be placed in a position of independence, and should, so far as possible, be lifted above the suspicions that surround them.'[94] Sixty or seventy officials of this type--the number was afterwards largely increased--were thus, in the significant words of one, 'let loose over Ireland' to deal with estates; it is very remarkable that they have never received instructions from the Land Commission how to perform their duties. The procedure of the Courts of the Sub-Commissions was, under existing conditions, as well devised as could be fairly expected. The three Commissioners, who formed a Court, nearly always sate together, and heard the evidence brought before them as to what were 'fair rents;' the legal Commissioner decided questions of law; and, this evidence having been taken, the two lay Commissioners inspected the farms, the subjects of the previous inquiries, and having conferred with their legal colleague, determined with him what should be their 'fair rents.' This was the ordinary if not the universal practice; if some deviations have been made from it, these cannot be deemed of very great importance. Grave complaints have been made, in not a few instances, of the lay Commissioners, when engaged in examining lands; it has been said that they often neglected and 'scamped' their work; but these charges have been hardly, if at all, sustained; my own experience--and it is tolerably large--is that the Commissioners performed their functions with diligence and care, and sometimes gave proof of real knowledge of husbandry.[95] But it was utterly impossible that tribunals of this kind, not composed of experts of a high order, dependent upon the breath of the Castle, without regulations to direct their conduct, and acting, without concert, in many districts, could adjust rent in a satisfactory way, and in conformity with true methods, especially as the work they had to do was excessive; indeed, they sometimes fixed 'fair rents' by dozens in a day. It was equally impossible that the Sub-Commissions--and to do their members justice they never made the attempt--could take into account all the manifold and far-reaching elements which enter into the question of 'fair rent,' and could set forth, in exhaustive judgments, the principles applicable to a most intricate problem. On the contrary, as a rule, and no doubt wisely, they avoided topics which might have tasked the highest judicial powers; they decided the cases before them summarily, and with little reflection, certainly without the protracted examination required to establish settled rules and doctrines. And the result has been that they disregarded, and even set at nought, a whole series of considerations, of supreme importance, with reference to the fixing of 'fair rent;' and, however unconsciously and innocently, they have been the authors, in the first instance at least, of the gravest injustice, and of wrong, done wholesale, to the landed gentry of Ireland.