Mr. Morley combated Mr. Chamberlain's declaration that the Mitchelstown meeting
was an illegal one. It was not pro- claimed, and therefore was not illegal. How was it that, as it was not proclaimed, it was interfered with P It is curious that so cautions a man as Mr. Morley should fall into such a blunder. The proclamation of the meeting would not have made it illegal, nor have given the Government any special right to interfere. A proclamation ander the Common Law is simply a police notice. It was the fact that the meeting became through its acts and intentions an unlawful assembly, that gave the Govern- ment the right to interfere. No proclamation would increase this right ; no absence of proclamation take it away. Bat perhaps Mr. Morley was confused by thinking of Mr. Gladstone's Coercion Act, under which the Government acquired the right to render public meetings, that were not otherwise unlawful assemblies, illegal by mere proclamation. There, indeed, the law made a new crime. The present Act, however, does not follow its example, and as it has been repeatedly pointed out, makes no offences previously unknown to the law.
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