12 REPORT OF COMMISSIONERS. 



formed persons in every part of the country were induced, 

 through answering these questions, to send statements, by 

 which considerable insight was afforded upon many sub- 

 jects of importance. 



To obtain information sufficiently extensive in its range, 

 and sufficiently impartial, by means of circulating ques- 

 tions, was obviously impossible. As a Board, we could 

 not pass from one district of the country to another, and 

 receive local evidence, if the country was to be extensively 

 visited, and if our Inquiry was to conclude within any rea- 

 sonable number of years. If each member of the Board 

 had taken a separate district, it is probable that each would 

 have been more impressed by those circumstances which 

 had been subjects of personal observation, than by those 

 which had been collected by his colleagues, and conse- 

 quently were to him only written evidence. Besides, 

 many of the Commissioners had other important duties 

 which would not admit of their leaving Dublin. To have 

 contented ourselves with such information as we could ob- 

 tain by witnesses brought to Dublin, would have been ma- 

 terially to lessen the chance of obtaining full and impartial 

 information, not only as regarded classes of persons, but 

 as regarded the various districts of the country. 



It w r as obviously necessary, therefore, that others should 

 be deputed to make local inquiries. 



The difficulty, great under any circumstances, of se- 

 lecting persons upon whom reliance could be placed, as 

 possessing intelligence in tracing the truth, diligence in 

 pursuit of it, patience in examining a variety of persons of 

 different views and habits, and impartiality in deciding 

 between conflicting statements, was much increased by 

 the peculiar state of society. 



In a community which had long been divided into po- 



