On Monday, accordingly, Mr. Balfour moved for leave to introduce
his Bill for the amendment of the Criminal Law in Ireland,—under interruptions from the Home-rule Party so perpetual and so rude in character, that the Speaker declared himself unable to secure orderly debate without co.operation from that party. Mr. Balfour quoted the declarations of the Irish Judges in Mayo, Galway, Clare, Limerick, Kerry, and Cork, that the law is not really enforced at all in those counties. In Limerick, "parties of armed men" went about undetected after using brutal violence. In Kerry, houses are attacked by night and day. "even the.mideight terror yielding to the noon- day audacity." In Cork, people in remote districts are in constant terror of parties of armed men going about disguised, seizing arms, and sometimes plundering property. For the special protection of 770 threatened individuals by the police, no less than 255,000 a year had to be spent. Mr. Balfour then gave evidence to prove the terror exerted over juries, and the threats openly published against them in the Press, quoting the celebrated passage from United Ireland in favour of terrorising jurymen. He showed how the officials of the National League terrorise tradesmen, how they had advised the people to withhold their Easter dues from priests who do not co-operate with them, and he gave instances of the boycotting of farmers and of those who lend their vehicles to the police. Further, Mr. Balfour showed that the value of the tenant-right
• conferred by the Land Bill of 1881 had been in many cases utterly destroyed by the operations of the National League.
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