On Monday the Government made an important concession in relation
to the newspaper clauses, proposing to limit them entirely to taking power to seize objectionable papers con- taining incitements to crime or violence. And again, on Tues- day, Mr. Gladstone consented to limit searches in the houses of Irishmen at night to cases where the meeting of unlawful associations was suspected, though he insisted that when a search of that kind had been commenced for the purpose of discovering the meeting of a secret association, the police should have power to avail themselves of any discovery of arms or unlawful documents, notwithstanding the provision that no night search might be begun only for the purpose of discovering such arms or documents. With this con- cession, the Irish Members expressed themselves, on the whole, satisfied; and yet they consumed the whole of that sitting, and part of another, in discussing it in the most obstructive inanner,—and this, though the Government concession, which was to form a new proviso to be brought up before the report of the Bill, was not before them. After the Irish Members had thus put themselves in the wrong, the Government in the sitting of Wednesday obstinately refused to present to Parliament a monthly return of the names and ad- dresses of the persons in whose houses a search is made, and of the results of that search,—a refusal which we believe it to be almost impossible for the Government to justify.
Previous page
