erment applied to the question
at issue--the Commissioners performing the solemn duties of
undertakers, and not even the most reckless resurrectionist being
found to disturb the remains. Before the report should issue, the
Commissioners die off, or the question has taken a new form; new
interests have changed all its bearings; a new ministry is in power,
or some more interesting matter has occupied the place it should fill
in public attention; and if the Report was even a volume of "Punch,"
it might pass undetected.

Now and then, however, a Commission will issue for the real object of
gleaning facts and conveying information; and then the duties are most
uncomfortable, and but one course is open, which is, to protract the
inquiry, like the man with the ass, and leave the result to time.

In a country like ours, conflicting interests and opposing currents
are ever changing the landmarks of party; and the commissioners feel
that with years something will happen to make their labours of little
consequence, and that they have only to prolong the period, and all is
safe.

At this moment, we have what is called a "Landlord and Tenant
Commission" sitting, or sleeping, as it may be. They have to
investigate diverse, knotty, and puzzling points, about people who
want too much for their land, and others who prefer paying nothing for
it. They are to report, in some fashion, respecting the prospects of
estated gentlemen burdened with rent-charges and mortgages, and who
won't improve properties they can scarcely live on--and a peasantry,
who must nominally pay an exaggerated rent, depending upon the chance
of shooting the agent before the gale-day, and thus obtaining easier
terms for the future.

They are to investigate the capabilities of waste lands, while
cultivated lands lie waste beside them; they must find out why
land-owners like money, and tenants hate paying it; and why a people
hold life very cheap when they possess little means to sustain it.

Now these, take them how you will, are not so easy of solution as you
may think. The landlord, for his own sake, would like a thriving,
well-to-do, contented tenantry; the tenants, for their sakes, would
like a fair-dealing, reasonable landlord, not over griping and
grabbing, but satisfied with a suitable value for his property. They
both have no common share of intelligence and acuteness--they have a
soil unquestionably fruitful, a climate propitious, little taxation,
good