Dean Stannus, in his evidence before the Devon commission, stated that only a small portion of the estate was held by lease.  The leases were obtained in a curious way.  In 1823 a system of fining commenced.  If a tenant wanted a lease he was required to pay in cash a fine of 10 l. an acre, which was equal to an addition of ten shillings an acre to the rent for twenty years, not counting the interest on the money thus sunk in the land.  Yet, such was the desire of the tenants to have a better security than the tenant-right custom, always acknowledged on the estate, that ‘every man who had money took advantage of it.’  Mr. Gregg, the seneschal of the manor, gave an illustration of the working of this fining system.  A tenant sold his farm of fourteen acres for 205 l., eight of the fourteen acres being held at will.  The person who bought the farm was obliged to take a lease of the eight acres, and to pay a proportional fine in addition to the sum paid for the tenant-right.  Dean Stannus said ’he would wish to see the tenant-right upheld upon the estate of Lord Hertfort, as it always had been.  It is that,’ he said, ’which has kept up the properties in the north over the properties in other parts of Ireland.  It is a security for the rent in the first instance, and reconciles the tenants to much of what are called grievances.  If you go into a minute calculation of what they have expended, they are not more than paid for their expenditure.’  It transpired in the course of the examination that a man who had purchased tenant-right, and paid a fine of 10 l. an acre on getting a lease, would have to pay a similar fine over again when getting the lease renewed.  The result of these heavy advances was that the middle-class farmers lived in constant pecuniary difficulties.  They were obliged to borrow money at six per cent. to pay the rent, but they borrowed it under circumstances which made it nearly 40 per cent., for it was lent by dealers in oatmeal and other things, from whom they were obliged to purchase large quantities of goods at such a high rate that they sold them again at a sacrifice of 33 per cent.

Mr. Joshua Lamb, another witness, stated that the effect of the fining system had been to draw away a great deal of the accumulated capital out of the hands of the tenantry, as well as their anticipated savings for years to come, by which the carrying out of improved methods of agriculture was prevented.  Still, the existence of a lease for 31 years doubled the value of the tenant-right.  This witness made a remarkable statement.  With respect to this custom he said:  The ’effect of this arrangement, when duly observed, is to prevent all disputes, quarrels, burnings, and destruction of property, so common in those parts of Ireland where this practice does not prevail.  Indeed, so fully are farmers aware of this, that very few, except the most reckless, would venture on taking a farm without obtaining the outgoing tenant’s “good-will.”  Such a