s are swept away by the current, and feeling that
'something must be done,' they endorse the Government action,
forgetting to ask whether the 'something' proposed is the wisest
thing. A few stand firm, but they are very few--too few to prevent the
new Coercion Bill from passing into law. But few though we be who lift
up the voice of protest against the wrong which we are powerless to
prevent, we may yet do much to make the new Act of brief duration, by
so rousing public opinion as to bring about its early repeal. When the
measure is understood by the public half the battle will be won; it is
accepted at the moment from faith in the Government; it will be
rejected when its true character is grasped. The murders which have
given birth to this repressive measure came with a shock upon the
country, which was the more terrible from the sudden change from
gladness and hope to darkness and despair. The new policy was welcomed
so joyfully; the messenger of the new policy was slain ere yet the pen
was dry which had signed the orders of mercy and of liberty. Small
wonder that cry of horror should be followed by measures of vengeance;
but the murders were the work of a few criminals, while the measure of
vengeance strikes the whole of the Irish people. I plead against the
panic which confounds political agitation and political redressal of
wrong with crime and its punishment; the Government measure gags every
mouth in Ireland, and puts, as we shall see, all political effort at
the mercy of the Lord-Lieutenant, the magistracy, and the police." I
then sketched the misery of the peasants in the grip of absentee
landlords, the turning out on the roadside to die of the mother with
new-born babe at her breast, the loss of "all thought of the sanctity
of human life when the lives of the dearest are reckoned as less worth
than the shillings of overdue rack-rental." I analysed the new Act:
"When this Act passes, trial by jury, right of public meeting, liberty
of press, sanctity of house, will one and all be held at the will of
the Lord-Lieutenant, the irresponsible autocrat of Ireland, while
liberty of person will lie at the mercy of every constable. Such is
England's way of governing Ireland in the year 1882. And this is
supposed to be a Bill for the 'repression of crime.'" Bluntly, I put
the bald truth: "The plain fact is that the murderers have succeeded.
They saw in the new policy the reconciliation of England and Ireland;
they knew tha