should be sent to
value in the south, or _vice versa_, and to prove that I cited the
example of my tenant, Anne Delane. Her rent was fixed first term in 1883
for L34, 10s. In 1896, for second term, the sub-Commissioner fixed it at
L23, 10s., and on ap