enclose a printed paper, which will give you further information on
this subject. In conclusion, I would point out that the suggestion
that the agrarian trouble in Ireland arises from the difficulty
experienced by the tenants in getting judicial rents fixed is not
warranted by the facts. Take as illustrations the cases of two
estates which have lately been prominently before the
public--namely, the Ponsonby and the Olphert. In the former case
the landlord is anxious, I believe, to get the tenants to go into
Court, and offers to give retrospective effect to the decisions,
though not bound by law to do so, but under the influence of the
agitators the tenants refuse to go into Court. In the latter
instance judicial rents have long since been fixed in the great
majority of cases.

"Yours faithfully,

"ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR."

Together with this easy mode of purchase by which the quiet and
industrious are profiting, rents are reduced all over the country,
though still the Home Rulers reiterate the old charge of
"rack-renting," as if such a thing were the rule. These unscrupulous
misstatements, indeed, make half the difficulties of the Irish
question; for lies stick fast, where disclaimers, proofs, facts, and
figures, pass by like dry leaves on the wind. But for all the fact of
past extortion the present reductions are not always a proof of
over-renting. What Mr. Buxton says has common sense on the face of
it:--

"Very serious reductions of rents are being made all through Ireland