In a neighbouring country lately the question of compulsory treatment was raised. All the information I have with regard to it has been obtained from the statements, official and otherwise, which have been published. These statements may have been imperfect, but only from them can the public form an opinion, The statements contradict each other, and as they refer to incidents which took place in a prison--a place to which ordinary members of the public have no access--they are bound to leave an uneasy feeling in the mind of the impartial observer. Certain women, impelled by the desire to advance a political measure, engaged in conduct which brought them into conflict with the authorities. It was claimed on their behalf that they had committed a political offence, and in that respect differed from other criminals; but all offences are political offences. Whether a woman strikes a man because she is angry with him, or because she is angry with a Cabinet Minister whom she does not know, she commits an assault which is a crime in the eyes of the law. Her motive may differ in the one case from the other, but its issue has no difference; and in both cases, in so far as the State takes notice of it, it is a political offence. Distinctions between offences can only end in confusion; distinctions between offenders have never been sufficiently recognised; and no real progress can ever be made in the treatment of the criminal until the differences between one person and another are taken into account. There can be no question that in character, in training, and in their previous history, these women differed widely from the ordinary prisoner, and all the trouble which resulted was due to the failure of those in authority to act upon their knowledge of this fact. That the conduct for which many of the women were sent to prison was unreasonable, few will deny; but it was no more unreasonable than the treatment they received. If they behaved like mad people, so did the officials. The only way in which one person can show greater wisdom than another is by conduct. If the women were hysterical, the officials did not exactly shine as examples of calmness. The highly strung person who glories in what she believes to be martyrdom, who sees everything in the light of her own ideals, is not likely to be brought to another frame of mind by receiving the treatment which she regards as persecution. These women had made it necessary that they should be restrained from annoying others by their conduct; but it mattered nothing to the public that they should be restrained in a certain way; what did matter was that the nuisance should be effectively stopped. That the method of dealing with them increased the trouble is beyond question; and there is no justification for interference with anybody except in so far as the method adopted has the result desired.