IRELAND UNDER THE PRESENT GOVERNMENT.

I come now to the policy which has been pursued by the present Government since 1906. It must be remembered that the Radical party returned to power pledged to Home Rule as a principle, but with a sufficient majority to enable them to retain office without depending on the Irish vote. Hence there was no necessity for them to introduce a Home Rule Bill; but of course they set aside the policy of the Unionist Government, and resolved to govern Ireland according to their own ideas. What those ideas were, and what the result has been, I shall now proceed to show; but in doing so I shall as far as possible confine myself to quotations and statistics which can be verified, so that I may not be accused of giving an unfair report.

The Chief Secretary for the first year was Mr. Bryce, who was afterwards appointed British Ambassador at Washington. The Government at once repealed the Act which forbade the carrying of arms without a licence; withdrew all proclamations under the Crimes Act of 1887; and resolved not to stop any political meetings. Accordingly the Nationalists commenced holding a series of demonstrations all over the country. A few specimens taken from the speeches made at them will suffice to show their general tenour.

"Let them all be ready, and when England got into trouble with European Powers, they would pounce upon her with the ferocity of a tiger."-T. Walsh, District Councillor.

"They must stand together as one man, and make it impossible for England to govern Ireland."-P. White, M.P.

"If there had been 100,000 Fenians in Ireland at the time of the Boer War there might now have been a Republic in Ireland, and British supremacy would have been tumbled in the dust."-J. Daly, formerly Mayor of Limerick.

And Mr. Bryce, when leaving Ireland at the end of the year, stated that he had not found any harm in any of the speeches delivered at the meetings.

At this time the agitation began to assume a new form. One of the most important of Irish industries is the cattle trade with England, the annual value of which exceeds £14,000,000. In several parts of Ireland, notably in Meath and the central counties, the soil and climate are specially suited for cattle raising, and the land is generally held in large grazing farms. It was decided by the Nationalists in the autumn of 1906 that this industry must be destroyed. Bodies of men assembled night after night to break down the fences and gates of the farms and drive the cattle many miles away, in order that the farmers might be ruined and forced to leave the country; and then the derelict farms would be divided amongst the "landless men." L. Ginnell, M.P., explained the programme fully in a speech he made in October 1906:-

"The ranches must be broken up, not only in Westmeath but throughout all Ireland ... He advised them to stamp out the ranch demon themselves, and not leave an alien Parliament to do the duty ... He advised them to leave the ranches unfenced, unused and unusable ... so that no man or demon would dare to stand another hour between the people and the land that should be theirs."

The agitation, commencing in Meath, was gradually extended, county by county, over a large part of Ireland where the Nationalists are supreme. Other measures were resorted to, in order to carry out their object. Arson, the burning of hayricks, firing into dwelling-houses, spiking meadows, the mutilation of horses and cows, the destruction of turf, the damaging of machinery, and various other forms of lawless violence began to increase and multiply. At the Spring Assizes in 1907, the Chief Justice, when addressing the Grand Jury at Ennis, in commenting on the increasing need for placing law-abiding people under special police protection, said:-

"In a shire in England, if it was found necessary, either by special protection or protection by patrol, to protect from risk of outrage thirty persons, what would be thought?"

And Mr. Justice Kenny at Leitrim, after commenting upon the increased number of specially reported cases, as shown by the official statistics, and alluding to several cases of gross intimidation, said:-

"In these latter cases I regret to say no one has been made amenable; and when there is such a state of things, it justifies the observation made by the learned judge who presided at last Connaught Winter Assizes, that when the chain of terrorism was complete, no witness would give evidence and no jury would convict."

Thereupon Mr. Birrell, who at the beginning of the year had succeeded Mr. Bryce as Chief Secretary, having no doubt studied these and similar reports, said in a speech at Halifax in the following month:-

"You may take my word for this, that Ireland is at this moment in a more peaceful condition than for the last six hundred years."

Soon afterwards, Mr. Justice Ross, who, as Judge of the Land Judge's Court, Chancery Division, was in charge of many estates in Ireland, said:

"He had known from other Receivers about this widespread and audacious conspiracy at present rampant in the West of Ireland ... This was actually a conspiracy which on ordinary moral grounds amounted to highway robbery, to seize on these grass lands, to drive away the stock of the people who had been in the habit of taking it; and then, when the owner had been starved out, the Estates Commissioners were expected to buy up the property and to distribute it amongst the very people who had been urging on the business, and who had been engaged in these outrages."

