peal it was raised to L25. Mr. O'Shaughnessy, who
was one of the sub-Commissioners on the first term, acted as a Court
valuer on the second. On the first time he allowed L103, 6s. 9d. for
drains and buildings, and on the second omitted it.

In the case of Hoffman, who held a farm at a rent of L30, I reduced it
to L20 in 1881. In 1896 he went into court, and the County Court judge
reduced it to L15, and on appeal he got it again reduced to L13.

On land which came into my own hands after 1881, I was able to get rents
over 50 per cent. in excess of those fixed by the sub-Commissioners. In
the case of Patrick Quill, the farm on which the rent was cut down from
L20 to L16 was sold for L300 with a charge of L9 on it.

In the case of Michael Callaghan, Colonel Hickson expended L300 and
Callaghan L100 on the farm, for which the rent was L70, and he sold his
interest for L700.

This perpetual wrangling and litigation is ruinous, for every man is
farming down his land and letting it deteriorate as fast as he can; and
there is a most marked difference in the county between those who have
bought their land and those who are tenants. When a judicial rent was
fixed and a tenant came into Court for a second judicial rent, I think
the landlord should have been at liberty to stop him by tendering the
farmer twenty years' purchase; that would give him a reduction of 20 per
cent, and make him a proprietor in the course of time.

In 1850 at Milltown Fair, yearlings were selling for 30s. apiece. The
same cattle now are selling for L5, and Kerry is a great stock-breeding
country.

It is very hard to define a landlord, and you will hear of some being
landlords who do not get a shilling from their estates. Under these
circumstances they would be like the fox in AEsop's fable who had lost
his own tail.

To show how the Land Act works, on the Harenc estate I was offered
twenty-seven years' purchase before the Act for a holding, and at the
time of the Commission they offered me sixteen years' purchase on
two-thirds of the rent.

One other Commission besides that of the _Times_ remains to be
mentioned. Lord Balfour of Burleigh, a dour Scot with a lot of gumption
in his head, was chairman of one on Imperial _versus_ local taxation. My
easy task was to show the excess of the latter in Kerry, which is the
highest taxed county in the three kingdoms.

When a man thinks of the vast amount of information buried beyond all
probable excavation