M.P.'S IN PRISON.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12084, 13 August 1917, Page 3

M.P.'S IN PRISON.

f Since the days of Cromwell there has oeen no wholesale imprisonment of Ministers such as has recently occurred m Russia, Many of our living M.IVs, however, have tasted the rigours of gaol hfo all tho same.

MY John Burns i R a rase in point. His Socialism in his early days often .Cot him into difficulties, and once into '•quod." When he subsequently donned Court dross for the iirst time, "I have worn his Majesty's uniform boforo in pursuit of my duty." he declared, "and I don't see wily I should scruple, to wear it again!" Prosecuted fiovoral times for political offences, with two years in gaol, is Mr William O'Brien's record, with which is indissolnbly hound up the deathless story of Mr O'Brien and his trousers. Ho refused to don tho prison "continuations," crcv when they took his own away from him. The question, "Who stole O'Brien's trousersP" was hotly debated at Westminster, and he would probably have remained in bed for the whole of his sentence if his friends had not smuggled in a new pair for him.

""Willy " Redmond, recently killed in action in France, Mr John Redmond's brother, has also "'been a prisoner. Ho seems to have, liked it. for -when his! sentence ""'as out short, and he was given leave to go, he refused point, blank, and had to be ovjcted. Timothy Harrington was returned to Parliament in the same year that ho was sent to Mullingar gaol, in the very constituency for which he. was elected. O'Donovan Ro.ssa. was elected M.P. whilo actually in prison, and so waS Michael Davitt —wlio, by the way, wentJ to pi'ison more than once. After one of his releases he met a. fellow-prisoner, with whom he had often nulled trolleyloads of stones. The. man was now a kerbstone pedlar, and Davitt, delighted to see him again, bought his whole stock-in-trade and set him up in business.