RELEASE OF MOSLEY

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 61, 7 December 1943, Page 5

RELEASE OF MOSLEY

Mr. Morrison Again Replies

To Critics

LONDON, December 5. A further reply to his critics over the conditional release of Sir Oswald Mosley was made by the Home Secretary, Mr. Morrison, today. He first challenged those who wanted to put Mosley on trial. “If you will state the charge aud quote the law under which such prosecution could take place, instead of talking and writing in general terms, I'll consider it,” he said. He said it was quite wrong to sav that Regulation 188, under which Mosley was rounded up, should be administered politically. That was dangerously near to a Nazi argument. The regulation was made for the security of the nation, aud it could not possibly be stretched one iota beyond what the security . of the nation justified without undermining the whole fabric of democratic law and justice. Mosley was transferred from prison to house arrest because the powers given to the Home Secretary by Parliament did not justify his continued detention in the new circumstances that arose. If that were so, it could not be justified by any regard to politics or, public agitation or Street meetings. “Anybody would think 1 let Mosley free to resume political activity,” Mr. Morrison continued. “The truth is I

have tied him up with sterner conditions than in any other 188 suspension order, and I warned him that if there is any nonsense my power of redetention remains in full force.” Mr. Morrison said he thought the underlying cause of the public concern about Mosley was the fear on the part of many guod people that the conditions thwarted the determination Io put down Fascism, but in fact, he took the course he did because of his own determination, as a democrat, to see that Fascism was put down and to guard against, the intrusion of even a shadow of Fascism in our democratic life.