DEATH PENALTY

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 171, 19 April 1928, Page 11

DEATH PENALTY

ON ACTIVE SERVICE ABOLITION FOR CERTAIN OFFENCES LABOUR PARTY’S PLEDGE (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (British Official Wireless.) Rugby, April 17. The House of Commons debated the question of the death penalty on active service, Clause Four of the Army and Air Force Annual Bill, which came up for discussion, providing fot the abolition of the death penalty for certain offences. Mr. R. Morrison (Lab.) moved an amendment to extend the scope of the clause to various other offences, including cowardice and desertion. Major Attlee (Lab.) seconded the amendment, mentioning that the Labour Party was pledged to the abolition of the death penalty, except in cases of mutiny and treachery. Lord Hugh Cecil (C.) said that, while he was gratified that the Government had seen its way to go as far as it had gone, he hoped that they would not abandon the death penalty in cases where it was necessary for the efficient conduct of war.

Sir John Simon (L.) suggested that the penalty for cowardice should be penal servitude, instead of death. He moved an amendment with the object of making it apply oniv to cowardice. Mr. Duff Cooper Financial Secretary to the War Office, said that the abolition of the death penalty lor certain offences, as proposed by the Government, was not made as a concession to popular opinion. It was unanimously 'recommended by lhe Military Council. It was proposed, in fact, to remove from the Army Act certain clauses which had hitherto cumbered it, and which had not been of any real service for carrying out the purposes of the Act or in maintaining discipline in the Army. He defended the death penalty in certain cases, on the ground that it acted as a deterrent. He said that it had been found that where the death penalty was not executed on a man whom the rank and file knew to be a shirker and a coward, the men took the law into their own hands. In certain circumstances, rare as they might be, the retention of the death penalty was essential for the discipline ot . the forces, because the action of one man might produce, not the defeat of a small company or a platoon, but of a whole army. It was no grateful task to have to defend the retention of one of the many horrors of war, and the Government only did so because it was convinced that it was necessary in certain cases to maintain the morale of the Armv.

Sir John Simon’s amendment was rejected by 192 to 169, and Mr. Morrison’s amendment was defeated by 199 to 107. .

THIRD READING PASSED (Australian Press Assn.—United Service.) London, April 17. The Army Bill passed its third reading in the House of Commons.