DEATH PENALTY.

Franklin Times, Volume XIX, Issue 39, 5 April 1929, Page 3

DEATH PENALTY.

AGAINST ABOLITION.

DETERRENT EFFECTS

Strongly supporting the retention of capital punishment in the British criminal code, in an article in the "English Review" for November, Mr W. G. Carlton Hall remarks that once a humanitarian has made up his mind that a thing is wrong nothing will ever convince him that the State can in any circumstances be justified in doing it, though he 13 apt to display a quite touching tenderness for the individual whom the State takes upon itself to punish for doing the same thing. Referring to statistics that have been brought forward in favour of abolition, Mr Hall says that one abolitionist •ought to discount the tremendous increase of homicide in oertain American States where the death penalty was. removed, by saying that nearly every citizen in those States carried firearms. This, however, while admitted, only proved that firearms were carried because the State had neglected its duty in protecting the life of the Individual. An argument that the abolition of capital punishment ha» been followed by a diminution of murderous crimes is absurd, since it suggests that prior to the abolition people went out of their way to commit murders for the satisfaction of getting themselves hanged. Advocates for the abolition of the death penalty argue that men liki Browne and Kennedy, who murdered Constable Gutteridge, commit their crimes with a full knowledge of the consequences, and therefore in their case the fear of death is no deterrent. They overlook, the fact, however, that these men believe they are safe from detection, and the event in the Gutteridge murder very nearly justified their belief. But even if there are some who do not fear death there are j doubtless many who do fear it and reI frain'from murder for that reason. Mr j Hall quotes the case of MacSwiney, ! the Lord Mayor of Cork, who was tuberuclar and clearly bound to die' within a short time. He would probably have abandoned his hunger strike if his relations had not urged him to persist up to a point where his recovery became impossible. As soon as MacSwiney's death showed that hungerstriking would not bring about a release a number of other prisoners abandoned it. On the day following his death, also, in the corse of proceedings at the Bow Street Police Court, a letter was read purporting to be written by Sylvia Pankhurst to Lenin, and containing the passage: "I expect six months' imprisonment. I considered a hunger strike, but .1 am afraid that weapon is destroyed now, since tha Government is letting the hunger strikers die." These illustrations show that the prospect of death does deter one class of criminal (the so-called political), while that of imprisonment j has the opposite effect. "The mention of political criminals," says Mr Hall, "lead's us to another consideration, that of the motive at the back of so much of the agitation against the death penalty. So long as the legal punishment for treason and murder is death the 'Red' agitator will have, difficulty in finding tools to carry on the 'heavy civil' war hoped for by Moscow: once that punishment is reduced 0 imprisonment for life, there will be.no lack of ruffiians willing to shoot policemen and other Government servants in the back, secure in th

hope that so long as they are alive their friends and paymasters will agitate for their release. And the prospect that they will be released, and thereupon received as heroes, is made almost a certainty by the history of enr Government's dealing with such persons during the last century, and down to a few weeks ago, when three train-wreckers of the general strike had the rest of their sentences remitted and were met at the prison by a crowd with the red flag. Capital punishment has been criticised because it if irrevocable; in some cases that is its outstanding merit." In conclusion, Mr Hall remarks that the mam if not the only justification for punishment is its value as a deterrent; that capital punishment is at least as effective a deterrent as can be devised; and that if, in fact, it does not deter, then our whole system of judges, courts, police, and prisons is a useless and unjustifiable waste of public money. . ~