SELECT COMMITTEE ON FICTITIOUS VOTES, IRELAND. 4,> 9 15309 Mr. O'Connell Did you ever combine the marketable value and the 7?;.; * n , r result of the produce, the profit and loss upon tillage, so as to constitute together a title ?— Clearly not, because there would be more or less of an > 7 July 1838. absurdity in that. 15310. Mr. Lefroy.~] What use then would you make of the marketable value it you reject it as a criterion, if it does not come up to 10/ I adopted it just as a test by asking the claimant generally what might be the value cf his holding. _ He might err in giving me the marketable value, because he never brought it into the market. 15311. Is it because he might err in giving you the marketable value that you enter into the other ?— Yes, it is because he may form a false estimate of the marketable value that I enter into the value of the produce, because under the 10 Geo. 4, in my humble judgment, there was every latitude allowed to the claimant, even according to the standard of valuation prescribed by that Act, for under that Act the claimant swore to the value according to his belief • he could not swear otherwise unless he actually advertised his land to be let before he went into the registry court, and had received proposals; and I must say this, in consequence of the extraordinary competition for land in Ireland, there might be more given for land than what it was intrinsically worth, and a man who only annexed 81. as the value, taking the marketable value as the guide of value, might get 12/. for it. 15312. Then from the great competition for land in Ireland, do you think table value is not a high test?— I think it is not an the test of the marketable unerring test. 15313. It cannot be a high test; if the competition for land occasions an extraordinary and extravagant bidding for land, the market value cannot be a very high test ?— It must lead to a disproportion between that and the intrinsic value. 15314. Must it not lead necessarily to bidding considerably above the actual value ?— Precisely. 15315- So that then the marketable value is really a less stringent test than the actual value, according to what you conceive of it?— It maybe in some cases. 15316. But from the great competition for land which you state to take place in Ireland, must it not be so ?— In the generality of cases it must. 15317. Mr. & Cornell.] Do you mean to say this, that those persons who thus bid for land are solvent tenants who are able to pay ?— Clearly not. 15318. If the test were what a solvent tenant could afford to pay, it would be much higher ?— It would be much more accurate. 15319. And it would be much less than what you call the marketable value ? — Yes. 15320. The marketable value then, according to you, is the wild bidding of persons who, being anxious for land, are reckless what they offer?— Yes. 15321. Mr. Lefroy.] Then when you spoke of applying the marketable value as a test, was it the wild and extravagant bidding of persons who were ready to offer any rent, whether they paid it or not; was that the test you applied ? — No. 15322. Then what was the test you applied?— I asked the claimant, " What do you think you could get an acre for this land ? I could get so and so;" suppose it is a case of 10 acres ; " From the improvements you have made and other circumstances, what would you get an acre ?" and the reply was, so and so. 15323. Did you ever put it to them in this way, c£ What could a good and solvent tenant afford to pay you for that farm " ?— I never did, to my recol- lection. . , 15324. Then you only put it in reference to the marketable value in the sense of what any man looking at random would bid for it ?— In tlie rough guess of the claimant. , e 15325. And you never brought the claimant to that test on the solvency ot the bidder ?— Never to mv recollection. . , 15326. Mr. Hogg. 1 The result of your evidence is, that lands m the King s County, from the competition, are let extremely high ?- No, I cannot say that, and I am very glad the question is put to me in that way, because the holdings in the King's County are what I may term ancient holdings; the persons who occupy are the descendants of people who lived under the same landlord and 643- 3 G 4