proving--had his rent fixed by the County Court at four
shillings an acre.

To be sure, if the County Court valuer had not done so, he would have
quickly lost his employment. The position is one incompatible with
honesty, and the value of land, apart from what you can get for it, is a
very disputable matter.

My relations with my Harenc tenantry were always good.

After the purchase in 1879 I had no trouble with them, and on the
contrary received the warmest thanks from the parish priest for my
conduct as a landlord.

I drained soil and imported seed potatoes, besides executing other
improvements. The estate was not in good order when I purchased it, and
I know from other sources that the tenants were well satisfied with me.

I may as well mention, that having no agencies on the Listowel side of
Kerry, I was never on the Harenc property before the question of
purchasing arose, and it had on it no house in which I and my family
could reside.

Until 1881 no tenant made any hostile move, but one fellow, who took me
into the Land Court after the Land Act, presented a very curious case.

This man, whose rent was sixty-five pounds a year, applied to the Court
for reduction. There was a press of business at the time which
necessitated an adjournment, but in the end the Court fixed the new rent
at the same amount as the old rent.

The tenant appealed; but though the Appeal Court valuers attested that
it was worth seventy-five pounds a year, still the rent was unchanged.

In other words, the Government sold me a farm and parliamentary title at
sixty-five pounds a year which one set of Commissioners thought fair and
the other thought cheap, and yet I had to spend more than half a year's
rent in defending my title to it.

There is no appeal as to value, except to the head Commissioners. They
appoint two other Sub-Commissioners to inspect the land, and they of
course avoid disagreeing with their brethren.

It is very like Mr. Spenlow in _David Copperfield_, who said, 'If you
are not satisfied with Doctors' Commons you can go to the delegates,'
and being asked who the delegates were, he replied that they came from
Doctors' Commons.

I bought the Harenc property as a speculation, and it turned out a
confoundedly bad one.

Once I had a conversation with a Land Leaguer on the subject. He said:--

'You bought a stolen horse, and must take the consequences.'

'If that were so,' I retorted, 'I would have an action agains