Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/49

 be valued. The proposal had been scoffed at as something new and monstrous, but this was a mistake; it was neither new nor monstrous.

"Every estate, and every farm upon it, is valued by order of the proprietor to ascertain the rent it can pay. The demand of the tenant is only that this process shall be fairly performed; that such valuation, instead of being private or partial, shall be an official one, made upon established principles and by competent persons. The County Cess and the Poor Rate, levied by the direct authority of the State, cannot be assessed arbitrarily, like rent just now, so much on this man and so much on that. The law provides that there shall be a careful valuation of the land beforehand, and that the rate assessed shall correspond with the value. The tenant only asks to put upon the private landlord (insatiable in the pursuit of his own interest) that restraint which the State puts upon itself."

To obtain the recognition of these rights it was necessary to have a popular organisation and a Parliamentary Party representing it. An organisation which could appoint and cashier members of Parliament would become more formidable in the House of Commons than if its principles were specifically approved of in the Decalogue.

The time was come when a settlement must be made if the Irish race was not to be extirpated, and I warned landlords that if they would not accept a fair rent they might evoke a spirit which would strike against rent altogether till a settlement was accomplished.

That we might be ready for our work a small committee of the best men connected with the movement was formed to prepare the business. By constant consultations, extensive correspondence, and the practice of printing and distributing the agenda among leading men, they laid the basis of unanimity. In the three or four months between the issue of the invitations and the assembly of the conference they were as assiduous as the Ministers of a great State awaiting a new Parliament, and it was during that time that the seed of all future success was sown.

I have described the Tenant League elsewhere.