On Thursday, at Liverpool, Mr. Justice Grantham delivered a judgment
of some political importance. Laurence Bellew and Thomas Fitzgerald were charged with a conspiracy to boycott, they having advised and threatened dealers inclined to buy cattle which dame from the boycotted Massereene estate. The Judge laid it down that a conspiracy to prevent a man from carrying on his business was an offence against the common law of England, and the jury finding the prisoners guilty, he sentenced them to three months' hard labour. There is therefore no difference between English and Irish law in regard to boycotting, except this,—that the offence being frequent in Ireland, a Magistrate can punish as he can in England for larceny. We trust that Mr. Gladstone, after this decision, will take an early opportunity of stating that in declaring boycotting to be nothing but exclusive dealing, he was entirely misinformed. His original judgment., that it is crime which ought to be reirbrained; was, technically-as-well as `morally, the right one ; and this apart from the " sanctions " by which in Ireland the popular view is enforced.
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