Mr. Ian Malcolm sends another instructive letter to the Times
on the lawless state of Ireland. To find a parallel to the violence, intimidation, and boycotting now prevalent, defenders of Mr. Birrell, as he points out, have to go back to 1887, when Lord Salisbury had recently succeeded to Mr. Gladstone's five years' tenure of office. But, thanks to the resolute application of the Crimes Act, by 1891 there was not a single person boycotted either wholly or • partially ; now there are eight hundred and forty, while in the disturbed districts (sixteen counties out of thirty-two) the general terror is even more serious than it has been for years past. Mr. Ian Malcolm gives some illuminating examples of the ingenious methods of coercing " offenders " employed by the League, and concludes with the observation that this tyranny is far worse for the poor than for the rich. "The latter can, after all, leave the country if the worst comes to the worst; the former have got to see it through, even though they starve or turn traitors to their principles."
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