THE ALL-POWERFUL LEAGUE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3166, 17 April 1909, Page 7

THE ALL-POWERFUL LEAGUE.

A correspondent of the London "Daily Express" has sent to his paper an account of an outrage by members of the United Irish League, which, if not exaggerated, can hardly be surpassed by anything in the annals of Irish boycotting. The victim was Mr John Hall, who was the principal draper in a small town in Galway—the most disturbed area in turbulent Ireland —and who in the early nineties purchased a small farm of about six acres just outside the town. The buying of tills farm by no means represented a bargain to the purchaser. It appears that the previous tenant, who was several years in arrears with her rent, was evicted for refusing to pay. although she was not pressed until she had received £4O compensation for a railway passing over her land. Mr Hall, on taking the farm, not only paid to the landlord's agent the £75 arrears in the woman's rents, but gave her also a present of £2O for herself. He set to work to effect improvements on his newly-acquired property. He built a house on it; \he spent large sums of money; he worked for 14 years on his land, rising often at 4 o'clock in the morning, and being at his shop by nine. His ambition was "To maKe it the finest six acres of land in , Galway." But his pluck and his success did not meet with the approval of the League. They summoned him (fourteen years after the purchase) before the committee of the branch in their town, which in ils wisdom decreed that Mr Hall, not having paid the evicted tenant enough, was to pay a further £lO to her heir—aj she had since died an heir was put forward to claim the land—or he was to evacuate the property which he had so patiently and so carefully worked. He refused, and was thereupon boycotted. His shop was wrecked, and his trade stopped; crowds posted outside his doors tora up the goods that were sent to him, and prevented anyone buying from him; those who were | bold enough to do so were attacked, their purchases taken from the m and torn, and then thrown back into the ehop. The unfortunate man dared not show himself out of doors; he lived in his kitchen; and he often ' went short of the necessaries of life. In three months, although he carried a stock worth £6,000, he did not dispose of £lO worth. At last he yielded. The League, not content with its triumph, must needs punish him further for daring to stand against them. He had to walk at the head of the committee, with a crowd following, to the land that he had spent his time and his money on, and there publicly renounce it. His house was wrecked, his hedges broken down, and his sheep and allowed to roam at their own sweet will. And Mr Birrell continues to smile!