Page:Ploughshare and Pruning-Hook.djvu/58

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38
Ploughshare and Pruning-Hook

applied or not, according to the prosecutor's political convenience.

The consequence—the logical consequence of this corrupt inequality of State-prosecution, is that a Government which does such things is misliked and distrusted by men of honest character—and so weakens its hold on the more judicious minds of the community—and eventually, one may hope, its power over the country's policy.

One might point further to another instance. The Society of Friends, by its official committee, recently published, without submitting it to the Censor, a pamphlet called A Challenge to Militarism. For that corporate act of a committee of twenty—all equally guilty—the Government (to avoid too great a scandal) selected two members for prosecution, and got them sent to prison for six and for three months.

About a fortnight later another challenge to militarism, a pamphlet entitled A League of Nations, was published, without being submitted to the Censor, by Lord Grey of Falloden; and he has not been sent to prison for it.

Now if we believed in punishment, we should want the Government punished for these acts of corrupt favouritism in State-prosecution. But if we believe in natural consequences—those which I have already indicated—we shall confidently anticipate that in the end (the real end) divine justice will be done; and that these ephemeral misdoings