When an Ulster member drew attention to this in the House of Commons, Mr. Birrell replied:-

"There is no evidence before the Government that a widespread conspiracy is rampant in the West of Ireland."

And in reply to another question he said that:-

"The reports he received from the police and other persons revealed the condition of Ireland generally as to peace and order as being very satisfactory."

During the month of October 1907, twenty-nine claims for compensation from the rates in respect of malicious injuries had been proved and granted in twelve counties, the amount levied from the ratepayers being about £900. The malicious injuries comprised destruction of and firing into dwelling houses, mutilation of horses and cattle, burning cattle to death, spiking meadows and damaging mowing machines, damages to fences and walls, burning heather and pasturage, damage to gates in connection with cattle driving, and injury to cattle by driving. And in November an attempt was made to assassinate Mr. White Blake and his mother when driving home from church in the County Galway. A few days after this occurred Mr. Redmond said at a meeting in North Wales:-

"Whilst there is no crime or outrage there is widespread unrest and impatience, and there are, over a certain section of the country, taking place technical breaches of the strict letter of the law in the shape of what is called cattle driving. Now let me say first of all that in no instance has any single beast been injured in the smallest degree in any of these cattle-drives; in no instance has any malicious injury been done to property, life or limb, or beast."

All this time the Government adhered to their determination not to put the Crimes Act in force, but merely to place accused persons on trial before juries at the Assizes. The results were as follows: At the Summer Assizes in 1907, 167 persons were returned for trial; of these, 57 were actually tried, of whom three were convicted, 31 acquitted, and in 23 cases the juries disagreed. The trials of the remaining 110 were postponed. At the Michaelmas sittings, 94 persons were put on trial, of whom 5 were convicted and 2 acquitted; in 72 cases the juries disagreed, and in the remaining 15 the Crown abandoned proceedings. At the Winter Assizes 86 persons were tried for unlawful assembly, riot and conspiracy in connection with cattle-driving. None were convicted; 11 were acquitted; in 12 cases the prisoners were discharged on legal points; and in 63 the juries disagreed.

I fully admit that there is much to be said for the juries who refused to convict. When a Government is doing its utmost to suppress anarchy and to enforce law and order, it is no doubt the duty of every loyal subject to render assistance even at the risk of his own life and property. But when a Government is conniving at anarchy, and deliberately refusing to put in force the Act which would put a stop to it, I say it is too much to expect of any man that he should face the prospect of being ruined and probably murdered, and his family reduced to beggary, in order to enable the Government to keep up the farce of pretending that they are trying to do their duty.

During the first half of 1908, there were 418 reported cases of cattle-driving; and arson, outrages with firearms, meadow-spiking, and similar offences increased in proportion. The judges urged in vain that the law should be put in force. But the policy of the Government remained unchanged; the Daily News (the Government organ) when cattle-driving was at its height said that thanks to the excellent government of Mr. Birrell cattle-driving now had practically become extinct even in those few parts of the country in which it had existed; and in July Mr. Birrell, addressing a political meeting at Port Sunlight, said that:-

"They were led to believe that the state of Ireland was of an appalling character, that crime predominated, and that lawlessness almost universally prevailed. All he could say was that a more cheerful land was nowhere to be found."

In 1909 matters became somewhat quieter, chiefly because Mr. Birrell promised to introduce a Land Bill by which the cattle-drivers hoped to get all they wanted. Hence their leaders advised them to "give Birrell a chance," but Mr. Redmond warned the Government that if they did not carry out their pledge, they would speedily find Ireland ungovernable. In February 1909, Lord Crewe, speaking for the Government in the House of Lords, made the remarkable statement:-

"As regards intimidation, I have always shared the view that well-organized intimidation cannot be checked by law. I know no method of checking it."

