The Unionist Associations of Ireland have recently published a handbook called “The Home Rule ‘Nutshell’ Examined by an Irish Unionist” in which it is stated (p. 69) “The only crime that is complained of in Ireland is the organized crime due to the inspired agitation of the United Irish League. Without that Ireland would be _comparatively crimeless_.” No proof has ever been given that the United Irish League has taken any part in the organization of crime, and beyond all doubt in many instances it has been instrumental in preventing it. It cannot, of course, be denied that in certain parts of the country instances of boycotting and cattle driving occur, but such occurrences will certainly not increase, and are more likely to cease altogether when Ireland is governed by an Irish Executive chosen by the people, and responsible to the people for the good government of the country. The Unionist complaint is, not so much that an Irish Executive will not be able to enforce the law, but that it will be unwilling to do so in certain cases, and will exercise a dispensing power as to whether the decrees of the Courts shall or shall not, in particular cases, be enforced.(113) If it were within the power of the Executive to prevent the police or military from being called upon to protect the civil officers of the law in the discharge of their duties, it would, no doubt, be possible to paralyze the administration of justice, but it is well settled that a sheriff, or anybody charged with the execution of a writ of a competent Court, has the right to require the assistance of constables, and indeed of any of the liege subjects of the Crown, and that the Executive has no power to prevent such assistance being given. This was laid down by the Common Law Judges in England in the well-known case of “_Miller_ v. _Knox_”(114) and still more emphatically by the Lord Chief Baron (Palles) of the Exchequer in Ireland in the case of the Woodford prisoners at the Connaught Winter Assizes of 1886.(115) The Lord Chief Baron said: