n tenancy should or should not be perpetuated.

"In many cases [such cases are probably not so numerous on my estate as
upon many others] the resumption of the holding, and the consolidation
of adjoining farms, would be clearly advantageous to the whole
community. In the congested districts the consolidation of farms is the
only solution that I have seen suggested for meeting a chronic
difficulty.

"I have no reason to believe that the Judicial Rents in force on my
estate are such that, upon an average of the yield and prices of
agricultural produce, my tenants would find it difficult to pay them."

In spite of all these considerations Lord Lansdowne instructed Mr.
Trench to grant to these tenants under judicial leases an abatement of
20 per cent. on the November gale of 1886. This abatement, freely
offered, was gladly accepted. There had been no outrages or disturbances
on the Kerry properties, and the relations of the landlord with his
tenants, before and after this visit of Lord Lansdowne to Kerry, and
these reductions which followed it, had been, and continued to be,
excellent.

But the tale of Kerry reached Luggacurren; and certain of the tenants on
the latter estate were moved by it to demand for the Queen's County
property identical treatment with that accorded to the very differently
situated property in Kerry.

The leaders of the Luggacurren movement, I gather from Mr. Hind, never
pretended inability to pay their rents. They simply demanded abatements
of 35 per cent. on non-judicial, and 25 per cent. on judicial, rents as
their due, on the ground that they should be treated like the tenants in
Kerry: and the Plan of Campaign being by this time in full operation in
more than one part of Ireland, they threatened to resort to it if their
demand was refused. Lord Lansdowne at once declared that he would not
repeat at Luggacurren his concession made in Kerry as to the rents
judicially fixed; but he offered on a fair consideration of the
non-judicial rents to make abatements on them ranging from 15 to 25 per
cent.

The offer was refused, and the war began. On the 23d of March 1887 Mr.
Kilbride was evicted. One week afterwards, on the 29th of March, he got
up in the rooms of the National League in Dublin, and openly declared
that "the Luggacurren evictions differed from most other evictions in
this, that they were able to pay the rent. It was a fight," he
exultingly exclaimed, "of intelligence against intellige