Last Saturday's sitting in the House of Commons was chiefly
devoted to consideration of the Lords' amendments to the Public Meeting Bill introduced by Lord Robert Cecil. Mr. Morton having moved their rejection and condemned the Bill as "panic legislation," the Solicitor-General defended the altera- tion made by the Lords on the ground that it involved no substantial change. It meant that "any person disturbing, or inciting any other person to disturb, a publie meeting for the purpose of preventing the transaction of the business for which the meeting was called together, should be liable to be prosecuted before a Court of summary jurisdiction, and if found guilty of an offence, to be fined ES and costs, and if the offence were committed at a political meeting held in con- nexion with a Parliamentary election, the interrupter should be deemed guilty of an illegal practice,' and the, penalties for such an illegal practice would follow."
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