The spread of disorder in Ireland does not menace the
Govern- ment or the loyalists alone. It has revived the agrarian move- ment in a new form. Optimists thought that when the Irish peasants had become owners of their holdings perpetual peace would reign among them. But greed and envy never cease. The small peasant-owners, jealous of those a little richer than themselves, are casting covetous eyes on adjacent holdings. The landless labourers are demanding shares of the grazing farms which have brought immense prosperity of late to rural Ireland. Cattle-driving on a large scale has begun again in the West, and other agrarian outrages are on the increase. Crimes of this sort against property are not likely to confirm the peasant-owner's liking for Sinn Fein, intimately associated as it is with Bolshevism. Even a Roman Catholic prelate, the Bishop of Galway, has been moved to denounce such misdeeds, though we do not remember to have read of any episcopal protest against the murder of policemen. But the timid farmers will not make their influence felt unless they are assured of the protection of the law.
