HARVEST UNDER ARMS.

Press, Volume LXIV, Issue 13234, 30 September 1908, Page 7

HARVEST UNDER ARMS.

One officer and twenty-five men fully armed, with a supply of ammunition, have been sent from. Dublin to protect the harvest workers on the lands of Major Dyas, live miles from Wells, County Westnioath (reports a recent "Daily Mail). For yeai« he grazed the land until cattle-driving made him turn it into raeado-. Owing to alleged in-.

timidation and boycotting, no labourers cculd bo per.-uad'cd to rra.p the crop, and the Property Defence Association sent down workers from UlsterTht -o arc encamped on a field, and the trcors have tot up their tents to guard them from the peasants. Patrols are kept day and night, t.-peei;ilh- at night. kst the land be spiked. In the fields in whi-h the reapers aro at work guards aro mount:-d from morning to nigJu. The work is making slow progress. The loss, of a nut off the mowing machine- cost a delay of half a v day, as the officer had to son:! two of his men to Naran, twelve miles away, fer anc-i'ier. The roads, too, have been Ktriv.-ri with broken Ijot-tleu to prevent cycling. When darkness falls pon«ii-t.--surround the place in hundreds, threatening ar.d jeering, but no collision has yet ctcurrcd. Tho camp must remain in existence fer at least two cr tiliree weeks.