If this is not an admission that the Government had failed in their duty, it is hard to say what is. The result of their line of action will be seen by the following table, which has been taken from various returns which the Ulster members, by repeated questions in Parliament at last succeeded in forcing Mr. Birrell to make public:-

Agrarian outrages1906234
" "1907372
" "1908576
Cattle-drives1905Nil
" "1907-8513
" "1908-9622
" "1908219
Cattle maiming, mutilating, etc.1907142
Persons boycotted1907196
" "1908270
" "1909335
Cost of extra police1908£47,000
1911.
Agrarian outrages581
Malicious injuries to property, Intimidating
by threatening letters, etc.285
Firing into dwelling houses58
Rioting, robbery of arms, etc.31
Killing and maiming cattle83

It may be asked, why did not the Ulster members call the attention of Parliament to this state of things? The answer is, they did so again and again; Mr. Birrell gave stereotyped replies, much after this form, with hardly a variation:-

I have seen in the newspapers a report that a few shots were fired into a farmhouse in Galway. No one appears to have been seriously injured. The police are making enquiries. No arrests have been made.

(He might as well have added that he knew perfectly well that no arrests ever would be made.) Then he would go to a political meeting and say that the peaceful condition of Ireland was shown by the small number of criminal cases returned for trial at the Assizes; and would bitterly denounce the "Carrion Crows" (as he designated the Ulster members) for trying to blacken the reputation of their country.

One instance may be given more in detail, as typical of the condition to which Ireland had been brought. Lord Ashtown (a Unionist Peer residing in County Galway) began issuing month by month a series of pamphlets entitled "Grievances from Ireland." They contained little besides extracts from Nationalist papers giving reports of the meetings of the United Irish League, the outrages that took place, and the comments of Nationalist papers on them. His object was to let the people in England see from the accounts given by the Nationalists themselves, what was going on in Ireland. This, however, was very objectionable to them; and one of their members asked Mr. Birrell in the House of Commons whether the pamphlets could not be suppressed. Mr. Birrell made the curious reply that he would be very glad if Lord Ashtown were stopped, but that he did not see how to do it. What he expected would be the results of that remark, I do not know; but no one living in Ireland was much surprised when a few weeks afterwards a bomb outrage occurred at the residence of Lord Ashtown in the County Waterford. It was a clumsy failure. A jar containing gunpowder was placed against the wall of the house where he was staying and set on fire. The explosion wrecked part of the building, but Lord Ashtown escaped unhurt. He gave notice of his intention to apply at the next assizes for compensation for malicious injury. The usual custom in such cases is for a copy of the police report showing the injury complained of, to be sent to the person seeking compensation; but on this occasion the police refused to show Lord Ashtown their report, stating that they had received orders from the Government not to do so. But shortly before the case came on, a report, not made by the police authority in charge of the district, but by another brought in specially for the purpose, appeared in the Nationalist papers. This report contained the remarkable suggestion that Lord Ashtown had done it himself! When under cross-examination at the trial, the Inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary who made the report was obliged to confess that he did not believe that he had, but had only inserted the suggestion in obedience to instruction received from the Government. Lord Ashtown proved his case and was awarded compensation. But the matter did not end there. He had employed a surveyor, Mr. Scully, to draw plans and take photographs showing the amount of the damage. Mr. Scully was surveyor to the Waterford Corporation. It was proposed at the next meeting of the Corporation that he should be dismissed from his office for having given evidence for Lord Ashtown. The motion was carried unanimously, eight councillors being present; and at the following meeting it was ratified by eight votes to two. A question was asked about the matter in the House of Commons; and Mr. Birrell, with the figures before him, replied that Mr. Scully had never been dismissed.

Two other instances of this period must be briefly referred to. It has already been shown how the Irish Parliament endowed Maynooth as a College for Roman Catholic students both lay and theological; and how Trinity College, Dublin, opened its doors to all students, without distinction of creed. But the Roman Catholic Church turned Maynooth into a seminary for theological students only; and the bishops forbade young laymen to go to Trinity. In 1845 Sir Robert Peel attempted to supply the want by founding the Queen's University, with Colleges at Belfast, Cork and Galway, where mixed education should be given in secular subjects, and separate instruction in those appertaining to religion; but that again was denounced as a "satanic scheme for the ruin of faith in the rising generation"; and the crusade against the university was so successful that in 1879 it was destroyed and another-the Royal University-put in its place. This in its turn was abolished in 1909; the College at Belfast was raised to the status of a University, and a new University ominously called the "National University" was founded into which the existing Colleges at Cork and Galway were absorbed, with a new and richly endowed College in Dublin at the head. It may seem strange that the Radical Government who are pledged to destroy all religious education in England should found and endow a Denominational University in Ireland. But the matter could be arranged by a little judicious management and prevarication; it was represented in Parliament that the new University was to be strictly unsectarian; during the debate, Sir P. Magnus, the member for the London University, said that he had no reason to believe that there was any intention on the part of the Chief Secretary to set up denominational Universities in Ireland; he accepted his word that they were to be entirely undenominational. Then, when the Act was passed, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin was appointed Chancellor of the National University, with a number of Jesuits as Professors, and Cardinal Logue stated as follows:-

"No matter what obstacles the Nonconformists may have inserted in the Constitution of the University to keep it from being Catholic, we will make it Catholic in spite of them."

