Mr. John George MacCarthy, Chairman of the Kerry Land 'Sub-Commission,
dealt this day week in Court with the charges brought against the Irish Land Sub-Commissioners by the House of Lords, in very able and dignified language. "Some -of these accusations," he said, "are very serious indeed. They imply that certain unnamed Commissioners reduce rents ac- cording to a suggested average; and that others, while making believe to decide according to evidence, really decide according to some juggle of arithmetical figures. As to any suggested average of reduction, or any reduction at all, no one has ever presumed to give to any member of this Commission, directly or impliedly, from first to last, any such suggestion, or any similar intimation whatever. If any such suggestion or intimation had been given, no member of this Commission would hold office for one boor. As to deciding according to a juggle of figures, euphemistic-
ally termed by their Lordships an arithmetical process,' it is to be presumed that any Commissioners against whom the imputa- tion was made, have got an opportunity of rebutting it. If they be guilty of a fraud so reckless and so heartless, they deserve not merely dismissal, but impeachment. It is scarcely neces- sary to say that nothing could be more foreign to our principles and our practice. Every essential fact of every case is first heard in Court, and carefully noted by each Commissioner who hears it. Every holding is next subjected to a most careful and generally a most laborious field-to-field examination by the inspecting Commissioners, all gentlemen of high position, stainless probity, and life-long experience in practical farming. Its soil is tested, its improvements estimated, its inherent capa- bilities investigated, its advantages or disadvantages of locality, climate, and proximity to or remoteness from markets considered. A consultation then takes place between the legal Commissioner and the inspecting Commissioners, when the results of the evidence and of the inspection are compared, the law applied to the facts, and a fair rent fixed according to the best judgment of three impartial men. We interfere with contracts only to secure justice." Nothing could be more satisfactory to the sup- porters of the Irish Land Act than such statements, and we believe that Mr. Justice O'Hagan, in a very masterly defence of the Land Commission addressed to the House of Lords, has de- fended the procedure of the Land Commission generally still more authoritatively, on the strength of the same general statements.
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