Hendon Courier (Newspaper) - April 28, 1887, London, Middlesex THE Hendon Courier A WEEKLY NEWSPAPER CIRCULATING IN Child's Cricklewood and Mill Hill i ' ' 12. Vol I. APRIL 28th, 1887. Price One T&E ETHICS OF The and their Parnellite allies have met the motion of the Government to go into committee on the with an amendment declining to further with a measure for strengthening the Criminal Law against of until the House of Commons has before it the full measure for their relief against excessive rents in the shape in which it may pass the other House of This amendment begins with a gross The Criminal Law Amendment does not aim at preventing combinations of tenants against the payment of unjust or excessive This has been affirmed authoritatively by members of the and with equal authority it has been stated that it is proposed in Committee so to alter the phraseology of the conspiracy clauses of the that it will not be possible to twist or torture them into bearing that What those clauses aim at is the prevention the coercion of the loyal by the the uprooting the tyranny exercised over honest men who desire to perform their legal obligations by schemers who wish to avoid paying their and the destruction of the network of and immoral conspiracies by which the social state of Ireland has been honeycombed and The makes no attempt to prevent combinations on the part of so. long as are combinations voluntarily entered by the whole body for the protection of each individual member of it. It is only when the terribly oppressive persecution of the National League is brought to bear upon tenants with the object of compelling them nolens to join such combinations against fair or that the law would in to protect the weak against the grinding tyranny of the unduly and illegally But let it be admitted for a moment that the description of the given in the amendment moved by Mr. H. T. Reid on Tuesday night is approximately What Is it that any good will be done to the tenants of Ireland by delaying the declared by the House of Commons to be not for their repression but for their until another which deals with the agrarian and not with that of social has been submitted to the consideration of the Will the Land be by a single moment because the passing of the so-called Coercion is On the the Government has distinctly stated its intention to postpone remedial legislation until measures for the prevention of crime have been finally sanctioned by It is as certain as anything human - can be that the now before the House of Commons must pass in some shape or Would it not be more sensible and rational on the part of the Irish members and their allies to endeavour to get that modified and altered as far as they rather than by ceaseless obstruction to hamper and the Government thereby if not altogether the enactment of measures which they themselves declare to be necessary for the salvation of the Irish tenants We that reason and sense have little to do the action of those who are now debating not as to whether is necessary or but as to whether it is desirable to consider it in Committee with a view to the removal of its Why should this salutary and operation be Only one answer has yet been to the and that was vouchsafed by Mr. The principle of the he has not yet been discussed hy the House of It is true that during the discussion on the Queen's on the motion for leave to bring in the on the motion for the first and on the for the second reading debates on the Irish question took It is also true that in these debates scores of and Parnellites took part. But it seems that according to Mr. Dillon they were not discussing the principle of the We confess to having ourselves entertained a shrewd suspicion to that effect all but we never expected to hear the truth so not to say If the opponents of the have not been discussing its principle on the numerous occasions on which they have had the the opinion expressed by Mr. W. H. Smith as to the obstruction of the and the avowed enemies of England has been more than justified % and the opponents of the stand convicted on their own confession of having delayed the progress of the business of the while they indulged in ceaseless chatter on matters not germane to the question they were supposed to be and it must be remembered that while they are inflicting the ceaseless repetition of vapid and platitudinous inanities on a jaded and disgusted House of they are not merely delaying but preventing the enactment of the ameliorative legislation they profess to desire to see They are precluding the possibility of any speedy solution of the any settlement of the English land any scheme of local self-government for the three But the Ethics of obstruction appear to be that you may stultify misrepresent prevent do so long as OCCASIONAL We cannot but regret the undignified manner in which Mr. W. H. Smith shuffled out of the questions put to him in the House of Commons on Tuesday night by Mr. Carew and Mr. He it is true that he was responsible for the acts of his secretary or but he would not either withdraw or adhere the language used in letters written by them on his The tools of the National League may people think they and cowardly but if Mr. Smith believes and his says he should be prepared to stick to his Far less timorous was the action of Mr. who speaking at and referring to the letter said to have been written by Mr. said I will not mince my I call it Mr. Parnell's Mr. Brodrick was also tackled in the House of Commons by an but he did like his leader attempt to shuffle out of the position he had created for He maintained his designation of the in the absence of any action taken to disprove it in Courts of It is not difficult to see that this was the more expedient as well as the more manly while Mr. Smith's lame and halting evasions cannot fail to leave a bad in the mouths even of his neither friend nor foes have attempted to challenge the frank and outspoken words of Mr. With reference to the much contested authenticity of the Times it is stated that Mr. Parnell has returned from Ireland with several interesting documents which may throw light on the question of the authorship of the We may charitably hope therefore that the Irish leader has only been holding aloof from raising the question in the law courts with a view to proving his innocence of the grave political crime imputed to while he collected evidence sufficient to support his on the other he still makes no we must conclude either that he fears that he cannot vindicate his or that he values his character so low that he does not think it worth in which latter eventuality he may not after all be so very far from the
