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selection of tenants — the most essential of the duties 

 and of the rights of ownership. Without this right, 

 and that intelligent exercise of it which is guided by 

 the most natural and legitimate motives, I am satis- 

 fied that there would have been no increase in the 

 agricultural produce of Tyree comparable to that which 

 has actually arisen, and the Island would have remained 

 in a comparatively stagnant, if even it had not fallen 

 into a declining state. 



I have brought these facts and considerations under 

 the notice of the Commission because they afford one 

 very good criterion of the justice of any complaints made 

 by the smaller tenants as to the rents they pay. I know 

 of no class of men who deal in the hire or purchase 

 of any article, who would not eagerly testify to any 

 Koyal Commission that they would like to get that 

 article cheaper. In respect to no article would such 

 evidence be more eager than in respect to the price 

 of cattle in which these small tenants deal, not as 

 purchasers, but as sellers. The larger farmers, who 

 deal in fat stock, have every cause to feel the 

 stress of the very high prices which they are now 

 compelled to pay to the producers of lean stock. 

 They say that these prices leave them no margin 

 for profit on feeding. The small tenants, however, 

 would hardly admit such an argument as calling for 

 any abatement of the price which the markets afford to 

 them. Yet their own complaints are not more reason- 

 able. Their possessions are really worth double or treble 

 of what they were worth thirty-five years ago. Many 

 of the causes which have led to the rise in the value of 

 land which has been so signally proved in the case of 

 the large farms, have been evenmore applicable to them. 