Personally, I do not object to denominational Universities. I regret that young men who are going to live in the same country should not be able to study law and medicine together; but if that is their feeling and the feeling of their parents, I admit that having separate Universities may be the best solution of the difficulty. But if so, let it be openly avowed that the University is denominational; to "make it Catholic" and at the same time to say that it is no injustice to Protestants that County Scholarships paid for by the ratepayers should be tenable there and nowhere else, seems to me absurd.

The other incident to which reference must be made was the great Convention held in Dublin in 1909. The Nationalists, believing that a Home Rule Bill would soon be introduced, devised the scheme of assembling a monster Convention, which would be evidence to the world of how admirably fitted the Irish people were to govern their own country. It was attended by 2,000 delegates from all parts of the country, who were to form a happy family, as of course no disturbing Unionist element would be present to mar the harmony and the clerical element would be strong. Mr. Redmond, who presided, said in his opening address:-

"Ireland's capacity for self-government will be judged at home and abroad by the conduct of this Assembly. Ireland's good name is at stake, and therefore every man who takes part in this Assembly should weigh his words and recognise his responsibility."

The meeting ended in a free fight.

At the end of 1909 Mr. Asquith did a very clever thing. A general election was pending, and he wished to avoid the mistake which Gladstone had made in 1885. He therefore, at a great meeting at the Albert Hall unfolded an elaborate programme of the long list of measures which the Government would introduce and carry, and in the course of his remarks said that Home Rule was the only solution of the Irish problem, and that in the new House of Commons the hands of a Liberal Government and of a Liberal majority would in this matter be entirely free. He and his followers carefully abstained from referring to the subject in their election addresses; and Mr. Asquith was thus free, if he should obtain a majority independent of the Irish vote, to say that he had never promised to make Home Rule part of his programme; but if he found he could not retain office without that vote, he might buy it by promising to introduce the Bill and refer to his words at the Albert Hall as justification for doing so. The latter happened; hence the "Coalition Ministry." The Irish party consented to please the Radicals by voting for the Budget, and the Nonconformists by voting for Welsh Disestablishment, on condition that they should in return vote for Home Rule. As Mr. Hobhouse (a Cabinet Minister) expressed it in 1911:-

"Next year we must pay our debt to the Nationalist Members, who were good enough to vote for a Budget which they detested and knew would be an injury to their country."

But the people of England still had to be hood-winked. It was hardly likely that they would consent to their representatives voting for the separation of Ireland from Great Britain; so the Nationalists and their Radical allies went about England declaring that they had no wish for such a thing; that all they desired was a subordinate Parliament leaving the Imperial Parliament supreme. Thus Mr. Redmond suggested at one meeting that Ireland should be conceded the right of managing her own purely local affairs for herself in a subordinate Parliament, subject to the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament; and at another meeting said:

"We are not asking for a Repeal of the Union. We are not asking for the restoration of a co-ordinate Parliament such as Ireland had before the Union. We are only asking that there should be given to Ireland a subordinate Parliament. We therefore admit the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament. That means that after this subordinate Parliament is created in Ireland, if the Parliament is foolish enough, rash enough, as it never will be, but if it were foolish enough and criminal enough to use the powers given to it for injustice or oppression of any class or creed, the Imperial Parliament would have the power to stretch forth the arm of its authority and to say 'you shall not do that.'"

Of course it may be argued that they had changed their minds; that in former times they worked for separation, but now realised that a subordinate Parliament was all that Ireland required. But unfortunately for this theory, they have themselves repudiated it; when Mr. Redmond was accused of speaking with two voices, one in America and one in Great Britain, he passionately replied:-

"I indignantly deny that accusation. I have never in my life said one word on a platform in America one whit stronger than I had said in my place on the floor of the House of Commons. I have never in America or anywhere else, advocated the separation of Ireland from Great Britain."

