Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 12.pdf/690

 In an Irish Land Court. inent barrister came before it. " Is it true," asked a farmer from the back of the hall, "that Mr. Wigmore appears against the ten ants? " And upon the proposer sorrowfully confessing that it was true, it was seen at once that, for that constituency, Mr. Wigmore was doomed. Accordingly, the land lords usually appear through the old-estab lished solicitors who manage their estates, while the smaller fry are left to exploit the tenants. But the subcommissioners are coming on the bench. Their appearance does not di minish the half-grotesque effect which the whole court suggests to an eye trained to the more dignified conventionalities of Eng lish tribunals. Wigged and gowned, the legal assistant commissioner sits in the middle chair, flanked by his two lay commis sioners, popularly called his wings. This legal commissioner has a big county to work, and has five pairs of wings. Years of hur ried transport through outlying districts have worn away from his wig almost the last trace of its pristine whiteness, and it now frames his face as in dull gray wool. He is evidently anxious not to look legal, for he wears a mous tache thicker than the Kaiser's, if not quite so long; and to this in moments of medita tion he administers a mighty twist till its points stand up to his eyes like the bravest Herr lieutenant's of them all. Yet, this unlegal looking judge is reputed to know more about the Irish land law and the agrarian problem than perhaps any other man in the country, reputed also to stand highest in favour with the tenants, and to ride terribly through the dreams of landlords, as one at whose very stroke another five per cent expires. His lay colleagues are natu rally more silent. They are supposed to have been farmers or farming experts. One is a new appointment, and comes upon the bench to-day for the first time; he labors hard at his notes, and never opens his mouth save to ask for a repetition of figures which he has not caught. The other is slightly more lo

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quacious, but seems to show his chief inter est in inquiries as to the distance of the "holdings " from towns, with an eye to his sub sequent car hire. The procedure strikes one as certainly not wanting in rapidity. The tenant who wishes to have a fair rent fixed is called, and exam ined by his solicitor regarding the size and position of his holding, the improvements he has executed upon it, and its general demer its apart from those improvements. The landlord's solicitor can do little but hang watchfully on the flank, ready if a chance offers to raise abstruse points of law. So, if the case be a commonplace one, the mind is dulled by a technical babble of thoroughdrains and fences and reclamation of bogs and proximity values. Or if it be a little out of the common, the still more barbarous jargon of the Irish land code arises, and there is strange speech of future tenancies and town parks and demesne lands; and the table grows dusty with ancient leases, signed by peers dead long ago, till one's thoughts es cape to the spacious days of the Regency as one reads the autograph of, say, the most noble, the Marquis of Steyne. But if the tenant makes by any means a prima facie case, that is, practically, unless he is upset on a point of law, the court will proceed to the next stage. And here is where the "wings " come into play. To-morrow the legal commissioner will go on to sit in the next town, taking to himself a new pair of wings. The pair who have sat with him to day will go out to inspect the farms whose tenants have at this hearing established their right to an inspection and valuation by the lay commissioners for the purpose of fixing a fair rent. These experts go upon the ground in question, value it and the tenant's improvements, take into consideration the various multiple circumstances affecting it, "all the circumstances of the case, holding, and district," says the act light-heartedly, and then evolve what they, in conjunction with the legal commissioner, consider the rent