CONDITIONS IN IRELAND

Otago Witness, Issue 2805, 18 December 1907, Page 28

CONDITIONS IN IRELAND

SPEECH BY MR BIRRELL. LONDON, December 9. Mr William O'Brien, M.P., and Mr Timothy Healy, M.P., strongly denounce the cattle-driving campaign. - Seventeen persons were tried atLeinster for unlawful assembly, but the jury disagreed. The jury at the Munster Assizes declined to convict three prisoners of manslaughter, although one was seen striking the deceased, and all were identified. December 10. In the course of a speech at Devonport Mr Balfour severely condemned the Government's misgovernment in Ireland. He- declared that the reason Mr Birrell was unable to obtain the conviction of cftttle-driyers was- because he , refused to pu^ the' Crimes Act" into operation. Ministers had become slaves to their own perorations, and they would rather see the law flouted than recant their rash speeches. Mr D. Sheehy, M.P. for South Meath, speaking near' Trim, recommended persistence in cattle-driving, in order to compel ranching landlords to sell their land. December 12. The estates of the Earl of Westmeath and Lord Clonbrook were raided, and nundreds of cattle removed. December 13. Sixteen persons were bound over at to keep the peace for cattledriving. Pour farms at Tulsk, Tonbane, and Atokestown were cleared of cattle, despite the efforts of the police. December 14. Thomas Smyth has been sentenced to four months' imprisonment at the Wicklow assizes on a charge of "Whiteboyism." •He delivered a- letter which threatened a woman's life unless she surrendered two farms which she recently purchased. Seeing that the woman was not affraid he fired two shots over her head. [The Whiteboys were originally known as levellers, the latter name being given to agrarian bands, first formed in Limerick in 1761, whq. -tore down the fences with which the commons had been enclosedThey were afterwards known as Whiteboys, from the white shirts which they wore over their other garments.] Mrs Minnie Walsh and her son Percy Walsh have been committed for trial on the charge of conspiring to obtain from Lord Ashtown and Mr Chenevix Trench, Ids agent, money under false pretences,

also with, conspiring to incit-e Patrick Cahill, J. Ward, and others unknown to blow up a building at Woodawn, Lord Ashtown's Galway neat. Mr Birrell, in replying to a landlords' deputation at Dublin, declared that cattledriving was illegal, and indefensible from • ©very standpoint. He denied that the Government had stood by with folded arms and taken no active steps to suppress the offence. Of 225 persons bound over, none > had offended again. The graziers had | failed to assist the police. The agitation would not be allowed to affect the price of land. Legislation might soon be forth- . coming to break up the Rosconunon and Galway grass lands so as to increase the number of those on the soil. The Government had 'refrained from enforcing the Crimes Act for reasons which he was quite prepared to state at the proper place and time.