§ ME. COWAN (Surrey, Guildford)I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, considering that imprisoned passive resistors are not felons but persons voluntarily suffering for their conscientious convictions, he will give instructions that, for the future, such prisoners shall be treated as first-class misdemeanants.
§ *MR. GLADSTONEThe Secretary of State has no power to order persons committed to prison in default of payment of rates to be treated as first division offenders. All such persons must, according to the positive direction of the Prisons Act, 1898, Section 6 (3), be treated under the rules for debtor prisoners, and cannot be classed with criminal prisoners, whether of the first, second, or third division.