In his speech of explanation to his Bristol constituents on
Thursday night Mr. Birrell assumed full responsibility for sanctioning the prosecution, and explicitly declared that " we did not release Ale Larkin till the moment came when, on my honour and my conscience, I can say that I think the time he had served was fully enough on the evidence on which he was found guilty." Mr. Birrell thus commits himself to approval of imprisonment for " seditious" language, such as Mr. Larkin used. It was merely the rhetorical blowing-off of steam that one may hear any day. At the same time be smashes the argument of those Radical papers which seek to saddle Dublin Castle with the odium of prosecuting Mr. Larkin. Meanwhile Mr. Larkin has signalized his release by declaring that if the Government made a great mistake in putting him in prison, they had made a greater mistake in letting him out. He further announced his resolve to raise the fiery cross of a national strike in England, Scotland, and Wales.
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