DEATH PENALTY

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXI, Issue 13, 29 December 1930, Page 6

DEATH PENALTY

SELECT COMMITTEE’S REPORT. CHALLENGED BY A MEMBER. I United Press Association—By CableCopyright.! London, Dec. 17. “The death penalty is a just penalty, people who talk of the sanctity of human life seem to think only of the sanctity of the murderer’s- life, and to ignore the murdered,’’ says Sir C. S. Rentoul, K.C., M.P. He was one of the minority of the Parliamentary Select Committee which withdrew from the committee becausa the majority favoured an • experimental five years' abolition. Sir G. S. Rentoul denounces the report as ridiculous, a mere poetic plea, which will not carry weight iu the House ot Commons. “It contains innumerable quotations from the poits, including Robert Burns, from historians, old preachers and lawyers, none of which has the slightest bearing on the evidence. Wo heard Sir Archibald Bodkin, former Public Prosecutor. His weighty words are barely nientionid. but the evidence of prison chaplains, who said how nicely murderers talk in gaol, are greatly emphasised. We objectors wanted to prepare an alternative report, but the others wanted to rush the report, drafted by Rev. J. Barr. M.P., into print, and thus giie the brutal murderers at present in prison a happier Christmas.” In a leading article, “The Times” points out that six of the 15 members of the select committee so acutely disagreed as to the course which the investigations were taking that they r-eased to attend while the report was taking shape. The report is not signed, and there can, according to select committ e practice, be no minority report. The anonymity of the report prompts the question: “Whose report is it, and what is it worth?”