1 JUNE 1918, Page 2

As for the agitation for a trial of the arrested

persons, it has withered away at Westminster during Mr. Dillon's absence. All impartial people recognize that the Government have acted in an urgent manner because the times are urgent, and there is fortunately no tendency to find fault with them in this respect. The Govern- ment have acted in the interests of public safety, and that is enough. It cannot be through sheer forgetfulness—it must be by a deliberate act—that the great majority of newspapers in Ireland have not recalled that in 1882 Mr. Gladstone passed the Crimes Prevention Act. He then arrested over a thousand of the ringleaders of sedition, including Parnell himself. These men were arrested on suspicion ; there was no trial ; and they remained under arrest till agrarian crime in Ireland had at all events abated. We are amused to observe that while these notorious facts are not recalled by " Constitutionalist " papers in Ireland, they are not forgotten by a small newspaper called the Western News, which keeps up a solitary fight for Unionism though surrounded by enemies.