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has not been scrutinized carefully, and Englishmen hear little of proceedings that are bringing danger and dishonour upon us. If these proceedings were a kind to put an end to outrages and not to cause further mischief, they would not have called down the condemnation of men like Lord Monteagle, Lord Shaftesbury, Sir Horace Plunkett, and the other leading Irishmen who took part in the conference at Dublin.

The Coercion Act, with the regulations issued for is administration, marks the climax of this policy. Court-martial justice will become the rule. It is provided that men may be kept indefinitely in prison without trial. A Court may sit in secret. If a Court believes that a particular person is able to give evidence, he or she may be arrested. Any person who does an act with a view to promoting or calculated to promote the objects of an lawful association is guilty of an offence against these regulations. As the Gaelic League, which was founded to revive Irish culture, and Dail Eireann1, which represents two-thirds of the Irish people, are unlawful associations, all but a small minority of Irishmen may be convicted on this charge. This is not a system of justice adapted for the detection and punishment of crime; it is designed for the punishment of a political movement, and it puts every Irishman who holds the opinions held by the great majority of Irishmen at mercy of the military authorities.

These authorities are the officers of an army employed on a task hateful to British soldiers and living in an atmosphere of bitter hostility to the native population. Indignation has been naturally excited in this army by a series of murders which the Government been unable to punish. Discipline has broken down. A sort of military lynch law is in force, applied not to the culprits but to the villages and towns of Ireland. It is not an uncommon experience for whole streets to be burnt, creameries2 destroyed, and life taken in the indiscriminate reprisals by which soldiers and policemen avenge murder of constables. Not for a century has there been an outbreak of military violence in these islands. The Government have failed to restrain or punish this violence, and they have now taken steps to prevent any civilian Court from calling attention to it. They have issued an order forbidding the holding of coroners’ inquests in nine counties. This removes the last vestige of protection from the civilian population. In the “Manual of Military Law” it is laid down that, whereas a man acquitted or convicted by a civil Court may not be retried by military Court, a person subject to military law is not to be exempted from the civil-law by reason of his military status. The Government have now decided that if soldiers or policemen fire a town or shoot civilians they are to be immune from the danger of an inquiry by a Court not under military direction.

      In Ireland Englishmen are judged by their actions alone. No assurances of good will have the slightest effect on public opinion there; no English promises make it easier for moderate opinion to get a hearing. Every solution of the Irish question presupposes a friendly feeling between England and Ireland, and we are stimulating hatred.

      Thus only by changing our executive policy can we create the atmosphere necessary to the successful working of any solution whatever of the Irish question.

      We are, Sir, yours faithfully,

      ERNEST BARKER

      PHILIP GIBBS

      CHARLES GORE

      HUBERT GOUGH

      J. L. HAMMOND

      L. T. HOBHOUSE

      DESMOND MACCARTHY

      JOHN MASEFIELD

      C. E. MONTAGUE

      GILBERT MURRAY

      C. P. SCOTT

      H. G. WELLS

      BASIL WILLIAMS

1 The parliament formed by Irish republicans on declaring independence from Britain in 1919

2 Butter was an important export and co-operative agricultural ventures, of which dairies were the most numerous, were central to rural Irish life

      The Government’s measures only fuelled greater violence, which continued to escalate until a truce was signed in 1921. Ireland was partitioned and the next year the Irish Free State came into being.

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      Wigs and Gowns

      1 April 1922

      Sir, I am glad to say that I do not know the name of any member of the Committee of Judges and Benchers of the Inns of Court whose recommendations concerning the forensic costume of women barristers you publish this morning 31 March. I can therefore criticize their “wishes” without fear or favour.

      I have no fault to find with what they recommend about gowns, bands, or dresses. As to wigs, I think they are hopelessly wrong. A wig is, historically and essentially, not a covering, but a substitute for natural hair. I believe the history of the forensic wig to be in substance as follows. About the period of the Restoration, some of the leaders of fashion in France, for reasons of cleanliness and health, took to shaving their heads. They accordingly wore wigs, which soon became very large and elaborate. The fashion found such favour that for something like a century all gentlemen, when fully dressed, wore wigs. During this time they either shaved their heads, or cropped their hair very close, and probably also wore night-caps when in bed.

      Then the wig gradually disappeared, and the modern method of cutting the hair short, but just long enough to make an efficient covering for the head, was gradually adopted. Judges and barristers followed this practice like other people, but found that, as long as the hair was short, the wig formed a distinctive, dignified, and convenient headdress for use in court. If women barristers are going to cut their hair short as we cut ours, our wigs will suit them well enough, but I do not believe they will do anything of the kind.

      The Committee wish that their wigs “should completely cover and conceal the hair.” Why they entertain this wish I cannot imagine. Our wigs by no means completely cover and conceal our hair. Suppose a woman barrister wears her hair “bobbed.” Her wig, if it completely conceals her hair, will certainly not be an “ordinary barrister’s wig.” Suppose she has plenty of hair, and wears it coiled in one of the usual ways. She will then want one pattern of wig when fashion places the coils on top of her head, another when they are resting on the back of her neck, and a third when they approach the situation of the old fashioned chignon, high up on the back of the head. Each of the three will impart to the wearer a hydrocephalous, ungainly, and ludicrous appearance.

      It must be apparent to every one, except the Committee, that women barristers ought to wear a distinctive, and probably dark-coloured, headdress, in approximately the form of a biretta, a turban, or a toque. I use each of these terms with very great diffidence.

      I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

      HERBERT STEPHEN

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      Unjust Divorce Laws

      11 October 1922

      Sir, During the last weeks of the Summer Term, at the request of the Lord Chancellor, I undertook the trial of undefended suits for divorce and heard about four hundred cases. They were taken in due order from the list, and included every class, but with a large preponderance of the poor, owing to their numbers, and also to the difficulty of their getting decent homes.

      The experience was startling, and explains why it is that practically every Judge on whom a similar duty has devolved has urged an alteration of the law. I believe that the reason why this demand is not universal is that the facts are not known, and false modesty prevents their disclosure. Women’s societies pass resolutions declaring that if any change be made, equality must be established between men and women, forgetting, or not knowing, that the present law produces the most insulting inequality, and that it is in the interests of women that reform is sought.

      Plain facts need plain speech, and I beg, without apology, to

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