that caused it. This knowledge came later,
but until I got to a comprehension of the entire facts I refused to
mix myself up with either side. When, however, Mr O'Brien returned to
public life in 1904, I saw my way clear to associate myself with his
policy and to give it such humble and independent support as I could.
It will be remembered that one of Mr O'Brien's proposals for testing
the Purchase Act was to select suitable estates, parish by parish,
where for one reason or another the landlords could be induced to
agree to a reasonable number of years' purchase and thus to set up a
standard which, with the strength of the National organisation to back
it up, could be enforced all over the country. The "determined
campaigners" defeated this plan but failed to provide any machinery of
their own to protect the tenant purchasers or to assist them in their
negotiations. On Mr O'Brien's re-election he took immediate steps to
form an Advisory Committee composed of delegates from the eight
divisional executives of the city and county of Cork. This Committee
adopted as its watchword, "Conciliation plus Business," and as its
honorary secretary I can vouch for it that when the methods of
Conciliation failed we were not slow about putting into operation the
business side of our programme. Thus the landlord who could not be
induced to listen to reason around a table was compelled to come to
terms by an agitation which was none the less forceful and effective
because it was directed and controlled by men of conciliatory temper
whom circumstances obliged to resort to extreme action.

The fruits of the work of the Advisory Committee, ranging over a
number of years, are blazoned in the official statistics. They make it
clear that if only a similar policy had been working elsewhere the
tenant purchasers all over Ireland would have got infinitely better
terms than they did. The bare fact is that in County Cork, where we
had proportionately the largest number of tenant purchasers (in
Mid-Cork, I am glad to say, there was scarcely a tenant who did not
purchase, and in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred through my
intervention), the prices are, roughly, two years' purchase lower than
the average all over the rest of Ireland.

In Cork, where Mr O'Brien's policy prevailed, we had, outside the
Congested Districts, from 1st November 1903 to 31st March 1909, a
total of 16,159 tenant purchasers, and the amount of the purchase
money was L7,994,