The Bill, authorizing the Government to extend the exceptional powers
of the Sheffield Commission to other places passed through -committee in the Lower House on Thursday. The provision which enables the Commission to condone any crime as a reward for con- fession was criticized by Mr. Forster as calculated, unless very spar- inglyused, to demoralize the people, and Mr. Gladstone supported his view. We have elsewhere tried to explain the injury the indemnities may cause, and may remark here that the House generally seemed to perceive the possible mischief, but could not resist the tempta- tion to employ the most certain means of exposing the Unions. Mr. Ayrton remarked with keen sense that the magistrates of Sheffield must have known much of what was going on, and were almost as much to blame as the people, and Mr. Hardy will find, if he is not very careful, that the growing sense of powerlessness in our police arrangements will end in a reform much more to the taste of Mr. Peter Taylor than himself. If a scientific police is needful to repress these outrages, there will be a scientific police, in which the officer's will not be hereditary.
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