91. Colonel NEWMANasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, seeing that the freedom of the individual is still secured by Section 7 of the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, which makes liable to a fine or imprisonment a person who, with a view to compel any other person to abstain from doing any act which such other person has a legal right to do, uses violence or intimidation or besets his house or follows him about with other persons in a disorderly manner, he will say why the protection of this Section is not afforded to these persons who in a peaceful and orderly manner have recently desired to resume their occupation in the coal-mining industry?
§ Mr. SHORTTThe police have instructions to give, and are giving, such protection to the utmost extent which is possible with the forces at their disposal; and in many cases they have the assistance of the military forces of the Crown.