Mr Labouchere, M.P., on Coercion. VIGOROUS DENUNCIATION OF THE GOVERNMENT POLICY.

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 199, 16 April 1887, Page 3

Mr Labouchere, M.P., on Coercion. VIGOROUS DENUNCIATION OF THE GOVERNMENT POLICY.

Mr Henry Labouchere, M.P., telegraphs to the American press : — "Curiously enough, while the ' Telegraph ' announces the retirement of the Chief Secretary, the ' Standard' giveß the following outline of the Marquis of Salisbury's Coercion Bill:— c We understand that the bill for the amendment of the criminal law in Ireland will provide that a special jury Hat, drawn from claB?ea who are not liuble to intimidation, ah 41 be framed for the trial of certain kinds of offences The bill will, as we have already stated, also give increased powers of summary jurisdiction with regard to boycotting, intimidation and incitement to crime, and will authorise the resident magistrates to inflict the maximum punishment of six months' imprisonment. There will also be a pr vision giving the authorities power to examine persons suspected of crime without any charge being made. The 'Standard' is the Premier's accredited mouthpiece, and this description of the Coercion Bill may be accepted as correct. It is this that piobably had more to do with the Chiof Secretary's illness than anything that has happened in the paßt. He shrank from being the bearer to Ireland of a law that authorises the selection of a jury from classes not liable to intimidation, and that so for invades the common rights of man as to condemn persons convicted of crime without any charge being made. This is coercion indeed. Fancy the promulgation of such law 3 bo long after the death of King George 111. "This bill is to be introduced at the conclusion of debate on the procedure rule?, which baa been dragging its wearisome length along for two weeks or more. It will bring about a true test of the eenti ment of the English people on the Irieh question, and some positive result. If the bill passes, then the world will have the npeclacle of the mailed hand of tho British empire stretched out to eeize Ireland by the throat and choke her into the sea. Both parties admit that there must be a settlement of the Irieh question before anything el-e is done. Gladstone takes occasion to reiterate this declaration in ol« mo3t every public utterance, whether written or spoken, and as the Marquia of Salisbury asserts, the inevitable is at hand. la there, then, any ground for Burprieo that the Chief Secretary, who is to be the instrutrent for executing euch a coercion scheme in Ireland, should grow faint and fall down at the eight of the spectre which rises before him ?"