My Visitors 149 



quite in the dark as to my own importance, with 

 first rate Statesmen in terror of me, the greatest 

 of all Parliaments in danger of believing me, seeing 

 the truth and adapting its behaviour to my bit of 

 bog. The Royal Commissioners were out 

 admittedly to provide Parliament with the pre- 

 amble for a statutory fraud. What if they should 

 believe what they had seen, and assert officially 

 what some of them had admitted to me privately ? 

 The Westminster fat would be in the Mayo fire, 

 and " the Holy cause of Ireland " must cease to 

 depend on confiscating any class of Irishmen for 

 the incapacity of another. My little farm must 

 be " explained," and the " explanation " makes 

 history. 



How had I made my bit of Ireland so produc- 

 tive ? How could a man of ink and paper, fresh 

 from the Strand, be so much a better farmer than 

 those who had spent their lives at farming ? If 

 they could be set doing the same, what need was 

 there for the Congested Districts Board ? If, in 

 cattle alone, apart from other products, I could 

 produce more than seventeen times the amount 

 of my purchase annuity, who could honestly eay 

 that rent was impossible ? Terrible questions all, 

 but they were " explained." The Royal Com- 

 missioners were relieved from the dreadful 

 embarrassment by the agents of the United Irish 

 League : " ' Pat ' had borrowed the cattle he had 

 on show from his neighbours for the day. He had 

 borrowed the gates from the railway company. 

 Everything on the place had been arranged as a 



