cases) must be paid at once; and that the banishment shall remain in
abeyance subject to the faithful observance of the above undertaking;
but that should any action be taken by any of the prisoners
constituting in the opinion of the Executive Council a breach of the
above undertaking, the sentence of banishment shall come into force.

There is no definition of the phrase 'meddle in politics,' nor is
there any indication of what in the opinion of the Executive Council
constitutes politics. There is of course on record the President's
own statement in public that he would not permit any discussion on
the dynamite and railway questions because they are matters of 'high
politics'; and if haply the Executive should also hold this view, it
is difficult to see how any of the prisoners will be able to follow
their ordinary business and attend to those commercial affairs in
which they are concerned without committing some breach of this
ridiculous provision.

No answer was received to the many representations made on behalf of
the four leaders, except that the Government were busy with the
matter. Upon the release of the other prisoners it was suggested to
them by friends outside that it would be a proper and politic course
to proceed in a body to the Presidency and thank the President for
the action he had taken in their respect, and at the same time to beg
of him to extend a similar clemency to the four leaders who were
still left in gaol. Most of the men were dead against taking any such
action. They held very strongly to the opinion that they had been
arrested by treachery, condemned by arrangement, and played with as
counters in an unscrupulous manner. They recognized no obligation
towards the President. They could see no magnanimity in a policy
which had secured their arrest under the circumstances described
which inveigled them into pleading guilty to a nominal offence,
and which imposed upon them a sentence such as that passed. They
considered the enormous fine which they were then called upon to
pay to say nothing of the imprisonment which they had already
suffered wholly disproportionate to the offence, and their natural
impulse was to avoid the man who was directly responsible for it all,
or at least not to meet him under circumstances so unequal, when they
would be sure to be insulted, and would be obliged to suffer the
insult in silence.

Some of them however yielded to the representations of their friends,
who