proposals, and was therefore more likely to give perma- 

 nent satisfaction to the parties interested. 



But where are we to find such a system? There is not 

 a county or barony, scarcely even a parish in Ireland, in 

 which one approved system has been adopted. 



On some estates a low scale has been adopted; on others 

 the highest rate has been imposed that could possibly be 

 extorted from a needy tenantry; and in many, a medium 

 condition exists, where, without special encouragement or 

 serious grievance, a neglected tenantry plod on as their 

 fathers did before them, neither enlightened by the dis- 

 coveries of modern science, nor stimulated to greater 

 activity by the potato plague, nor by the equal desolation 

 of their hopes and prospects effected by recent legislation, 

 in the enactment of measures calculated to depreciate 

 agricultural produce without securing any compensating 

 advantage. 



Land valuation, the most important labour to the happi- 

 ness and existence of the masses of our population in which 

 one could be engaged, is frequently intrusted to persons 

 utterly unqualified to discharge its duties aright, and thus 

 arises, as might be expected, the immense variation in the 

 details. 



These diversities of opinion in valuation are not errors 

 of judgment merely, harmless in their operation, but they 

 affect, with serious consequences, the whole social fabric of 

 the country. 



In a district where different standards of value have been 

 adopted on contiguous lands, tenants who are rated high 

 in comparison with their neighbours, are discontented and 

 dispirited. Such persons are averse to make any improve- 

 ment, and many of them refrain even from the amount of 

 labour and attention which are absolutely necessary for 

 their own comfort. 



On the other hand, when lands have been let lower than 

 their fair moderate value, contrary effects have been pro- 

 duced; some being stimulated to undue exertions and an 

 imprudent expenditure of capital; while others have sunk 



