inferences which the objection supports is, of course, quite a different
matter, and shall be considered in its due place.

It is most important, however, to note that the valid opposition to
so-called Coercion Acts may and ought to be greatly mitigated by careful
adherence to two maxims which are obvious, but are often neglected.

A Coercion Act in the first place, should be aimed, not at the direct
enforcement of rules opposed to popular opinion, but at the punishment
of offences which, though they may be indirectly connected with dislike
of an unpopular law or with opposition to rights (for instance, of
landowners) not sanctioned by popular opinion, are deeds in themselves
condemned by the human conscience. Deliberate breaches of contract,
insults to women and children, the murder or torture of witnesses who
have given truthful evidence in support of a conviction for crime,
brutal cruelty to cattle, may be methods of popular vengeance, or the
sanctions which enforce an agrarian code; but one may feel certain that
the man who breaks his word, who tortures or murders his neighbour or
who huffs cattle, knows himself to be not only a criminal, but a sinner,
and that the law, which condemns him to punishment, though it may excite
temporary outcry, can rely on the ultimate sanction of the popular
conscience.

A Coercion Act, in the second place, should as far as possible be
neither a temporary nor an exceptional piece of legislation.

An Act which increases the efficiency of the criminal law should, like
other statutes, be a permanent enactment. The temporary character of
Coercion Acts has needlessly increased their severity, for members of
Parliament have justified to themselves carelessness in fixing the