On the following night, Tuesday, Mr. Dillon and Mr. Parnell,
supported by Mr. John Morley, took advantage of the third reading of the Appropriation Bill to attempt to extort a pledge from the Government to the effect that those whom they termed political prisoners—i.e., Members of Parliament and persons of education and position—should not receive the same treatment in prison as that to be accorded under the Crimes Act to- ordinary criminals. Mr. Dillon demanded vehemently that there should be some guarantee that the " some thirty Members of the House" who would most likely be imprisoned during the recess, "should not be treated as felons." Turning to the particular case of Mr. O'Brien, he in effect charged the Chief Secretary with seeking "to gratify personal vengeance against a man who had used strong language against him." Mr. Morley supported Mr. Dillon's demand by remarking that in all foreign countries, treatment different from that of ordinary criminals was accorded to political prisoners. The only other speech of importance was one from Mr. Parnell, denouncing with unusual vehemence the action of the Govern- • ment in regard to the question of the prisoners. Mr. Forster's treatment of prisoners arrested under the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act was humane, for it was felt that it was impossible to treat men who had been detained merely on suspicion with harshness. For this reason the present Govern- ment has chosen the summary jurisdiction method, rather than a suspension of the Habeas Corpus, thinking it a greater deterrent to their political opponents ; for "under the summary jurisdiction method you could inflict upon political prisoners imprisonment with hard labour, the plank-bed, semi-starvation, and the tortures of cold." Mr. Parnell ended with the half- threat, half-warning, of reprisals on the part of the men of violence in Ireland and America, which has become a sort of common form in his speeches. The threat or warning was, of course, guarded by the expression of his conviction that such reprisals would be very injurious to the Irish cause.
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