make the administration of justice in these tribunals more above suspicion.[133] They evidently believed that the Land Commission and the Sub-Commissions did not give due weight to the class of evidence that was most important, and gave too much weight to that which was the least; and they made significant observations on this subject.[134] On the whole, they arrived at the conclusion that the fixing of 'fair rents' 'gives opportunity for dissatisfaction, and leaves much more for improvement; ... and that the settlement of fair rents has been effected in an unsatisfactory manner, with diversity of opinion and practice, sometimes with carelessness, and sometimes with that bias towards one side or the other which exists in many honest minds.'[135] But their strongest animadversion was found in the system, through which, I have said, the Land Commission really 'strangled' appeals, though in this province its decisions were final: 'An almost universal dissatisfaction is expressed with regard to these appeals, a dissatisfaction felt by some at least of the Commissioners themselves. No witness, with, perhaps, a single exception, spoke in favour of the existing system.'[136] Mr. Justice Bewley has retired from office, and has been replaced by Mr. Justice Meredith, a capable and experienced lawyer. He has done, probably as much as in him lay, to alleviate some of the wrong done to Irish landlords; and for this he has been subjected to violent abuse, especially on the part of an advocate of Ulster farmers, whose tongue is at odds with his trade in temperance. But he is bound by the precedents set by those who have gone before him; and though the work of the Land Commission is now better done than it was before the Report of the Fry Commission appeared, and its general procedure has improved, little change has been effected in the reduction of rent in Ireland. The Government, as I have pointed out in a preceding chapter, has made a few administrative reforms in the composition and the arrangement of the Sub-Commissions; but it has not taken a single step to give effect to the recommendations made by the Fry Commission, so far as these are of real importance; it has refused to legislate on the subject, and to bring in the measure that was required; it has even refused to set a further inquiry on foot. The general results of the labours of the Land Commission and of its subordinate tribunals in fixing 'fair rents' may be summed up in a very few sentences. According to the Report of the Fry Commission, the tenants of rural holdings in Ireland are about 486,000 in number; 328,720 of these have had 'fair rents' fixed, between August, 1881, and the end of March, 1900.[137] The tenants, who have not had 'fair rents' fixed, are probably either tenants of lands not within the Land Acts, or 'future tenants' since 1881-82, or tenants too poor to pay law costs; but these, perhaps in nine cases out of ten, have