The San Francisco call., 1910-08-21

day YOU can travel over vast tracts of
Ireland, laid down now in grazing land
where the only indications of the former
happy farms and home sites are the oc-
casional ruins of a demolished cottag ge.
TENANT Is THE "GOAT''
Grazing lands are all let out upon
what is called the II months system.
That is to say a tenant falls short of
a year by a single month. The reason
is that if the tenant has holding for
an entire year he gains under the pres
ent Irish land laws certain rights which
make it difficult for the landlord to get
rid of him. Hence his tenancy is kept
the IL months
There grew up a revolt under the
impulse of that gigantic transfer of the
soil which has been going on in Ire
land during the last 20 years 1t was
held that so long as the grazing sys-
TEN was permitted to go on it would
be impossible to hope for that restora-
tion to the people of those vast graz
ing tracts now called ranches--a term,
1 need scarcely say, borrowed from
America, and accordingly various at
tempts have been made to break down
the IL months system.
Cattle driving was one of the meth
DDS adopted.
HAZEL TWIG Is EMBLEM
with cattle and some night a number of
people, or perhaps only a, few, quietly
opened the gates of the grazing farms
and allowed the cattle to scatter over
the country.
They were not i'll treated-indeed in
some cases they were properly fed and
watered-but the owners and the ten
ants of the grazing lands had consid-
erable difficulty ana expense in getting
back their cattle. This was cattle
drive.
Ginnell became the apostle of this
violent method of ending abruptly a
state of things which every Irishman
thinks should come to an end, though
many are opposed to his particular way
of doing it.
The hazel twig was used TO drive the
cattle, and thus the hazel became the
popular banner word of this movement.
Ginnell addressed meeting after meet
ing in which the hazel was proclaimed
as the only true weapon of Ireland S
| liberation from the grazing system
Policemen followed him wherever he
wenz, note takers employed by the gov
eminent took down his words and ulti-
mately he. was sent to jail, where he
resumed his studies and the writing of
another book.
LOCAL INFLUENCE WINS OUT
BY and by, when the election came,
there was a division in his constitu-
ency and he was not adopted as a can
didate for the Irish party.
But he had strong local influence.
and his courage and his sincerity ap-
pealed to even many who did not
approve of his methods. He was there
fore elected, but has never been ad-
mitted to the Irish party. He sits
in the house a lonely and pathetic
figure; each day he asks a dozen ques-
tions of the different members of the
cabinet and now and then bursts into
violent epithet when the answer is
not satisfactory TO him. Speaking to
nobody being spoken to by nobody,
he pursues his lonely way.
One day recently he took it into his
head to place upon the order paper a
notice of a motion with regard to
the conference.
OF course, there was not the least
chance of the motion being reached
or even mentioned. But when Asquith
made his fatal announcement that the
conference was still going to be con-
tinued and when the question arose
that this question should be debated,
the notice of Ginnell blocked the way.
REDMOND TIED BY RULE
For here came in the strange rule of
the house that if there be on the notice