NEWS OF THE WEEK.
MHE editor of the North-Eastern Daily Gazette (Middles- -1- brough) publishes a letter from Mr. Gladstone strongly advising the mining population of the North to raise its voice against the Crimes Bill. Mr. Gladstone declares that this is the first time a Coercion Bill has been passed against the voice of Scotland and Wales, and the first time " without an attempt by the Ministry to show, what we know they cannot show, a state of exceptional, flagrant, or growing crime." For Ireland, the Bill is a question of suffering, and she knows how to suffer ; for England, it is a question of shame and dishonour, and to cast away shame and dishonour is the first business of a great nation. " May," con- cludes the Liberal leader, "may the meeting of Monday next ring the death-knell of the worst, the most insulting, and most causeless Coercion Bill ever presented to Parliament." The word " insulting " probably refers to the proposal to try prisoners in England ; but Mr. Gladstone's own Coercion Bill was far stronger than this one, enabling the Lord-Lieutenant as it did to imprison any one at will. No one under this Bill can be arrested without a definite charge of crime, or imprisoned with- out a regular trial before picked Magistrates. The whole letter furnishes a singular and a melancholy instance of the complete- ness with which a cause possesses Mr. Gladstone, till he can see no facts and understand no arguments but those on his own aide. If he had proposed the Bill, he would have convinced all Englishmen that the Curtin case alone justified its provisions.
