iv meet this variation between the materials for making the Returns in the two countries it was directed that a foot- note should be added to the return for each county in Ireland stating the per- centage ( to be estimated by the Commissioner of Valuation) that should be added to the rateable value to ascertain approximately the rent value. Subsequently, however, the Commissioner of Valuation informed the Local Government Board for Ireland that he had been instructed to prepare a general explanatory note, applicable to the whole of Ireland, for insertion at the end of the Return. A copy of this explanatory note will accordingly be found at the end of the general summary with which the Return concludes, and a copy is also inserted here :— " In this Return, instead of the gross estimated rental being given, as in the Return for England and Wales, the rateable valuation is set forth. " This valuation was made many years ago, and is based upon the scale of prices of agricultural produce contained in the Act 15 & 1G Vict., cap. 63, which scale is much below the present average prices of such produce, consequently the valuation cannot be compared in any way with the gross estimated rental given in the Return for England and Wales." The documents from which alone the Return could be prepared— viz., the valuation and rate books— being in the custody of the clerks of the several unions, it became necessary to call upon each clerk for a return of the necessary particulars for his union; showing, where the union extended into two or more counties, the portion of the union comprised in each county separately, with a view to the subsequent arrangement of the returns in county order in this office. The only exception to this course of proceeding was in those parts of the two Dublin unions which comprise the City of Dublin, where the rates being made and collected by the Collector- General and not by the Boards of Guardians the same means were not available to the clerks of those unions for the preparation of the Return as in other cases; and the Collector- General having declaimed himself unable, with the staff at his disposal, to undertake the duty without prejudice to the progress of the collection of the rate, the necessary particulars were, with the sanction of the Lords of the Treasury, collected and returned to the Board under the superintendence of a gentleman connected with the Valuation Office, specially nominated for the duty by the Commissioner of Valuation. The forms and instructions used for obtaining the returns from the several unions were framed as far as circumstances permitted in the same terms as those which had been issued in England, and were submitted to and approved by His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant before they were issued. In the instructions issued to the union clerks they were informed :— That the Return was intended to show :— ( 1.) The number awl names of owners of land of one acre and upwards, whether built upon or not; including lessees for terms exceeding 99 years, or with a right of perpetual renewal with the acreage and net annual value of the property belonging to each owner as shown in the valuation lists. ( 2.) The number of owners of land, whether built upon or not, of less than one acre, with the aggregate area and net annual value of such property.