How far this is true, the quotations from his speeches which have already been given, will have shown. But the Government have kept up the farce; Mr. Winston Churchill said during the debate on the Bill of 1912:-

"The Home Rule movement has never been a separatist movement. In the whole course of its career it has been a moderating, modifying movement, designed to secure the recognition of Irish claims within the circuit of the British Empire."

But not even the immediate prospect of Home Rule can be said to have made those parts of Ireland where the League is supreme a happy place of residence to any but advanced Nationalists. The following report of a case in the Magistrate's Court at Ennis in November 1912 will speak for the condition of the County Clare:-

Patrick Arkins was charged with knocking down walls on the farm of Mrs. Fitzpatrick in order to compel her to give up the farm. Inspector Davis gave evidence that from January 1910 to that date there were 104 serious outrages in his district. In 42 firearms were used, 27 were malicious injuries, 32 were threatening notices, 1 case of bomb explosion outside a house, 1 robbery of arms, and 1 attempted robbery. A sum of £268 had been awarded as compensation for malicious injury and there were claims for £75 pending for malicious injuries committed during the week ended 11th inst. There were two persons under constant police protection, and 16 receiving protection by patrol. Head Constable Mulligan said that Mrs. Fitzpatrick was under police protection. Since February 11th, 1912, there had been 12 outrages in the district, Mrs. Fitzpatrick was under almost constant police protection. Acting Sergeant Beegan deposed that there had been 12 outrages on the Fitzpatrick family during the last four years; these included driving cattle off the lands, threatening notices, firing shots at the house, knocking down walls, spiking meadows; the new roof of a hay barn was perforated with bullets, and at Kiltonaghty Chapel there were notices threatening death to anyone who would work for Mrs. Fitzpatrick. Timothy Fitzpatrick gave similar evidence as to the outrages, and said that his father had taken the farm twenty-one years ago, and had paid the son of the former tenant £40 for his goodwill.

(I may add that Arkins was committed for trial, convicted at the Assizes and sentenced to seven years penal servitude; and was released by Mr. Birrell a few weeks afterwards.)

In another Clare case, in February of the present year, the resident Magistrate said as follows:-

"It is a mistake to say that these outrages are arising out of disputes between landlord and tenant; nine out of ten arise out of petty disputes about land. What is the use of having new land laws? A case occurred not long ago in this county of a man who had bought some land twenty years ago, and paid down hard cash to the outgoing tenant. The man died, and left a widow and children on the land for fourteen years. But in 1908 a man who had some ulterior object got the man who had sold the farm to send in a claim under the Evicted Tenant's Act, which was rejected. That was what the advisers of the man wanted-they only wanted a pretext for moonlighting and other disgraceful outrages, and the woman was kept in a hell for four years. A man was caught at last and convicted, and one would think that this was a subject for rejoicing for all right-minded men in the county. But what was the result? A perfect tornado of letters was printed, and resolutions and speeches appeared in the public press, condemning this conviction of a moonlighter in Clare as an outrage against justice."

The Roman Catholic Bishop of Killaloe, in a sermon preached in December 1912, referring to County Clare said:-

"That county had had an evil record in the matter of crime, and they were so accustomed to outrages of almost weekly occurrence around them that it was not easy to shock them. There was an inoffensive family sitting round the fireside with a couple of neighbours. They had given no offence, they had wronged no man, they had crossed no man's path. But that inhuman beast went to the door and lifted the latch, and there, at a few yards distance, fired into that innocent group of men, women and children, as if they were a flock of crows, killing the mother outright and almost blowing the forehead off a young girl. There was no denying the fact that that brutal murder was the natural outcome of the disgraceful system of intimidation and outrage that had been rampant for a long time in certain districts of that unhappy county and of the immunity from punishment enjoyed by the wicked and cowardly moonlighter. In addition to their other acts of savagery, they had shot out the eyes of two men within the last couple of years. A decent, honest man was shot on the road to Ennis. The people passed the wounded man by and refused to take him into their car through fear. Not one of these well-known miscreants was brought to justice. The murderers of poor Garvey, the cow-houghers, the hay-burners, were said to be known. In any other country, for instance in the United States, such ruffianism would be hunted down or lynched; but there, in the places he referred to, they had a curtain of security drawn round them by the cowardice or perverted moral sense on the part of the community amongst whom they lived.... It was only last Thursday night, before the county had recovered from the shock of Mrs. O'Mara's murder, that right over the mountain an unfortunate postman was shot on the public road between Crusheen and Baliluran for no other reason apparently than that another fellow wanted his job of one and six-pence a day! It has come to this, that if you differ with one of them for a shilling, or refuse to give him his way in everything the first thing that comes into his head is to moonlight you.... They have not elevation or social instinct to settle their petty disputes by process of law provided for the purpose by a civilized society, nor have they Christianity enough to bear a little wrong or disappointment for Christ's sake. No, nor the manliness even to meet an opponent face to face and see it out with him like a man; but with the cunning of a mean and vicious dog, he steals behind him in the dark and shoots him in the back, or murders the helpless woman of his family, or shoots out the eyes of the poor man's horse, or cuts the throat of his bullock and spikes his beast upon a gate."

