arge minority refused to do so except on certain terms, which were
refused. The dispute continued for many months, but as the charges on
the estate had to be met, the agent was obliged to give way, and allow
an abatement of four shillings in the pound on these judicial rents.
Some of these charges, to meet which the agent gave way, were for money
borrowed from the Commissioners of Public Works to _improve the holdings
of the tenants_. For these improvements thus thrown entirely upon the
funds of the estate no increase of rent or charge of any kind had been
laid upon the tenants.

When a settlement was agreed on, those of the tenants who had adopted
the Plan came in a body to pay their rents on 3d January 1888. They
stated that they were unable to pay more than the rent due up to
November 1886, and that they would never have adopted the Plan had they
not been driven into it by _sheer distress_. After which they handed Mr.
Richardson a cheque drawn by John T. Dillon, Esq., M.P., for the amount
banked with the National League.

An article appeared shortly afterwards in a League newspaper, loudly
boasting of the great victory won by Mr. Dillon, M.P., for the starving
and poverty-stricken tenants. Two of these tenants (brothers) were under
a yearly rent of L7, 10s. They declared they could only pay L3, 15s., or
a half-year's rent, and this only if they got an abatement of 15s. Yet
these same tenants were then paying Mr. Richardson L50 a year for a
grass farm, and about L12 for meadows, as well as L30 a year more for a
grass farm to an adjoining landlord.

Another tenant who held a farm at L13, 5s. a year declared he could only
pay L6, 12s. 6d., or a half-year's rent, if he got an abatement of L1,
6s. 6d. A very short time before, this tenant had taken a grass farm
from an adjoining landlord, and he was so anxious to get it that he
showed the landlord a bundle of large notes, amounting to rather more
than L300 sterling, in order to prove his solvency! The same tenant has
since written a letter to Mr. Richardson offering L50 a year for a grass
farm!

All these campaigners, Mr. Richardson says, "with one noble exception,
the wife of a tenant who was ill, declined to pay a penny of rent beyond
November 1st, 1886," stating that they were "absolutely unable" to do
more. So they all left the May 1887 rent unpaid, and the hanging gale to
November 1887, which, however, they were not even asked to pay.

The morning after the sett