24 OCTOBER 1908, Page 3

Monday's papers contain a long letter from Mr. W. O'Brien,

M.P., on Mr. Asquith's refusal to receive a feint deputation of Munster landowners and tenants with a view to a settlement of the land purchase problem. According to Mr. O'Brien, Mr. Asquith's action was dictated to him by Mr. Dillon, who had already "published in the Freeman's Journal a bull of major excommunication against the union of landlords and tenants on the peace platform in Cork, and gave the Government the broadest hint that they must hold no parley with the deputation." Mr. Birrell had

already reluctantly acquiesced in this attitude in a letter to Mr. O'Brien, in which he said they had to bear in mind that there were other parties interested in the question of land purchase in Ireland who would not regard themselves as being represented by Mr. O'Brien's deputation. To this Mr. O'Brien retorts by saying that the only interest these other parties have in land purchase is to block and wreck it. He denounces Mr. Asquith's action with great vigour, declaring it to be "intolerable that an English Minister should take sides in the differences of opinion in what is supposed to be an independent Irish party."