COMPROMISE ON DEATH PENALTY IS EXPECTED

Greymouth Evening Star, 8 June 1948, Page 5

COMPROMISE ON DEATH PENALTY IS EXPECTED

(Roc. 11.25 a.m.) LONDON, June 7. The Cabinet has decided on a compromise on the hanging issue and will put its decision before a special Parliamentary Labour Party meeting on June 9. says Reuter’s political correspondent. It is expected that the Government will ask Hie party to support a compromise going some way towards the abolition of hanging, but retaining it in very bad eases. The proposal will probably be that the Home Secretary continue to exercise the wide power of reprieve, hut with the reservation that hanging be retained for certain types of murder, like the killing of a police- j man and premeditated crimes, in i which there are no extenuating circumstances. "Awkward Coincidence” ‘The House of Lords has taken the initiative in political affairs and the Government and the House of Commons in the next few days will be much concerned with what the peers did in deleting the no-hanging clause in the Criminal Justice Bill, and with what the peers may do with the Parliament Bill which proposes to reduce the suspensory veto of the House of Lords from two years to one,” says the Parliamentary correspondent of The Times. “From the Government’s point of view there could not have been a more awkward coincidence. The Opposition peers, in resisting the Parliament Bill, argue that their right to hold up controversial legislation un- . til public opinion can be formulated should not be impaired. They can now claim that their action on the nohanging clause is a classic example of the justifiable use of their powers. This is the tangle which the Government will strive to unravel this week. “The Government certainly does not want a Commons-Lords clash on a non-political issue such as abolition of the death penalty, particularly in view of the Government’s own advice to the House of Commons against the clause suspending the penalty for five years,” says the correspondent. “Abolitionists in both houses may at first be opposed to compromise, but in this situation compromise seems sensible and inevitable. However, it will not be easy to find a solution, particularly in view of the anticipation of events by'the .Home Secretary (Mr Chuter Ede) in publicly announcing his intention to advise the commutation of * all death penalties after the House of Commons vote. o “Losing Votes” The political correspondent of the 'Daily Telegraph says: “Government leaders will try to persuade the Parliamentary Labour Party on June 9 of the wisdom of compromising with the House of Lords over the suspension of the death penalty. The leaders will find it difficult, because the Labour Party is overwhelmingly in favour of the suspension of capital punishment. One argument the leaders will use is that the suspension of capital punishment is losing votes for the' Labour Party in the constituencies.” .

The Daily Herald says: “Although the Bill entailing the suspension of the death penalty has not passfed the House of Lords, the House of Commons, as the people’s representatives, have decided that hanging must stop,

and the only wise and human course is to act on that decision, as Mr Ede has done.”