I also pointed out that there were then 300,000 occupiers of land in Ireland, whose holdings were under £8 Poor Law valuation, and these occupiers when their potatoes failed had nothing but relief works, starvation, or emigration. To give them their whole rent would not meet the difficulty.
I submitted a scheme of purchase, in which Baron Dowse was greatly interested, and I suggested that all holdings under £4 a year should be ejected at Petty Sessions, because it was a great hardship for the tenant of such a holding to have £2, 10s. costs put upon him.
I ended with:—
'There is a case in this county in connection with which there is likely to be very considerable disturbance. A man had a farm put up for sale and a Nationalist bought it at a very low figure, on the understanding that he was to keep it for the man's family; but as soon as he got it he turned Conservative and kept it.'
BARON DOWSE—'Turned what?'
MYSELF—'Conservative.'
BARON DOWSE—'Rogue, I would say. You would not say that Conservatives are rogues?'
Since that was a debatable point on which the Commission had no jurisdiction to inquire, I returned no answer.
As the distress was alluded to above, I may lighten the recent seriousness of my observations by an anecdote on the topic.
In 1880 the Duchess of Marlborough organised a fund for supplying the people with meal. The Dublin Mansion House did the same, but their meal was of a coarser description.
A Blasquet Islander was asked how he was getting on, and made answer:—
'Illigant, glory be to the Saints. We're eating the Duchess, and feeding two pigs on the Mansion House.'