Better, but Bad The Incitement to Disaffection Bill has been
so extensively modified as the result of concessions extracted from the Government during the passage of the measure through committee that the determination of Ministers to persist with it in its emasculated form is difficult to explain. The acceptance by the Attorney-General of an amendment providing that any application for a warrant for search shall be made to a Judge of the High Court, instead of to two justices of the peace, removes one of the most flagrant improprieties of the measure, and the stipulation that intent shall be cstab- lished before a conviction can he ohtained mitigates another original defeet,—though the new safeguard will- be relatively illusory, since intent can at best only be presumed, and the presumption may- often have • the flimsiest basis. - While it may be admitted that some of the attacks on the Bill have been vitiated by gross over- statement, the general reaction against the measure is thoroughly wholesome. No case for - it has ever- been established, and the Government would do- well . to drop it even now. - • To insist on it as a matter of face-saving is weakness, not strength. - * * * *
