10 MAY 1884, Page 2

The German Government has taken strong action against the dynamitards:

Under the provisions of a Bill submitted to the Federal Council, all manufacturers of explosives or dealers in them are required, under a penalty of two years' imprisonment, to take out a police licence. Any persons who by using snob explosives cause injury to property will be liable to five years' penal servitude, and if death ensues to penal servitude for life, while if they had reasonable cause to believe that death would ensue they may be executed. The Bill is considered certain to pass the Reichstag, and it will be executed by German courts with all necessary vigour, public feeling being highly excited by the danger to innocent persons. Severe as the Bill is, there is no moral objection to its provisions,—the man who uses dynamite to assassinate casual persons being rather more guilty than the man who uses poison to remove his enemies. He murders at large. His motive may count in his favour in the next world ; but it clearly cannot be taken into consideration in this. It is to be regretted that the Governments do not see their way to the total extinction of the use of dynamite. We got along very well without it, and if the secret of its mannfacture were-lost by all countries alike, the world would suffer nothing.