Naturally some of the landowners have not been willing to sell their property, and their tenants have been trying to force them to do so. That accounts for the "cattle driving" and similar disturbances that you read about in the newspaper cablegrams from Ireland. It is to be regretted that the tendency of the newspapers is to publish sensational occurrences and unfortunate events. If a man commits a great crime it is advertised from one end of the world to the other. If he does a good deed very little is said about it, and a false impression concerning conditions in Ireland has been created by the widespread publication of every little outrage or disturbance that occurs over there, while the enormous usefulness and the satisfactory application of the Wyndham Land Act has been almost entirely neglected by newspaper writers.
There have, however, been a good many little disturbances occasioned by the efforts of the tenants of certain estates, particularly those that are now devoted to cattle-breeding, to force their landlords to divide up the pastures and sell them. At present there is more money in the cattle and sheep business than in any other kind of farming in Ireland, and, as you drive out into the interior, you can see the loveliest pastures in the world filled with fat, sleek animals feeding upon the luscious grass. I do not believe there are richer or more beautiful pastures in any land, and Irish beef and mutton command a premium because of their flavor and tenderness. Hence prosperous cattle-breeders cannot be blamed for refusing to sell their pastures and go out of business, and there is no law to compel them to do so. But the rough and reckless elements in the villages, and in many cases among their own tenantry, often try to persecute them by cattle and sheep "driving," as it is called, until they are willing to cry quits. The popular method is to break down the gates or the hedges,--they do not have fences in Ireland,--turn the cattle and sheep into the road, and run them as far as possible away from their proper pastures, scattering them over the country. This is done in the night, and the next morning the owner is compelled to take such measures to recover as many of the strays as he can. Various means are adopted to prevent such outrages. Armed guards are employed who defend their cattle, sometimes at the cost of life and bloodshed, which, of course, provokes bad feeling and greater trouble. Hundreds of men have been arrested and punished by long terms of imprisonment, but "cattle-driving" still goes on in various parts of the country with some serious results. But it is comparatively insignificant when compared with the great good that is being accomplished by the breaking up of the big estates whose owners are willing to dispose of them.