We should say on the whole of this debate, which
ought to have lasted half-an-hour, but interrupted business for hours, that the Government had a right in its discretion to prohibit the meeting; that Mr. Dillon read into the probably rough conduct of the police a malignity which was not there, any more than it is in similar conduct in English meetings, and that Mr. Balfour did not allow quite enough for the un- conscious exaggeration sure to creep into any description of such scenes, whether given by Irish Members or by police officers. On one point, however, we must say we think the Irish complainants made out a case. It appears that a new practice has been introduced of " shadowing " an agitator— that is, not of watching him, which may be necessary, but of sending a policeman, in full uniform, to walk always by his side so close that private conversation with a friend is impossible. That seems a worrying and useless practice, as agitators, how- ever guilty, do not plot in the streets. We should not say, with the young Conservative Member, Captain Bethell, that the method was " damnable," but that it is a kind of moral torture which ought to be forbidden. Agitation in a country so inflammable as Ireland requires preventives, but the police should act severely when needful, not keep up a perpetual worry. Mr. Balfour, we are glad to see, did not defend the innovation except by saying that a priest who was shadowed was the head of all trouble in Tipperary, and we hope he will see his way to order the practice to be discontinued.
Previous page
