The alternative method of delay and litigation had been further
discounted, for everybody except Mr. Dillon, by the fact that in the
classic case--_Adams_ v. _Dunseath_--tried out in accordance with Mr.
Gladstone's panacea, Adams, after repeated lawsuits, improved his
financial position by an infinitesimal sum per annum without becoming an
owner of his farm. It was also agreed that the Estates Commissioners
appointed to administer the Act, should be administrative officials
under the Government, and not amateur judges. This was essential, not
only to substitute cheap speed for costly delay, but also to ensure that
the benefits offered by the State should not be absorbed, say, in the
rich province of Leinster to the detriment of the poorer province of
Connaught, or--for who knows what may happen in Ireland?--absorbed in
the Home Rule province of Connaught to the detriment of the Unionist
province of Ulster.
C. _Dealing with Estates as a whole instead of with single holdings._
This process, till then applied tentatively in the congested districts
of the West, became the general method throughout Ireland, and was
assisted by the provision of working capital for carrying out necessary
amalgamations and improvements before resale.
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