It is a significant feature of the present agitation in Ireland that all parties are nearly agreed so far as the Connaught peasant cultivator is concerned. That anything approaching agreement on any part of the complex Irish problem should be arrived at is so remarkable that I am inclined to hearken to the popular voice. Whatever may be done for the benefit of other parts of the country, something must, it is thought, be attempted for the counties of Mayo and Galway. So far as I have been able to arrive at facts and opinions, it is not altogether a question of rent. A general remission of rent in these two counties would merely have the effect of enriching those farmers who are already "snug," but would leave the peasant cultivators exactly as they are at present. It is quite true that in some of the most wretched places I have seen the rent is extravagantly high; but while exclaiming against attempted extortion, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact that for the last two years the attempt has been in the main abortive. Everybody is not so deep in his landlord's books as the irreconcileable Thomas Browne, of Cloontakilla; but a vast number of poor tenants owe one and a half and two years' rent. I speak of those whose holdings are "set" from 3l. to 8l. per annum. The rent has not impoverished them this year at any rate; they have had a fair harvest, their beast or few sheep have fetched good prices, and yet they are miserably poor. It is quite true that two very bad years preceded the good one, but allowing for all this there is no room for hope that under their present conditions of existence they will ever be better off than they are now--when they are practically living rent free.