An Act which should be permanent, which should apply to the whole United Kingdom, which should deal, not indeed exclusively but in the main, with criminal procedure, could hardly contain injudicious, harsh or tyrannical provisions.  The passing of one such good Criminal Law Amendment Act would, though its discussion occupied a whole Session, save our representatives in Parliament an infinite waste of time, and would make unnecessary half-a-dozen Coercion Acts for Ireland.  To enlarge the power of examining persons suspected of connection with a crime, even though no man is put upon his trial; to get rid of every difficulty in changing the venue; to give the Courts the right under certain circumstances of trying criminals without the intervention of a jury; to organise much more thoroughly than it is organised at present in England the whole system of criminal prosecutions; to enable the executive to prohibit public meetings which might provoke a breach of the peace, would in many cases be an improvement on the criminal law of England itself, and would in several instances be simply an extension to the whole United Kingdom of laws which exist without exciting any disapproval in some one division of it.[26] Without special experience it would be presumptuous to assert that these or similar changes in criminal procedure would suffice for the enforcement of the law in Ireland during a period of disturbance.  That such improvements in procedure would go a good way to make special Coercion Acts unnecessary, is in the highest degree probable.  There is, moreover, nothing objectionable or anomalous in increasing as time goes on the stringency of criminal procedure.  The law against crimes is the protection of men who are not criminals.  Civilisation raises our estimate of the protection which good citizens ought to receive from the State; it also places new means of attack in the hands of cheats and ruffians.  An elaborate criminal code is as necessary for a civilised society as are elaborately trained armies and scientific arms both of defence and offence.

No adherence, however, to sound maxims of criminal jurisprudence would, it must be frankly admitted, entirely take away, though it might greatly mitigate, the justifiable distaste for Coercion Acts.  The necessity for these Acts points to discord in Ireland between the law of the land and the law of the people; they are the outward and visible sign of internal discontent and disloyalty; they give good ground for supposing that the law or some part of it requires amendment, and to many persons laws which admit the existence of a bad social condition will appear to be themselves odious.  But the necessity for amending bad laws or vicious institutions is no reason why just laws, or any law which cannot rightly be repealed, should not be enforced.  The fallacies of protection afforded no reason for not punishing smugglers, though the existence of smuggling gave good ground for considering whether the customs law did not require revision.