At this time the agitation began to assume a new form.  One of the most important of Irish industries is the cattle trade with England, the annual value of which exceeds L14,000,000.  In several parts of Ireland, notably in Meath and the central counties, the soil and climate are specially suited for cattle raising, and the land is generally held in large grazing farms.  It was decided by the Nationalists in the autumn of 1906 that this industry must be destroyed.  Bodies of men assembled night after night to break down the fences and gates of the farms and drive the cattle many miles away, in order that the farmers might be ruined and forced to leave the country; and then the derelict farms would be divided amongst the “landless men.”  L. Ginnell, M.P., explained the programme fully in a speech he made in October 1906:—­

“The ranches must be broken up, not only in Westmeath but throughout all Ireland ...  He advised them to stamp out the ranch demon themselves, and not leave an alien Parliament to do the duty ...  He advised them to leave the ranches unfenced, unused and unusable ... so that no man or demon would dare to stand another hour between the people and the land that should be theirs.”

The agitation, commencing in Meath, was gradually extended, county by county, over a large part of Ireland where the Nationalists are supreme.  Other measures were resorted to, in order to carry out their object.  Arson, the burning of hayricks, firing into dwelling-houses, spiking meadows, the mutilation of horses and cows, the destruction of turf, the damaging of machinery, and various other forms of lawless violence began to increase and multiply.  At the Spring Assizes in 1907, the Chief Justice, when addressing the Grand Jury at Ennis, in commenting on the increasing need for placing law-abiding people under special police protection, said:—­

    “In a shire in England, if it was found necessary, either by
    special protection or protection by patrol, to protect from
    risk of outrage thirty persons, what would be thought?”

And Mr. Justice Kenny at Leitrim, after commenting upon the increased number of specially reported cases, as shown by the official statistics, and alluding to several cases of gross intimidation, said:—­

“In these latter cases I regret to say no one has been made amenable; and when there is such a state of things, it justifies the observation made by the learned judge who presided at last Connaught Winter Assizes, that when the chain of terrorism was complete, no witness would give evidence and no jury would convict.”

Thereupon Mr. Birrell, who at the beginning of the year had succeeded Mr. Bryce as Chief Secretary, having no doubt studied these and similar reports, said in a speech at Halifax in the following month:—­

    “You may take my word for this, that Ireland is at this moment
    in a more peaceful condition than for the last six hundred
    years.”