§ 32. Mr. REDDYasked the Home Secretary whether J. D. Ayres Mather, of Delanes, Nairn, is at present at Falty Moor, Ballinasloe; whether he is under forty, and whether he has been asked to serve in the Army; whether he is aware that since Mather came to the district he has created disturbance and trouble by altering the user of land which existed during the past seventy years; and whether at the present time, when sons of tenants affected are at the front, the Government will refuse police assistance to him in his policy?
Mr. SAMUELThe reply to the first two parts of the question is in the affirmative, and as to the third part I have no information. I understand that Mr. Mather, having lost a farm elsewhere this year, 519 required for his own use meadow lands at Cloonaburren, which had previously been let to local farmers, and that since the 1st June his cattle have been driven off his lands on three occasions by riotous crowds in defiance of the police. I am not aware that there are sons of the tenants affected at the front. As stated in reply to a previous question, the necessary police arrangements have been made locally.
§ Mr. REDDYIs the right hon. Gentleman aware that this man Mather has 4,000 acres of land, of which these poor tenants have been in possession for the last seventy years, and under those circumstances I ask why are the grievances of the Irish farmers located differently from those of the Welsh miners, and will he send a copy of his answer to the Connaught soldiers?