24 APRIL 1920, Page 3

A new form of terrorism is spreading in Ireland which

the Dublin correspondent of the Times describes as " agrarian Bolshevism." The conditions which had prevailed in Galway for some weeks have spread to the Midlands. Farmers, says the correspondent, are being compelled under threats of violence to surrender their holdings at ridiculous prices to labourers and landless men. Cattle-driving is being conducted in the West by a regular organization. Local cases are being tried before self-constituted Courts of Sinn Fein, and recently at Kilrush when the County Court Judge entered his Court he was informed that many of the cases on his list had been " already settled or had been withdrawn." Yet another form of terrorism is the warning issued by Sinn Fein to ratepayers that they must stop paying -rates. The issue of an -instruction before long to stop paying rent is expected as a natural sequeL

The coroner's jury at Cork which inquired into the murder of Mr. MacCurtain, the late Lord Mayor of Cork, returned an insolent verdict that "Mr. MacCurtain was wilfully murdered under circumstances of the moat callous brutality, and that the murder was organized and carried out by the Royal Irish Constabulary officially directed by the British Government."