ely well-to-do among the peasants have taken advantage in
many places of the popular cry to pay no rent, and have, therefore, for
the moment a little ready money. But there is no escaping the saddening
influence of a general aspect of dirt and decay.

It is a significant feature of the present agitation in Ireland that
all parties are nearly agreed so far as the Connaught peasant
cultivator is concerned. That anything approaching agreement on any
part of the complex Irish problem should be arrived at is so
remarkable that I am inclined to hearken to the popular voice.
Whatever may be done for the benefit of other parts of the country,
something must, it is thought, be attempted for the counties of Mayo
and Galway. So far as I have been able to arrive at facts and
opinions, it is not altogether a question of rent. A general remission
of rent in these two counties would merely have the effect of
enriching those farmers who are already "snug," but would leave the
peasant cultivators exactly as they are at present. It is quite true
that in some of the most wretched places I have seen the rent is
extravagantly high; but while exclaiming against attempted extortion,
I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that for the last two years the
attempt has been in the main abortive. Everybody is not so deep in his
landlord's books as the irreconcileable Thomas Browne, of
Cloontakilla; but a vast number of poor tenants owe one and a half and
two years' rent. I speak of those whose holdings are "set" from 3l. to
8l. per annum. The rent has not impoverished them this year at any
rate; they have had a fair harvest, their beast or few sheep have
fetched good prices, and yet they are miserably poor. It is quite true
that two very bad years preceded the good one, but allowing for all
this there is no room for hope that under their present conditions of
existence they will ever be better off than they are now--when they
are practically living rent free.

Letting for the moment bygones be bygones between landlord and tenant,
what is to occur in the future? Hunger is an evil counsellor, and
there would apparently always be hunger and consequent discontent
among the little cultivators of Connaught, even if the land were given
to them outright. The fact is that, despite the assertions of
demagogues, the holdings on which the people now live cannot support
them, and, in fact, never have supported them. It is, as I remarked in
one of my previous lette