Thursday night's debate was, as well as a great part
of Wednesday's, deliberately wasted on a discussion of the sort of treatment in prison to which the st68pe;ts arrested under the. Coercion Act are to be subjected. The Home-rulers, having expressed the greatest anxiety on the subject, and deluged the notice-paper with their amendments, displayed, however, their real indifference on Thursday, by refusing to let Mr. Forster make a statement on the subject, when it would have been out of stria order for him to do so ; and they attempted to drag the whole code of prison rules, with all the minutim, into the discrussion. Mr. Forster proposes to give these arrested suspects as lenient treatment as unconvicted prisoners, of course, ought to have, and to modify even the ordinary rules for unconvicted prisoners as much as possible to meet their convenience. But no con- cession made mollifies the Home-rulers, who do not work for concession, but mainly to kill time.
