‘Did they get an equal portion? was it divided into halves?—Into halves, and paid an equal rent.
‘Before the Act of 1881?—Before the Act of 1881.
‘And was the land of uniform quality?—Yes.
‘Had one of these men, before he went into Court, greatly deteriorated the land?—Yes.
‘Had the other attended to it?—He had attended to it; he looked after the land very well indeed.
‘What reduction did the man who had deteriorated his half get?—The man who had deteriorated his half got 17½ per cent, reduction.
‘What did the other get?—The other got 7½ per cent.
‘The industrious tenant got 7½?—He got 7½.’[104]
This was obviously gross and crying injustice; but two apologies have been made for acts of this kind. It is said that were a deteriorated farm rented as if it were in a normal state, the tenant could not afford to pay the ‘fair rent,’ in other words, the landlord is to be despoiled for the tenant’s neglect. It is said again that the Sub-Commissioners are bound to value the land as they find it, and cannot estimate it at its intrinsic worth, that is, they are under no obligation to ascertain the truth, and do their duty. Yet this sophistry has been gravely put forward as a justification for palpable wrong, through which the property of landlords has been filched away wholesale: ‘The land to this day has suffered a very serious deterioration in value; but we did not deal with that as against the present tenant ...’[105] ‘Have you frequently asked the Sub-Commissioners why they do not attach sufficient importance to deterioration?—No, but I heard them saying one reason was that if they put the rent of the farm as if it had been fairly treated, the tenant would not be able to pay that rent now in the deteriorated state.’[106] The general result of these proceedings as regards exhausted farms has been thus described: ‘My view with reference to deterioration is this. Bad tenants, who had ill-treated and worn out their land, undoubtedly, in my opinion, have obtained larger reductions than they would have got had they farmed well. Probably the reason is that were the Land Commissioners to put a rent on the land according to its natural capacity, before a deterioration, it would be an impossible rent for a broken-down bad tenant to pay. This stereotypes the rent in such cases at a figure unfairly low to the landlord; tends to lower the standard of fair rent generally; is a premium on bad farming; and places tenants under a serious temptation to ill-treat their land, so as to secure a larger reduction from the Land Court than otherwise could be obtainable.’[107]
The Sub-Commissions appear to have disregarded the just rights of landlords in another important respect. Unquestionably, in the great mass of instances, as is inevitable when the land is held in small farms, the Irish tenant had made the improvements on his holding; but the landed gentry, as I have pointed out, had done a good deal since the Great Famine. There is nevertheless cogent evidence that, in ‘fixing fair rents,’ the Sub-Commissions took hardly any account of the expenditure of landlords under this head. In the case of the estate of the late Mr. Talbot Crosbie, one of the best breeders of prize stock in the Three Kingdoms, and a country gentleman of parts and intelligence, these significant facts were conclusively proved: ‘Table E gives the cases of eight holdings upon which there was an expenditure by the landlord of £1936?—Yes.