Mr. J. O'Connor on Wednesday moved the second reading of
his Bill requiring that persons imprisoned under the Crimes Act should be treated as first-class misdemeanants. His main argument, apart from attacks on the Chief Secretary and the administration of the law, was that the crimes condemned were political, and that political prisoners should be treated "with consideration and respect," as, he alleged, they used to be. He was followed by Sir W. Harcourt, who maintained that many severe laws_were modified in their administration, as, for example, infanticide, which was capital by law, yet for which death was never inflicted; and that all prisoners con- victed of sedition or seditious libel were treated as first-class misdemeanants. Mr. T. W. Russell, who moved an amend- ment postponing the change until other offenders not usually considered criminals had been exempted from the ordinary law, showed that in Kerry alone thirty-eight murders and outrages had followed speeches, and main- tained, adducing Mr. Forster's history in proof, that im- prisonment as first-class misdemeanants was positively desired by Irish agitators. Mr. Balfour, while asserting strongly that crime had materially declined under the Act, said he was not in favour of a "cast-iron uniformity" in the treatment of
prisoners, and would gladly inquire if any improvement could be made in their general treatment, an admission upon which Mr. Morley eagerly seized as proof that the "national pro- test had done some good. The House was comparatively not very full, and Mr. Russell's amendment was carried by a majority of 259 to 193.
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