The Ministry on Monday brought in Bills to increase the
power of the Government in dealing with Anarchists. One assigns fresh funds, 232,000 a year, to the police, another authorises interference with all Anarchist meetings, a third punishes incitement to outrage, direct or indirect, or glorifi- cation of outrage, with from one to five years' imprisonment. This Bill, intended to be the effective one of the series, further authorises the preventive arrest of all Anarchists, and their imprisonment pending trial. The Bills were resisted in principle only by Socialists, and by an extreme Radical or two on the ground of precipitation, hut the principal one, punishing incitement, was carried by 413 to 63. The Senate, of course, passed it without a division, and it is now law. The police are busily engaged in procuring evidence, and it is stated that all foreign Anarchists will be at once expelled .France,—rather an ominous threat for this country, to which they will immediately swarm. All the representative Chambers of Europe, the House of Commons included, have addressed the French Chamber in terms of condolence and con- gratulation and in all there are symptoms of a desire to treat Anarchists as the enemies of the human race. No passionate laws have been proposed, but everywhere there are signs that the patience of society is giving way, and that on the ir.xt repetition of the outrages, even justice may be lost sight of. On the other hand, though the moderate Socialists condemn the crime, the extreme sections of that party, especially in France and Germany, extenuate, or even ap- plaud it. The general effect has, of course, been heavily in favour of reaction.
