—not in court but out of it by the interests of party government.
Let us take a rather notorious instance where this was done.
Within quite recent times, two men have conspired—the one to raise an army of rebellion if Home Rule were imposed on Ulster; the other to raise an army of rebellion if conscription were imposed on Ireland. The crime in each case was precisely the same; but the punishment was different. The one—the more recent—was sent to prison for it without trial. The other, equally without trial, was elevated to Cabinet rank.
Now, each of these men, in conspiring to break the law, did probably what he conscientiously thought to be right under the circumstances. That we can believe. But it is very difficult to believe that the Government (when, with the connivance of Parliament, it punished the same offence so differently) thought that it was doing right—the equal and the just thing in each case. It was only doing the convenient thing to cover its own blunders. And the question is, therefore, whether—morally—the Government was not the real criminal.
But if we ask whether it is going to be punished for it, the answer is—probably not.
It is not my point to urge that the Government should be punished, but only to show how—as administered to-day—punishment is an arbitrary and artificial device, partially