Nor has the present year brought much improvement. In May 1913, Mr. R. Maunsell was fired at and wounded close to the town of Ennis. His crime was that he managed a farm for a Mr. Bannatyne, whose family had been in possession of it for about sixty years, but who had recently been denounced by the United Irish League and ordered to surrender it. As he has refused to do so, he is now compelled to live under police protection.

The abolition of landlordism and the acquisition of firearms can hardly be said to have brought peace and tranquillity to the County of Clare.

And as to Galway, we may gather the state of affairs from the report of a case tried at the Winter Assizes of 1912. Three men were charged with having done grievous bodily harm to a man named Conolly. Conolly swore that he knew a man named Broderick who had become unpopular but he (Conolly) kept to him and this brought displeasure on him from the accused and others. On the night of the 11th September he went to bed; he was subsequently awakened and found 44 grains of shot in his left knee and four in his right. He then lay flat on the floor. Other shots were fired through the window but did not strike him. The judge said the district was a disgrace to Ireland. Day after day, night after night, heaps of outrages were committed there, and not one offender was made amenable to justice. The jury disagreed, and the accused were again put on their trial. The judge in charging the jury on the second trial said that then, and for some time, the district was swarming with police, and though outrages were frequent, it was impossible for them to bring anyone to justice. No one was sure he might not be fired at during the night; and people were afraid to give evidence. The jury again disagreed.

During the autumn of 1912 an effort was made to hold a series of meetings throughout the south and west of Ireland to protest against Home Rule. The conduct of the Nationalists with regard to them supplies a striking commentary on Mr. Redmond's statement at Banbury not long before, that all through his political life he had preached conciliation towards those who differed from him on the question of Home Rule. The meetings were in some cases stopped by force; at Limerick the windows of the Protestant Church and of some houses occupied by Protestants were smashed; at Tralee the principal speaker was a large farmer named Crosbie; all his hay and sheds were burned down, and he was awarded £600 compensation by the County Court Judge.

But an incident had occurred in the north which, though in a sense comparatively slight, has, in consequence of the circumstances connected with it, done more to inflame the men of Ulster than persons not living in Ireland can realise. In June of last year a party of Sunday School children from a suburb of Belfast went for a picnic to Castledawson (co. Derry) under the charge of a Presbyterian minister and a few teachers and ladies. On their way back to the railway station, they were met and assailed by a procession of men belonging to the Order of Hibernians armed with pikes who attacked the children with the pikes and with stones, seized a Union Jack which a small boy was carrying, and knocked down and kicked some of the girls and teachers. Worse might have happened had not some Protestant young men, seeing what was going on, come to the rescue. The minister was struck with stones whilst he was endeavouring to get some of the children to a place of safety. No Nationalist has ever expressed the slightest regret at the occurrence. Several of the aggressors were tried at the Winter Assizes and sentenced to three months' imprisonment. Before the end of the term they were released by order of the Government. Mr. Birrell, in justifying his action, said that the judge had remarked that there was no evidence before him of actual injury. This, like many of his statements, was literally true; but he omitted to mention that he had prevented the evidence from being given; the injured women and children were quite ready to give their testimony, but were not called by the counsel for the crown.

It is unnecessary to say that this foretaste of Home Rule government has made the Presbyterians of Ulster more determined than ever to resist it to the bitter end.

I shall next proceed to consider the Bill which the Government have introduced as a panacea for the woes of Ireland.