A correspondent of the Times states that the Supreme Court
of Germany, the Reichsgericht, has just decided that to incite workmen to strike without giving their legal notice is to " incite to disobedience to the law," and therefore a punishable offence. We cannot conceive how any other decision can be held to he either morally right or compatible with any reverence for law at all. If it is wrong to forge, it must be wrong to incite to forgery, and the difference between forgery and voluntary breach of contract is only a difference of degree. The popular fancy in England and America that spoken words do not matter, and that we should only punish acts, is morally never true, except when the words are prac-
tically spoken without volition, as may happen in rage or drunkenness, and is practically only true when men's tempers are perfectly calm. A speech urging men to rebel is treason, often much more formidable treason than an act of rebellion. We know of no argument for punish4r,g slander which does not also justify the punishment of the much more dangerous offence of inciting to break the law.
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